“the breaker-up of opposition.”  He “casts his motive influence” over the monarchs, and causes them to “assemble their chariots and warriors”—­he goes forth with their armies, and enables them to extend their dominions—­he chases their enemies before them, causes opposition to cease, and brings them back with victory to their own countries.  Besides this, he helps them to sway the sceptre of power, and to rule over their subjects with authority.  It seems that, from observing the manifest agency of the material sun in stimulating all the functions of nature, the Chaldaeans came to the conclusion that the sun-god exerted a similar influence on the minds of men, and was the great motive agent in human history.

The chief seats of the sun-god’s worship in Chaldaea appear to have been the two famous cities of Larsa (Ellasar?) and Sippara.  The great temple of the Sun, called Bit-Parra, at the former place, was erected by Urukh, repaired by more than one of the later Chaldaean monarchs, and completely restored by Nebuchadnezzar.  At Sippara, the worship of the sun-god was so predominant, that Abydenus, probably following Berosus, calls the town Heliopolis.  There can be little doubt that the Adrammelech, or “Fire-king,” whose worship the Sepharvites (or people of Sippara) introduced into Samaria, was this deity.  Sippara is called Tsipar sha Shamas, “Sippara of the Sun,” in various inscriptions, and possessed a temple of the god which was repaired and adorned by many of the ancient Chaldaean kings, as well as by Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus.

The general prevalence of San’s worship is indicated most clearly by the cylinders.  Few comparatively of those which have any divine symbol upon them are without his.  The symbol is either a simple circle, a quartered disk a four-rayed orb of a more elaborate character.

[Illustration:  PAGE 83]

San or Sansi had a wife, Ai, Gula, or Anunit, of whom it now follows to speak.

Al, GULA, or ANUNIT.

Ai, Gula, or Anunit, was the female power of the sun, and was commonly associated with San in temples and invocations.  Her names are of uncertain signification, except the second, Gula, which undoubtedly means “great,” being so translated in the vocabularies.  It is suspected that the three terms may have been attached respectively to the “rising,” the “culminating,” and the “setting sun,” since they do not appear to interchange; while the name Gula is distinctly stated in one inscription to belong to the “great” goddess, “the wife of the meridian Sun.”  It is perhaps an objection to this view, that the male Sun, who is decidedly the superior deity, does not appear to be manifested in Chaldaea under any such threefold representation.