In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness:  some
    are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
    thrust upon ’em.  Thy Fates open their hands....[353]

or when Byron wrote: 

    Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! 
    If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
    Of men and empires—­’t is to be forgiven
    That in our aspirations to be great,
    Our destinies o’erleap their mortal state
    And claim a kindred with you....[354]

Our grave astronomers are no longer astrologers, but they still call certain constellations by the names given them in Babylonia.  Every time we look at our watches we are reminded of the ancient mathematicians who counted on their fingers and multiplied 10 by 6, to give us minutes and seconds, and divided the day and the night into twelve hours by multiplying six by the two leaden feet of Time.  The past lives in the present.

CHAPTER XIV.

ASHUR THE NATIONAL GOD OF ASSYRIA

Derivation of Ashur—­Ashur as Anshar and Anu—­Animal forms of Sky God—­Anshar as Star God on the Celestial Mount—­Isaiah’s Parable—­Symbols of World God and World Hill—­Dance of the Constellations and Dance of Satyrs—­Goat Gods and Bull Gods—­Symbols of Gods as “High Heads”—­The Winged Disc—­Human Figure as Soul of the Sun—­Ashur as Hercules and Gilgamesh—­Gods differentiated by Cults—­Fertility Gods as War Gods—­Ashur’s Tree and Animal forms—­Ashur as Nisroch—­Lightning Symbol in Disc—­Ezekiel’s Reference to Life Wheel—­Indian Wheel and Discus—­Wheels of Shamash and Ahura-Mazda—­Hittite Winged Disc—­Solar Wheel causes Seasonal Changes—­Bonfires to stimulate Solar Deity—­Burning of Gods and Kings—­Magical Ring and other Symbols of Scotland—­Ashur’s Wheel of Life and Eagle Wings—­King and Ashur—­Ashur associated with Lunar, Fire, and Star Gods—­The Osirian Clue—­Hittite and Persian Influences.

The rise of Assyria brings into prominence the national god Ashur, who had been the city god of Asshur, the ancient capital.  When first met with, he is found to be a complex and mystical deity, and the problem of his origin is consequently rendered exceedingly difficult.  Philologists are not agreed as to the derivation of his name, and present as varied views as they do when dealing with the name of Osiris.  Some give Ashur a geographical significance, urging that its original form was Aushar, “water field”; others prefer the renderings “Holy”, “the Beneficent One”, or “the Merciful One”; while not a few regard Ashur as simply a dialectic form of the name of Anshar, the god who, in the Assyrian version, or copy, of the Babylonian Creation myth, is chief of the “host of heaven”, and the father of Anu, Ea, and Enlil.