THE GREAT CITY
I. THE Â-IBUR-SABÛ 101
II. THE SANCTUARY OF ISTAR 119
III. A BABYLONISH HOUSEHOLD 137
IV. BELSHAZZAR 156
V. THE JEW 176
VI. ISTAR OF ERECH 191
VII. LORD RIBÂTA'S GARDEN 207
VIII. BABA 228
IX. BABYLON BY NIGHT 248
X. THE ANGER OF BEL 268
XI. FROM THE HOUSE OF HEAVEN 292
XII. ÊGIBI & SONS 309
XIII. THE RAB-MAG 327
XIV. STRANGE GODS 350
XV. SIPPAR 366
XVI. BELTI-SHAR-UZZUR 385
XVII. THE WOMAN'S WOE 405
XVIII. THE FEAST OF TAMMUZ 420
XIX. THE REGIMENT OF GUTI 441
XX. PESTILENCE 455
XXI. KURUSH THE KING 472
XXII. AT THE GATE 483
XXIII. THE SILVER SKY 490
PREFACE
"The higher ideas, my dear friend, can hardly be set forth except
through the medium of examples; every man seems to know all things in a
kind of dream, and then again to know nothing when he wakes.... But
people seem to forget that some things have sensible images, which may
be easily shown when any one desires to exhibit any of them or explain
them to an inquirer, without any trouble or argument; while the greatest
and noblest truths have no outward image of themselves visible to man
which he who wishes to satisfy the longing soul of the inquirer can
adapt to the eye of sense, and therefore we ought to practise ourselves
in the idea of them; for immaterial things, which are the highest and
greatest, are shown only in thought and idea, and in no other way, _and
all that we are saying is said for the sake of them._"[1]
"Then reflect ... that the soul is in the very likeness of the divine,
and immortal and intelligible and uniform and unchangeable; and the body
is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal and unintelligible and
multiform and dissoluble and changeable.
"And were we not saying long ago that the soul, when using the body as
an instrument of perception, ... is then dragged by the body into the
region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins
round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence.
"But when, returning unto herself, she reflects, then she passes into
the realm of purity and eternity and immortality and unchangeableness,
which are her kindred; ... then she ceases from erring ways, and, being
in communion with the unchanging, is unchanging."[2]
LIBRI PERSONÆ