In the eighth century in Babylonia, the planet Mars was called "the unpredictable planet." 7
Historical inscriptions of the eighth century speak of the oppositions of the star Mars (Nergal).
These together with conjunctions were carefully watched. "The movements of Mars were extremely important in Babylonian astrology—its rise and setting, its disappearance and return ...
its position in relation to the equator, the change in its illuminating power, its relation to Venus, Jupiter and
2 II Kings 17 : 30. » Luckenbill, Records of Assyria, II, Sec. 508.
* Ibid., Sec. 922. B Jeremiah 39 : 3.
6 The order of succession of the kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire will be discussed in Ages in Chaos.
1 Schaumberger, in Kugler, Sternkunde und Stemdienst in Babel, 3rd supp.,
p. 307.
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Mercury."8 In India, also, "the various phases of the retrograde motion of the planets and especially of Mars seem to have been objects of great attention."9
Prayers were addressed to Nergal with the lifting of hands toward the star Mars.10 "Thou who walkest in the sky . . . with splendor and terror . . . king of battle, the raging fire-god, god Nergal." Nergal-Mars was called by the Babylonians the "fire-star." u Nergal, the fire-star, comes like a raging storm. He is also called Sharappu, "the burner," and "light that flames from heaven," and "lord of destruction." 12 Mars was generally regarded by other peoples, too, as a
"fire-star." 13 Ying-Huo, or the fire planet, is the name of Mars in Cninese astronomical charts.14 Saigon (—724 to —705), father of Sennacherib, wrote on one occasion: "In the month of Abu, the month of descent of the fire-god."15
But we ask for a direct statement that the planet Mars-Nergal was the immediate cause of the cataclysms in the eighth and seventh centuries, when the world, in the language of Isaiah, was
"moved exceedingly" and "became removed from its place." This very action is ascribed to the planet Mars-Nergaclass="underline" "The heaven he makes dark, he moves the Earth off its hinges." 16 And again: "Nergal ... on high stills the heavens . . . causes the earth to shudder."1T
8 Bezold, in Boll's Stemglaube und Sterndeutung, p. 6.
9 Thibaut, "Astronomie, Astrologie und Mathematik," Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Alterthumskunde, HI (1899).
robin-bobin
10 Bollenriicher, Gebete und Hymnen an Nergal, pp. 9, 19 ("Zauberspruch mit Handerhebung an den Mars-Stern").
11 Schaumberger in Kugler's Sternkunde, p. 304; Bollenriicher, Gebete und Hymnen an Nergal, pp. 21 ff.
12 Langdon. Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms (1909), p. 85.
13 Apuleius, Tractate of the World; literature in Chwolson, Die Ssabier und Ssabismus, II, 188.
14 Rufus and Hsing-chih-tien, The Soochow Astronomical Chart.
15 Luckenbill, Records of Assyria, II, Sec. 121.
18 Bollenriicher, Gebete und Hymnen an Nergal, p. 9. 17 Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, p. 79.
CHAPTER 3
What Caused Venus and Mars to Shift Their Orbits?
WHEN VENUS became a new member of the solar system, it moved on a stretched ellipse, and for centuries imperiled the other planets. Because of its dangerous circling, Venus was diligently observed in both hemispheres, and records were kept of its movement.
In the last centuries before this era, the 288-day year of Venus, and apparently also its orbit, were practically the same as in modem times. As early as the second half of the seventh century before this era, Venus, watched until then with anxiety, had already ceased to be a cause of dreadful expectation; it probably reached then the orbital stage in which it was found in the last centuries before this era, and where we still find it today. What caused the change in the orbit of Venus?
I shall pose another problem besides the first. Mars did not arouse any fears in the hearts of the ancient astrologers, and its name was seldom mentioned in the second millennium. In Assyro-Babylonia, in inscriptions made before the ninth century, the name of Nergal is found only on rare occasions. On the astronomical ceiling of Senmut Mars does not appear among the planets.
It did not play any conspicuous part in the early mythology of the celestial gods.
But in the ninth or eighth century before this era, the situation changed radically. Mars became the dreaded planet. Accordingly, Mars-Nergal rose to the position of the frightful storm and war god. The question must then present itself: Why, previous to that time,
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245
did Mars signify no danger to the earth, and what caused Mars to shift its orbit nearer to the earth?
The planets of the solar system move in nearly the same plane, and if one planet were to revolve along a stretched ellipse, it would endanger the other planets. The two problems—what caused Venus to change its orbit, and what caused Mars to change its orbit—may have a common explanation. The common cause may have been some comet which changed the orbits of Venus and Mars; but it is simpler to suppose that two planets, one of which had a greatly elongated orbit, collided, and that no third agent was necessary to bring about that result.
A conflict between Venus and Mars, if it occurred, might well have been a spectacle observable from the earth. It is not impossible that the two planets came repeatedly into contact, each time with different results.
If a contact between Venus and Mars really occurred and was observed from the earth, it must have been commemorated in traditions or literary monuments.
When Was the Iliad Created?
A mighty strife had waxen great Within the members of the sphere. —Empedocles '
To this day it has not been established at what date the Iliad and Odyssey were composed. Even ancient authors differed greatly in reckoning the time when Homer lived. It was estimated to be as late as —685 (the historian Theopompus) and as early as —1159 (certain authorities quoted by Philistratus). Herodotus wrote that "Homer and Hesiod" created the Greek pantheon "not more than 400 years before me," which would mean not prior to —884, —484 being regarded as the year of Herodotus' birth. The question is still debated. Some authors argue that there was a robin-bobin
long interval between the time when the epic works of Homer were composed and the time when 1 The Fragments of Empedocles (transl. W. E. Leonard, 1908), p. 30.
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they were put into writing; others think that these works must have been created not long before the Greeks acquired the art of writing, about —700.2 It is also argued that the Greeks must have known this art long before —700 on the assumption that the Homeric works were created much before that date. It is generally assumed that the fall of Troy antedated Homer by several generations, and also that the great epic works were the creation of generations. The fall of Troy is sometimes thought to have taken place in the twelfth century.3
On the other hand, it has been shown that the cultural background of the Homeric epos is that of the eighth or even the seventh century; the age of iron was well under way, and many other details would preclude an earlier scene.4 It is highly probable that the Homeric works were created at that time or shortly thereafter. Whether these poems were first sung by a bard who lived centuries after the destruction of Troy depends on the time when Troy was destroyed. The tradition about Aeneas who, saved when Troy was captured, went to Carthage (a city built in the ninth century) and from there to Italy, where he founded Rome (a city first built in the middle of the eighth century), implies that Troy was destroyed in the eighth or late in the ninth century.
But for what purpose do I burden my present work with this question? It may seem that the two problems—how Venus changed its orbit to a circle, and how Mars changed its orbit so as to come in contact with the earth—are weighted with a third problem from a far-removed field and in itself complicated. And even if these matters have something in common, how can a problem with three unknowns be solved?