Ares of Homer, going into battle, is accompanied by never resting horrible creatures, Terror, Rout, and Discord. Terror and Rout yoke the gleaming horses of Ares, themselves dreadful beasts, also known by these names; Discord, "sister and comrade of man-slaying Ares, rageth incessantly; she at the first rears her crest but little, yet thereafter planteth her head in heaven, while her feet tread on earth."
Similarly, the Babylonians saw the planet Mars-Nergal in the company of demons, and wrote in their hymns to Nergaclass="underline" 2 "Great giants, raging demons, with awesome members, run at his right and at his left." These "raging demons" are pictured also in the Nergal-Eriskigal poem; 3 they bring pestilence and cause earthquakes.
It appears that the mythological figures of the Furies of the Latins or the Erinyes of the Greeks, with serpents winding about their heads
1 Between Mars and Jupiter are over a thousand asteroids that have been thought to have once been a planet. G. A. Atwater queries whether they could have resulted from the encounter between Mars and Venus.
2 Bollenrucher, Gebete und Hymnen an Nergal, p. 29.
3 Fragments of this poem were found presumably at el-Amarna. It is very likely that the Ethiopians, who subdued Egypt in the eighth century, occupied Akhet-Aten (Tell-el-Amarna), and that some parts of the archives may have been deposited by them.
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and arms, flashing flame with their eyes, swinging torches around like wheels, grew out of the same prodigies which moved rapidly, changed their forms hourly, and acted violently. The Erinyes traveled in a group, like huntresses or like a "pack of savage hounds," 4 but sometimes they appeared to be split into two groups.5
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To these comets, traveling in bands with Mars or Indra, are dedicated many Vedic hymns, indeed a great part of them. They are called Maruts "shining like snakes," "blazing in their strength,"
"brilliant like fires." •
O Indra, O strong hero, grant thou glory to us with the Maruts, terrible with the terrible ones, strong and giver of victory.7
And it is said that their "strength is like the vigor of their father."
Your march, O Maruts, appears brilliant. . . .
We invoke you, the great Maruts,
the constant wanderers. . . .
Like the dawn, they uncover the dark nights
with red rays, the strong ones,
with their brilliant light,
as with a sea of milk. . . .
Streaming down with rushing splendor,
they have assumed their bright and brilliant color.8
Stones were hurled by these comets.
You the powerful, who shine with your spears, shaking even what is unshakable by strength . . .
Hurling the stone in the flight! . . . All beings are afraid of the Maruts.9
May your march be brilliant, O Maruts . . .
Shining like snakes.
May that straightforward shaft of yours, O Maruts,
bounteous givers, be far from us,
and far the stone which you hurl! 10
* J. Geffcken, "Eumenides, Erinyes" in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. J. Hastings, Vol. V.
* Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, 1. 968; Aeschylus, Eumenides.
* Vedic Hymns (transl. F. Max Miiller, 1891). 7 Ibid., Mandala I, Hymn 171.
* Ibid., Hymn 172. • Ibid., Hymn 85. 10 Ibid., Hymn 172.
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Meteorites, when entering the earth's atmosphere, make a frightful din. So did the Maruts: Even by day the Maruts create darkness. . . . Then from the shouting of the Maruts over the whole space of the Earth, men reeled forward.11
This darkness and this din were narrated in scriptural and rabbinical sources, in Roman traditions, and in hymns to Nergal. As the similarity of the description of the "terrible ones" in the Vedic hymns and in Joel is striking, but has not been noticed, a few more quotations should follow here.
The comets, just beginning to whirl, looked like revolving torches or writhing snakes; they assumed the form of spinning wheels, and the celestial phantasmagoria appeared like swift chariots; changing their forms, the Maruts looked like horses racing along the sky, and then again like a host of warriors, leaping, climbing, irresistible.
The verses of the second chapter of Joel (2 : 2-11) are given in their order, interspersed with verses taken from a number of Vedic hymns dedicated to the Maruts.
Joel 2:2 A day of darkness and of gloominess,
a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
Vedic Hymns Even by day the Maruts create darkness.12 The terrible Marut-host of ever-youthful heroes.13 All beings are afraid of the Maruts: they are men terrible to behold, like kings.14
Joel 2:3 A fire devoureth before them;
and behind them a flame burneth. . . . Nothing shall escape them.
" Ibid., Hymn 48. 12 Ibid., Hymn 38. «Ibid., Mandala V, Hymn 53, robin-bobin
i« Ibid., Mandala I, Hymn 85.
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Vedic Hymns Like a blast of fire. . . .
Blazing in their strength, brilliant like fires, and impetuous.15
Joel 2 : 4 The appearance of them
is as the appearance of horses: and as horsemen, so shall they run.
Vedic Hymns At their racings, the earth shakes, as if broken,
when on the heavenly path they harness for victory.
They wash their horses like racers in the courses, they hasten with the points of the reed on their quick steeds.16
Joel 2 : 5 Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains
shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
Vedic Hymns They are like headlong charioteers on their ways.
They who are brilliant, of terrible design, powerful, and devourers of foes.
On your chariots charged with lightning . . .
Host of your chariots, terrible Marut host.17
Joel 2 : 6 Before their face the people shall be much pained:
all faces shall gather blackness.
Vedic Hymns At your approach the son of man holds himself down. . . . You have caused men to tremble, you have caused mountains to tremble.18
Joel 2 : 7 They shall run like mighty men;
they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks.
is Ibid., Hymns 39, 172. " Ibid., Hymns 86, 172.
" Ibid., Hymns 172, 19, 36; Mandala V, Hymn 53. J8 Ibid., Mandala I, Hymn 37.
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Vedic Hymns Your conquest is violent, splendid, terrible, full and crushing. . . . The terrible train of untiring Maruts. . . . Full of terrible designs, like giants.19
Joel describes how these warriors, coming with fire and clouds, will run upon the wall, enter in at the windows, run to and fro in the city, and the sword can do them no harm. In similar terms the Vedic hymns describe the conquest by this terrible host.
If there is any doubt as to the nature of the "terrible ones," the following words should dissipate it:
Joel 2 : 10 The earth shall quake before them;
the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
Maruts are often called "shakers of heaven and earth." Vedic Hymns You shake the sky.
The terrible ones . . . even what is firm and unshakable is being shaken.
When they whose march is terrible have caused the rocks to tremble,
or when the manly Maruts have shaken the back of heaven.
Hide the hideous darkness,
make the light which we long for! 20
The earth groaned, the meteorites—the host of the Lord—filled the sky with a battle cry "over the whole space of the Earth," and "men reeled forward."