[Illustration: STATUE OF OANNES, THE KING.] A second triad is produced with personages no longer vague and indeterminate in character, like those of the first, but with a clearly-defined sidereal aspect, each representing a known celestial body, and especially those in which the Chaldæo-Assyrians saw the most striking external manifestations of the deity; these were Shamash, the sun; Sin, the moon god; and a new form of Ao or Bin, inferior to the first, and representing him as god of the atmosphere or firmament. Thus did they industriously multiply deities and representations of them. THE GODS OF THE PLANETS. Then come the gods of the five planets: Adar (Saturn), Merodach (Jupiter), Nergal (Mars), Ishtar (Venus), and Nebo (Mercury). The worship of Merodach, though not much cultivated at Nineveh, was of primary importance at Babylon, where he was regarded as one of the principal gods. He was a secondary form, another manifestation of Bel in an inferior rank in the hierarchy; he was called “the ancient one of the gods, the supreme judge, the master of the horoscope;” he was represented as a man, erect and walking, and with a naked sword in his hand. Adar, “the fire,” called also Samdan, “the powerful,” although his planet had been called Saturn by the Greeks, was apparently the Assyrian Hercules. His appellations are, “the terrible, the lord of warriors, the strong one, the destroyer of his enemies, he who reduces the disobedient, the exterminator of rebels,” and in other cases, “the Son of the Zodiac.” On some monuments he is represented in company with Merodach. In the same manner, he is represented in the magnificent colossal figures in the Museum of the Louvre, and of the British Museum, where he is seen as a god of terrible aspect, strangling in his arms a lion that appears quite small in comparison with him. With the surname of Malik (king), Adar Malik is mentioned in the Bible with “Oannes the king” (Anu Malik) (2 Kings, xvii., 31,) as the principal god of Sippara, where the inhabitants “burnt their children in the fire” in honor of these exalted ones. In general these planetary gods are only fire, secondary manifestations of the higher order. Such is the connection between Nebo and Ao. Nebo also is distinguished as the “supreme intelligence;” he is the god of prophetic inspiration and of eloquence, and also the special guardian of royal prerogative, the protector of kings and the prototype whom they reproduce on earth. Like Bel, he has on the monuments an entirely human form with the tiara, and the dress of a king; three pairs of horns, ranged one above the other, decorate his tiara, and four large wings are often attached to his shoulders; the sceptre also is one of his common attributes. [Illustration: ADAR STRANGLING THE LION.] THE GREAT GODDESS ISHTAR.