In Nidinta-Bel the line of independent Babylonian kings may be regarded as having come to an end, since the leader of the second revolt was not a native, but an Armenian settler. To him, therefore, we may apply the magnificent description of the death of the last Babylonian monarch on the battle-field, and his descent into the under-world, which we read in Isaiah xiv. Illustrations have been taken by the prophet from Babylonian mythology, in order to heighten the horror of the scene. The king of Babylonia is compared to the morning star, whose movements the Babylonians had been the first of mankind to record. He is represented as saying in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the (other) stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the assembly (of the gods) in the furthest regions of the north.” This mount, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was the Olympos of the Accadians, by whom it was called Kharsak-kurra “the mountain of the east.” Its peak was the pivot on which the sky rested, and it was therefore also known as “the mountain of the world.” It lay far away in the regions of the north-east, the entrance, as it was supposed, to the lower world, and it was sometimes identified with the mountain of Nizir, the modern Rowandiz, on whose summit the ark of the Chaldean Noah was believed to have rested. From the heights of this mountain, where he had vainly dreamed of sitting among the gods, the Babylonian king was to be hurled into the world below. Here again the prophet borrows his illustration from the mythology of Accad. The heroes of the past are placed before us seated in Hades on their shadowy thrones, from which they rise to greet the arrival of their new comrade. The best commentary on the description is to be found in the words of an old Babylonian poem, which tells of the descent of the goddess Istar into Hades, in search of her dead husband Tammuz. The poem opens as follows:— “To Hades, the land whence none return, the land of darkness, Istar the daughter of the Moon-god inclined her ear, Yea, the daughter of the Moon-god inclined her ear. To the house of darkness, the dwelling of the god Irkalla, To the house out of which there is no exit, To the road from which there is no return, To the house from whose entrance the light is taken, The place where dust is their nourishment, and mud their food; Light is never seen, in darkness they dwell.” Parallel with this is the description of Hades, supposed to be given by the dead friend of Gisdhubar, in the great Chaldean epic in which the account of the deluge is embodied. Here we read—