**** Belit is called by Tiglath-pileser I. “the great spouse beloved of Assur,” but Belit, “the lady,” is here merely an epithet used for Ishtar: the Assyrian Ishtar, Ishtar of Assur, Ishtar of Nineveh, or rather--especially from the time of the Sargonids--Ishtar of Arbeles, is almost always a fierce and warlike Ishtar, the “lady of combat, who directs battles,” “whose heart incites her to the combat and the struggle.” Sayce thinks that the union of Ishtar and Assur is of a more recent date. [Illustration: 149.jpg ISHTAR AS A WARRIOR BRINGING PRISONERS TO A CONQUERING KING] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from squeezes brought back by M. do Morgan. These two divinities formed an abstract and solitary pair, around whom neither story nor myth appears to have gathered, and who never became the centre of any complex belief. Assur seems to have had no parentage assigned to him, no statue erected to him, and he was not associated with the crowd of other divinities; on the contrary, he was called their lord, their “peerless king,” and, as a proof of his supreme sovereignty over them, his name was inscribed at the head of their lists, before those of the triads constituted by the Chaldæan priests--even before those of Anu, Bel, and Ba. The city of Assur, which had been the first to tender him allegiance for many years, took precedence of all the rest, in spite of the drawbacks with which it had to contend. Placed at the very edge of the Mesopotamian desert, it was exposed to the dry and burning winds which swept over the plains, so that by the end of the spring the heat rendered it almost intolerable as a residence. The Tigris, moreover, ran behind it, thus leaving it exposed to the attacks of the Babylonian armies, unprotected as it was by any natural fosse or rampart. The nature of the frontier was such as to afford it no safeguard; indeed, it had, on the contrary, to protect its frontier. Nineveh, on the other hand, was entrenched behind the Tigris and the Zab, and was thus secure from any sudden attack. Northerly and easterly winds prevailed during the summer, and the coolness of the night rendered the heat during the day more bearable. It became the custom for the kings and vicegerents to pass the most trying months of the year at Nineveh, taking up their abode close to the temple of Nina, the Assyrian Ishtar, but they did not venture to make it their habitual residence, and consequently Assur remained the official capital and chief sanctuary of the empire. Here its rulers concentrated their treasures, their archives, their administrative offices, and the chief staff of the army; from this town they set out on their expeditions against the Cossæans of Babylon or the mountaineers of the districts beyond the Tigris, and it was in this temple that they dedicated to the god the tenth of the spoil on their return from a successful campaign.*