The Magi utilised this power and the kings of Assyria kept tigers, leopards and lions in their gardens, in a state of docility. Others were reserved in vaults beneath the temples for use in the ordeals of initiation. The symbolic bas-reliefs are the proof; they depict trials of strength between men and animals, and the adept, clothed in his priestly garb, controls the brutes by a glance of his eye and stays them with his hand. When such animals are depicted in one of the forms ascribed to the sphinx, they are doubtless symbolical, but in other representations the brute is of the natural order, and then the struggle seems to illustrate a theory of actual enchantment. Magic is a science; to abuse is to lose it, and it is also to destroy oneself. The kings and priests of the Assyrian world were too great to be free from this danger, if ever they fell; as a fact, pride did come upon them and they did therefore fall. The great magical epoch of Chaldea is anterior to the reigns of Semiramis and Ninus. At this time religion had begun already to materialise and idolatry to prevail. The cultus of Astarte succeeded that of the heavenly Venus and royalty arrogated to itself divine attributes under the names of Baal and of Bel, or Belus. Semiramis made religion subservient to politics and conquests, replacing the old mysterious temples by ostentatious and ill-advised monuments. This notwithstanding, the magical idea continued to prevail in art and science, sealing the constructions of that epoch with the characteristics of inimitable power and grandeur. The palace of Semiramis was a building synthesis of entire Zoroastrian dogma, and we shall recur to it in explaining the symbolism of those seven masterpieces of antiquity which are called the wonders of the world.