Each gate of an Assyrian city was dedicated to a special god, and named after it,–as the gate of Bel, the gate of Beltis, the gate of Anu, the gate of Ishtar. At the entrance-way of every gate gigantic winged bulls with human heads stood on guard, accompanied by winged genii.[251] And the central doorway to the king’s palace was similarly guarded.[252] In every house a special deity was appealed to at different portions of the doorway; Nergal on the top of the wall and beneath the threshold; Ea and Merodach in the passage to the right and left of the gate.[253] The idea of an offering, or of a dedication, to the local divinity, at the time the threshold is laid, is of wide acceptance. In India, “the god Vāttu, or Vāttuma [a son of Vishnoo], is said to recline and live in the threshold, changing his position every month.... On the day when the door-frame and threshold of a new house or temple are fixed, the _Vāttuma santhe_ [the tribute to Vāttuma] is offered.”[254] In China, “Shintu and Yuhlui are named as two tutelar gods to whom the guardianship of the house is entrusted; and either the names or grotesque representations of these ‘gods of the threshold’ are at the gate of the house, with shrines to them upon the left of the entrance way.”[255] It is said of these “Chinese gods of the threshold,” that “in full stature, and presumably in primeval strength, they flank the doors of monasteries and the entrances to the halls of justice. Much reduced in size and perched high on shelves, they face each other in the vestibules of the Chinese home; and in their most diminutive aspect they become little images, occasionally two-headed, which are carried about the person as charms, or hang from the eaves of Chinese houses.”[256] Over the doors of almost all the houses of Japan are to be seen small prints of the “gigantic _Ni-o_, the Booddhist Gog and Magog,” who are supposed to guard the entrance way of the holy places.[257] Private buildings as well as public need this spiritual protection. The inscriptions at the doorways of the houses of ancient Egypt showed that every building was “placed under the protection of a tutelary deity.” This custom “is retained by the modern Egyptians in the protecting genius said to preside over the different quarters of Cairo.”[258] Tertullian, a Christian Father who wrote before the close of the second century, in warning believers against the seducements of idolatry, emphasized the clustering of deities at the doors and gates in the religions of Greece and Rome.[259] He says that “among the Greeks ... we read of Apollo Thyræus (that is, of the door), and the Antelii (or, Anthelii) demons, as presiders over entrances;” while among the Romans there are other “gods of entrances; Cardea (Hinge-goddess), called after hinges; and Forculus (Door-god) after doors; and Limentinus (Threshold-god) after the threshold; and Janus (Gate-god) himself after the gate.”