"His name is evidently compounded of the two Hamitic roots 'nir' = a man, and 'gula' = great; so that he is 'the great man' or 'the great hero.' His titles are 'the king of battle,' 'the champion of the gods,' 'the strong begetter,' 'the tutelar god of Babylonia,' and 'the god of the _chase_.'... We have no evidence that Nergal was worshipped in the primitive times. He is just mentioned by some of the early Assyrian kings, who regard him as _their ancestor_.... It is conjectured that, like Bil-Nipru, he represents the _deified hero Nimrod_, who may have been worshipped in different parts of Chaldea under different titles.... It is probable that Nergal's symbol was the man-lion. Nir is sometimes used in the inscriptions in the meaning of lion, and the Semitic name for _the god himself_ is 'aria,' the ordinary term for the king of beasts both in Hebrew and Syriac. Perhaps we have here the true derivation of the Greek name for the god of war 'Ares' ([Greek: Arês]), which has _long puzzled classical scholars_. The lion would symbolise both the hunting and the fighting propensities of the god, for he not only engages in combats, but often chases his prey and runs it down like a hunter. Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the buildings with the _man-bull_ would be exactly parallel with the conjunction which _we so constantly find between him and Nin in the inscriptions_."[133]--_Rawlinson_, i. 172-174. [133] "Notwithstanding his stature, beauty, hand, and voice, which constitute, taken together, a proud appearance, it seems as if Mars had stood lower in the mind of Homer than any Olympian deity who takes part in the Trojan war, except Venus only."--_Gladstone's "Homer,"_ ii. 225. I must draw attention also to the remarkable absence here of all the monotheistic epithets we shall find attached to Ana, Enu, and Hoa.[134] [134] _Vide infra_, next chap. ix. Let us now turn to the theory which is most in the ascendant, and which professes to see in the old mythological legends only the thoughts and metaphors of a mythic period. This theory, which was Mr Max Müller's in the first instance, being not only exclusively drawn from the conclusions of philology, but also exclusive in itself, cannot be anywhere stronger than its weakest point. If it is shown in the instance of one primary myth, that it was the embodiment of an historical legend, or theological belief, the whole ideal structure of a mythic period must collapse; for the rejection of eclecticism in any form, which would embrace a Biblical or euhemeristic interpretation of the myths, is at the foundation of Mr Max Müller's idea, and, indeed, would be incompatible with the theory of a mythic period such as he conceives it.