CHAPTER VIII.
THE PANTHEON IN THE DAYS OF HAMMURABI.
Marduk.
The immediate result of Hammurabi's master-stroke in bringing the various states of the Euphrates Valley under a single control, was the supremacy secured for his capital, of the city of Babylon over all other Babylonian cities, and with this supremacy, the superior position henceforth assumed by the patron deity of the capital, Marduk.[116] It is needless for our purposes to enter upon the question as to the age of the city of Babylon,[117] nor as to its political fortunes prior to the rise of the dynasty of which Hammurabi was the sixth member.

That its beginnings were modest, and that its importance, if not its origin, was of recent date in comparison with such places as Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Ur, and the like, is proved by the absence of the god Marduk in any of the inscriptions that we have been considering up to this point.

The first mention of the god occurs in the inscriptions of Hammurabi, where he appears distinctly as the god of the city of Babylon.

No doubt the immediate predecessors of Hammurabi regarded Marduk in the same light as the great conqueror, so that we are justified in applying the data, furnished by the inscriptions of Hammurabi to such of his predecessors, of whom records are still lacking.

It is to Marduk, that Hammurabi ascribes his success.