Disobedience to him is punished by the introduction of foreign rule.

Political policy may have had a share in this preference shown for the minor god of Babylon.

The Assyrian kings were always anxious to do homage to the gods of Babylon, in order to indicate their control over the southern districts.

They were particularly proud of their title 'governor of Bel.'[133] On the other hand, they were careful not to give offence to the chief of the Assyrian pantheon,--the god Ashur,--by paying too much honor to Marduk, who was in a measure Ashur's rival.

In consequence, as Hammurabi and his successors endeavored to ignore Nabu, the Assyrian rulers now turned the tables by manifesting a preference for Nabu; and obliged as they were to acknowledge that the intellectual impulses came from the south, they could accept a southern god of wisdom without encroaching upon the province of Ashur, whose claims to homage lay in the prowess he showed in war.