Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/80

60 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD.KA AND ASSYRIA. Fear is, indeed, the ruling sentiment in all religions in vhich a belief in spirits finds a place. A man can never be sure that, in spite of all his precautions, he has not incurred the displeasure of such exacting and capricious masters. Some condition of the bargain which is being perpetually driven with protectors who give nothing for nothing, may have been unwittingly omitted. " The spirits and their worshippers are equally selfish. As a general rule, the mischievous spirits receive more homage than the good ones ; those who are believed to live close at hand are more dreaded than those at a distance ; those to whom some special role is assigned are considered more important than spirits with a wider but less definite authority." ! There were, of course, moments when men turned with gratitude towards the hidden benefactor to whom they believed themselves indebted for some unhoped-for cure or unexpected success, when joy and confidence moved their hearts at the thought of the efficacious protection they had secured against future ills ; but such moments were few and short. The habitual feeling was O one of disquietude, we might almost say of terror, so that when the imagination endeavoured to give concrete forms to the beings in question, it figured them rather as objects of fear than love. The day arrived for art to attempt the material realization of the dreams which until then had been dimly seen in sleep or in the still more confused visions of the waking hours, and for this hideous and threatening features were naturally chosen. It is thus that the numerous figures of demons found in Chalda^a and Assyria, sometimes in the bas-reliefs, sometimes in the shape of small bronzes and terra-cottas, are accounted for. A human body is crowned with the head of an angry lion, with dog's ears and a horse's mane ; the hands brandish long poignards, the feet are replaced by those of a bird of prey, the extended claws seeming to grasp the soil (Fig. 6). The gestures vary ; the right arm is sometimes stretched downwards at full length, sometimes bent at the elbow, but the combination of forms, the character of the figure and its intention is always the same. We shall encounter this type again when we come to speak of Cappadocia. 1 TIELE, Manuel de C Histoire des Religions (Leroux, 1880, Svo). In our explanation of the Chaldseo-Assyrian religions we shall follow this excellent guide, supplement- ing it by information taken from another work by the same author, Histoire compares des anciennes Religions de CEgypte et des Peupks Scmitiqnes both from the Dutch.