progress, and the social and moral ideals of a people well advanced in
civilization. He rewarded mankind for the services they rendered to
him; he was their leader and instructor; he achieved for them the
victories over the destructive forces of nature. In brief, he was the
dragon slayer, a distinction, by the way, which was attached in later
times to his son Merodach, the Babylonian god, although Ea was still
credited with the victory over the dragon's husband.

When Ea was one of the pre-Babylonian group--the triad of Bel-Enlil,
Anu, and Ea--he resembled the Indian Vishnu, the Preserver, while
Bel-Enlil resembled Shiva, the Destroyer, and Anu, the father, supreme
Brahma, the Creator and Father of All, the difference in exact
adjustment being due, perhaps, to Sumerian political conditions.

Ea, as we have seen, symbolized the beneficence of the waters; their
destructive force was represented by Tiamat or Tiawath, the dragon,
and Apsu, her husband, the arch-enemy of the gods. We shall find these
elder demons figuring in the Babylonian Creation myth, which receives
treatment in a later chapter.

The ancient Sumerian city of Eridu, which means "on the seashore", was
invested with great sanctity from the earliest times, and Ea, the
"great magician of the gods", was invoked by workers of spells, the
priestly magicians of historic Babylonia. Excavations have shown that
Eridu was protected by a retaining wall of sandstone, of which
material many of its houses were made. In its temple tower, built of
brick, was a marble stairway, and evidences have been forthcoming that
in the later Sumerian period the structure was lavishly adorned. It is
referred to in the fragments of early literature which have survived
as "the splendid house, shady as the forest", that "none may enter".