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Hie Thee to Hell: the Place of the Bad Daimon

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Hie Thee to Hell: the Place of the Bad Daimon CHAPTER 4 Hie Thee to Hell: The Place of the Bad Daimon Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave this world, Thou cacodemon: there thy kingdom is Shakespeare, Richard III, 1.3.143–144 In the ancient world, alas, if not the modern, bad daimons are as pervasive as good daimons. In Chapters Two and Three, we saw the activities of good daimons in the syncretic milieu of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt as well as in the astrology of those periods. This chapter will first examine the bad daimon’s place within a number of Mediterranean cultures, including Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Jewish and Christian. We then explore how astrologers viewed bad daimons, and their literal places in the practice of Hellenistic astrology. In this chapter, I use the word ‘demon’ to denote purely bad daimons, aligning with the present-day English connotation. 1 A Brief History of Bad Daimons 1.1 Mesopotamian Demons Mesopotamia is one of the oldest civilisations to have a flourishing demonology.1 The ubiquity and number of Mesopotamian daimons must be emphasised. Evil daimons, known in Akkadian as utukkē lemnūti, first appear in Sumerian texts.2 Tiamat creates hordes of demons in the great creation myth, Enuma Eliš: 1 An excellent survey of Mesopotamian daimons is M. Leibovici, ‘Génies et démons en Babylonie’; for bad daimons, see H. Limet, ‘Les démons méchants de la Babylonie’, in Anges et démons: Actes du colloque de Liège et de Louvain-la-Neuve, 25–26 novembre 1987, ed. Julien Ries and Henri Limet, Homo religiosus (Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre d’histoire des religions, 1989), 21–35; also see Thompson, Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, vol. 1, xxiv–xxxviii. For primary texts, see Geller, Evil Demons; and W. Farber, Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf! Mesopotamische Baby- Beschwörungen und -Rituale (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989). 2 Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 249. See M. J. Geller, Forerunners to Udug-hul: Sumerian Exorcistic Incantations (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GMBH, 1985). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi ��.��63/9789004306��9_006 Hie Thee to Hell: The Place of the Bad Daimon 117 Sharp of tooth and unsparing of fang (?). She filled their bodies with venom instead of blood. She stationed a horned serpent, a mušhuššu-dragon, and a lahmu-hero, An ugallu-demon, a rabid dog, and a scorpion man, Aggressive ūmu-demons, a fish-man, and a bull-man Bearing merciless weapons, fearless in battle.3 Mesopotamian demons often attacked humans through disease and death, usual vectors of the bad in many cultures.4 Some demons were associated with bad weather, particularly wind and storms. The vicious female demon Lamaštu attacked pregnant or labouring women and newborn babies.5 Pregnant women wore amulets featuring Pazuzu, another demon, who was able to ward off the attacks of Lamaštu; but Pazuzu was able to wreak his own havoc if he desired, since he ruled over the evil wind-demons.6 A plaque of Lamaštu and Pazuzu, now in the Louvre,7 shows Pazuzu over- looking Lamaštu from the top of the plaque, while other demons (possibly ‘the Seven’, who may link to planets) appear on the second row to help him expel Lamaštu.8 Other demons guarded the seven portals of the underworld; still others were ghosts unable to rest. A group of related demons, the lilû (male), lilītu and ardat lilî (both female), are concerned with dysfunctional aspects of sex 3 ‘Epic of Creation’, in S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, repr. 1991), 237 (repeated 239–40, 245). 4 See the long list of demons who cause illness in Leibovici, ‘Génies et démons en Babylonie’, 97–101. 5 See prayers to repel her in Farber, Schlaf, Kindchen, Schlaf!. 6 A. Green, ‘Myths in Mesopotamian Art’, in Sumerian Gods and Their Representations, ed. Irving L. Finkel and Markham J. Geller (Groningen: Styx Publications, 1997), 135–58, here 143. 7 The plaque appears in the following: A. Green, ‘Beneficent Spirits and Malevolent Demons’, VRel 3 (1984): 80–105, here described 81, depicted 96; A. E. Farkas, P. O. Harper, and E. B. Harrison, eds., Monsters and Demons in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: Papers Presented in Honor of Edith Porada (Mainz on Rhine: Philipp von Zabern, 1987), Plate LIV; J. A. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (London: British Museum Press for the Trustees of the British Museum, 1992), 181 (with description); description in Leibovici, ‘Génies et démons en Babylonie’, 95–96. The image is online at http://www.louvre.fr/en/mediaimages/plaque-de-conjuration-contre- la-lamashtu-dite-plaque-des-enfers. 8 Green, ‘Beneficent Spirits and Malevolent Demons’, 81..
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