The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI ASP Conference Series, Vol. 441 Enrico Maria Corsini, ed. c 2011 Astronomical Society of the Pacific

Mas. s. artu: The Observation of Astronomical Phenomena in (7th BC)

Frederick Mario Fales Dipartimento di Storia e Tutela dei Beni Culturali, Universita` di Udine, Udine, Italy

Abstract. The term mas. s. artu is well attested in letters in cuneiform to and from the Neo-Assyrian court, written in the main in the BC. In itself, mas. s. artu is a general Akkadian term, meaning “watch, guard”, but in the early 1st BC it takes on two interesting semantic specializations, both of which are tied to the practical and political needs of the Assyrian empire. In astrological-astronomical terms, mas. s. artu denotes the wake, vigil, or watch for astronomical observations on the part of the court specialists: such a wake was required by the Assyrian king on a nightly basis, for the subsequent consultation of the vast compilation of omens called Enu¯ma Anu Enlil, and the drawing of conclusions relating to the state of the empire and of the royal dynasty. Many interesting texts show us the workings of the mas. s. artu in the capital city or in other cities of Mesopotamia. But mas. s. artu had also a wider meaning, “vigilance”, which denoted the requirement, on the part of all the subjects of the king of Assyria, to keep their eyes and ears open, so as to be able to report to the king if anything untoward was taking place, whether in the capital city or in the most remote military outpost of the empire. Thus, in a way, the astrologers were expected to perform no more and no less than the collective duty of “vigilance” on behalf of the king–but with their eyes trained on the heavens, and in await for signs ultimately sent from the gods.

1. The Practical-Scientific Characteristics of Assyrian Astrology-Astronomy

As is well known, astrology in Mesopotamia was part of a vast gamut of divinatory techniques developed over two millennia at least, and spreading from Mesopotamia to points east and west. We may distinguish forms of deductive divination, i.e., deriving from the pure and simple observation of reality, such as astrology, ornitomancy, teratol- ogy and physiognomy; whereas other techniques derived from the examination of sac- rificial animals or particular substances, such as hepatoscopy, extispicy, palmomancy, lecanomancy, etc.; and finally, we have a smaller–and possibly imported–series of types of inspired divination, of verbal or non-verbal character (e.g. prophecies, dream inter- pretation). In a nutshell, divination appears to have been applied to the entire social universe and to have been intellectually esteemed in all periods of Mesopotamian his- tory, judging by the many collections of omens which have come down to us1.

1J. B´, Symptomes,ˆ signes, ecritur´ es en Me´sopotamie ancienne, in J. P. V (ed.), Divination et rationalite´, Paris, Du Seuil, 1974, pp. 70-197. For an overview of the main types of Mesopotamian divination, with ample bibliographical quotes, see most recently S. M. M, Omina und Orakel. A. 361 362 Fales

The Mesopotamians’ use of divination as a forecasting tool in the public sphere, up to the highest level of officialdom, thus appears totally unique in the ancient world. This vast set of techniques would leave strong traces in the collective memory of other ancient civilizations (the Biblical, Persian, and Greco-Roman worlds) as a peculiar marker of the Babylonian cultural horizon2. As is known, negative connotations would accompany these traditions (here in the name in the name of a specific religion, there in the name of the primacy of rationality), thus rooting themselves in the vision of a certain abstruse esoterism, represented by “Chaldean” science3. But, in reality, the tradition of Babylonian divination–and specifically of astrology–had entered into positive contact with Hellenism, acting as a decided influence on the scientific development of latter period. Signs could be drawn from a very wide range of phenomena, such as had come to the attention of the diviner as being spontaneous or as the result of a particular obser- vation. In our view, these are phenomena which may be ranged together as “natural”. To the opposite, the Mesopotamian perception attributed these phenomena to the “su- pernatural”, i.e., to what was emitted by the transcendent. Quite frequently in the cos- mogonies, we find the image of the “inscription” of a sign within the observed object on the part of the gods, for its subsequent “reading-out” on the part of the diviner4. The latter point is crucial: Mesopotamian divination, it must be noted, does not comprise the sense of an intrinsic causality between sign and omen. Only the operation of “reading-out” may set into evidence the connections between mark and portent, only the construction of a full-fledged “grammar” of coincidences and successions among facts may lead to paradigms of cause and effect on the part of the interpreter–even in disagreement with the findings of other interpreters. In a nutshell, like all divinatory systems, the Mesopotamian one must be understood as a model built upon known ele- ments, liable to be manipulated, to the aim of widening the diviner’s perception of the world around5. Certainly, the material shows evidence which at first sight might appear contra- dictory to our eyes. On the one hand, a deterministic vision of a world established ab imis and a priori outside the range of man is brought forth not only in the cosmologies,

Mesopotamien, in E. E-B. M (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyrologie, X, Berlin-Leipzig, De Gruyter, 2003-2005, pp. 45-88. 2F. R-H, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2004. 3The article by A. B, Chaldaioi, in A. P-G. Wissowa (eds.), Realencyclopad¨ ie der Classis- chen Alterumswissenschaft, III.2, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1899, pp. 2045-2061, esp. p. 2055 ff. (Persian and Hellenistic Periods) is still useful for its survey of the Classical sources on the “Chaldeans”, and often quoted as such, although it was written 112 years ago! See also A. M, Alien Wisdom. The Limits of Hellenization, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 241-249. 4B´, Symptomes,ˆ signes, ecritur´ es (cit. note 1). This is particularly true of the heavens, on which Marduk purportedly placed the stars as “heavenly writing” for the humans to decipher, and of the exta, in which the liver had a “codified” anatomy, with specific parts and inner markings singled out for its analysis, as may be seen from the many liver models in clay which have come down to us (see I. S, Queries to the Sungod. Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990, pp. xxxvi-lv). 5G. R. C, I sei lati del mondo. Linguaggio ed esperienza, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1988. Observation of Astronomical Phenomena in Assyria 363 but also in some forms of spontaneous divination (dreams, prophetic ecstasy, etc.)6 which are considered produced directly by the gods, and even more strongly through the “cold and indifferent, even frightening” quality of the responses, focused on the rise and fall of monarchies, armies, countries7. By contrast, we may notice that ancient Mesopotamian culture foresaw precautions and remedies against this blind and sinister turn of destiny: for divination coexisted with various magico-religious ceremonies and rituals, aimed at offsetting the negative quality of the omen, or at transforming it into positive8. In short, divination assumes that events–both natural and historical–depend on di- vine will but, at the same time, they may be provoked or changed by acting on that will9. To us moderns, this coexistence indicates two opposite approaches: one, passive and “objective” (based on the “reading-out” of the sign and the deduction of a con- sequent positive or negative omen), the other fully active, tending to provoke specific responses on the part of the divine (through the apotropaic, or sympathetic, or evasive, ritual). But exactly this antithesis reveals what is the ultimate goal of Mesopotamian divination: to interpret the hidden designs of the gods concerning man, and thereupon to react–by gratifying the gods–so that human reality, or history, may have a positive outcome. In the “higher” or elite´ sphere of divination, preserve of temple and palace, such as astrology occupied, we may observe early forms of scientific attitude through the leap from a merely empirical observation of meaningful coincidences towards the systematic categorization of natural phenomena and the codification of signs (actually observed or in any case possible), under the binary oppositions of positivity and negativity, coher-

6For dreams in ancient Mesopotamia, and specifically Assyria, see A. L. O, The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient . With a Translation of an Assyrian Dream-Book, “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society”, 46, 3, 1956, pp. 179-373 (who distinguishes at the outset [p. 184:] “dreams as revelations of the deity which may or may not require interpretation; dreams which reflect, symptomatically, the state of mind, the spiritual and bodily ‘health’ of the dreamer, which are only mentioned but never recorded, and, thirdly, mantic dreams in which forthcoming events are prog- nosticated”). For prophetic ecstasy in Assyria, see S. P, Assyrian Prophecies, Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1997 (texts and general interpretation); M. N, References to Prophecy in Neo- Assyrian Sources, Helsinki, Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998 (references to prophecy in letters); I., The Socio-Religious Role of the Neo-Assyrian Prophets, in M. N (ed.), Prophecy in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context, Atlanta, Society for Biblical Literature, 2000, pp. 89-114 (socio-religious role of Assyrian prophets). 7N. M. S, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1998, p. 3. 8On the connection between divination and magic in Mesopotamia, see E. R, Astral Magic in Baby- lonia, “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society”, 85, 4, 1995, pp. i-150. A case in point is Mesopotamian medicine (see most recently F. M. F, Mesopotamia, in S. F  . (eds.), Hand- book of Clinical Neurology, vol. 95, History of Neurology, Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2010, pp. 15-27, with ample bibliographical quotes), in which the same “if...then” logic underlying the observation of celestial signs and their ensuing omens marks therapeutic material and specifically symptomatology (albeit pro- ceeding from the signs and symptoms of illness [if ] back to their etiology [then]). But although these causes of illness were identified with external, in fact supernatural, agents physically entering in contact with the patient’s body, the intervention of the healers through materia medica and materia magica to- gether was amply and openly foreseen to overcome this overall deterministic framework, and attempt to restore the patient to health. 9J. A, Das kulturelle Gedac¨ htnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identitat¨ in fruh¨ en Hochkul- turen, Mun¨ chen, C. H. Beck, 1992, p. 208. 364 Fales ence and incoherence. From here specific rules or constants of omens were drawn. Over time, this work of classification was transferred in large written series (such as Enuma¯ Anu Enlil)10. These treatises and abstracts of divinatory experiences, copied and expanded over the , came to form–together with auxiliary materials or commentaries–such a vast and complex set of knowledge that only the scholars, spe- cialized through a long and intense training, had the ability to analyze the astral signs, and to extract a dense grid of interpretations concerning reality, and specifically regard- ing the affairs of state, the condition of the economy and the personal welfare of the king. Thus, this extreme technical skill fatally led to an inseparable connection be- tween the diviners and their kings. We may view this link in detail during the late Neo-Assyrian period11, and in particular under the reign of (680-668 BC), through the hundreds of epistolary texts and outright astrological reports exchanged between the ruler and his scholars, i.e., the network of experts in divination and in the techniques of averting evil12. Royal support for these scholars who worked in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, and in other major cities of Mesopotamia was crucial, implying comfortable living and working conditions, and often also the concession of landed property. On their part, the scholars repaid the Assyrian king with personal attention and friendliness, answering his every beck and call, explaining to him their interpretations in detail, and suggesting with great delicacy the policies deriving from the daily omens, for the present and for the immediate future13. The following letter illustrates this aspect:

The planet Mercury is shining very brightly; it is the star of the crown prince. This is advantageous for the North Country, for the king and the crown prince. If the crown prince is to enter into the presence of the king my lord, it is a favourable moment to do so. As for the fact that the king my lord wrote me that [prince] Asshur-mukin-paleya should visit him, he may come as soon as Venus has become visible. Venus is now on its way to make a lucky omen; meanwhile, the month of Nisannu has arrived; the constellation Aries is setting and will soon be completely gone. Let the king my lord wait for its [Venus’] emergence; thereafter he [the prince] may come.14

10See H. H-D. P, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia, Leiden, Brill, 1999, pp. 12-20 for a full description of the 60-tablet series by topics. 11On the Assyrian empire, see in general F. M. F, L’impero assiro: storia e amministrazione (secc. IX-VII a.C.), Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2001. 12On the major figures of Assyrian and Babylonian scholars employed in celestial divination and allied sciences in the Neo-Assyrian period, see A. L. O, Divination and Celestial Observation in the Last Assyrian Empire, “Centaurus”, 14, 1969, pp. 97-135; H. H, Astrological Reports to Assyrian Kings, Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1992, pp. xv-xvii; S. P, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1993, pp. xxv-xxvii. 13As was remarked by P, Letters (cit. note 12), p. xxvii, “Under no circumstances are we justified in characterizing the Sargonid kings as fearful and ‘superstitious’ men completely under the sway of the court ‘magicians’ and ‘soothsayers’, or the men who advised them as opportunistic charlatans who took advantage of the kings’ ignorance and fear to direct affairs of state for their own benefit, as has been done in the past”. 14Ibid., 74:Rev. 4-25 Observation of Astronomical Phenomena in Assyria 365

2. Mas. s. artu as Astrological Watch or Vigil

On the present occasion, which celebrates the 400 years since Galileo’s first use of the telescope for astronomical purposes, it seems particularly fitting to evoke the technique and implications of the astrological-astronomical mas. s. artu performed by naked eye at the Nineveh court some 2300 years ago. In itself, mas. s. artu is a general Akkadian term, meaning “watch, guard”15, but I want to underscore the fact that in the Neo-Assyrian period the word takes on two interesting semantic specializations, both of which are tied to the practical and political needs of the Assyrian empire. Let us start with the most technical acceptation of the term, relevant to the “watch” of the heavens. The Assyrian astrologers were charged with carrying out an observation of the skies by naked eye during many different nights of the month, and even during specific days; probably, in fact, they were expected to be available for possible celestial observations night and day, all week round, i.e., “24/7”, as is said nowadays. It is this overall “watch” or “wake/vigil” which was termed mas. s. artu; we do not know exactly where the astrological observations were held, but we may surmise from a few hints in the texts that the activity was carried out by groups of observers, presumably working in shifts. In point of fact, the temporal subdivisions of the night were reckoned according to such shifts; in other words, mas. s. artu does not only designate the overall“watch”, but also the single periods of wakefulness and vigilance (of 4 hours each?) which marked the day and night, with a close correspondence with the double semantics of Latin vigilia. Thus the foreman of a group of 10 scribes from the city of Arbail wrote to Esarhaddon that:

An eclipse of the Moon occurred on the 14th of Sivan (=III), during the morning watch.16

Apart from occasional and predictable phenomena such as the eclipses-on which I will say more in a minute-the Assyrian astrologers were expected to observe the Moon in various phases of the month, in order to determine dates of occurrence of new moons, the heliacal rising and setting of planets, and the position of the planets among the con- stellations. In the following two brief epistolary reports, the astrologer Nabu’a writes to king Esarhaddon regarding the full Moon and the new Moon, respectively:

To the king my lord, [from] your servant Nabu’a. May the gods Nabuˆ and Marduk bless the king my lord! We kept watch (mas. s. artu nitas. ar): on the 15th day the Moon and the Sun saw each other.17 To the king my lord, [from] your servant Nabu’a. May the gods Nabuˆ and Marduk bless the king my lord! We kept watch on the 29th day: we saw the Moon.18

15M. C  . (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, vol. 10 (M), part I, Chicago-Gluckstadt,¨ The Oriental Institute-J. J. Augustin Verlag, 1977, pp. 337-338. 16P, Letters (cit. note 12), 137:Obv. 9-Rev. 2. 17H, Astrological Reports (cit. note 12), 125. 18Ibid., 126. 366 Fales

It is nowadays relatively clear that the initial stimulus for the constant observations to be obtained through the mas. s. artu came from the Assyrian ruler himself, also in view of the particular bent of character of Esarhaddon, a preoccupied individual, not in good physical health, and very reliant upon the signs from the transcendent19. The astrologers of the Nineveh court were thus expected not only to perform the watch, but then to discuss in detail the outcome of their observations with the ruler, by means of written reports presumably sent to him in the early morning; reports from other cities of course arrived in due time through messengers on horseback, but had also surely been shipped post-haste. The rest of the astrologers’ day seems to have been devoted to teaching in the scribal school, where we know that even some foreign princes were kept as pupils. This already intense daily rhythm, with few hours of sleep, could be definitely upset if other duties came to be required on occasion. A group of astrologers thus wrote to the king, in a tone of dejected protest:

To the king our lord, [from] your servants, the scribes of the city Kilizi. Good health to the king our lord. May the gods Nabuˆ and Marduk bless the king. We kept watch on the Moon. On the 14th day the Moon and the Sun saw each other: this means well-being. May Nabuˆ and Marduk bless the king. Because of the required ilku-duty and corvee´ -work, we are no more able to keep the watch of the king our lord, and the apprentices are not learning the scribal craft!20

As is obvious, the extremely dry weather conditions of Mesopotamia were abso- lutely first-rate for the execution of the mas. s. artu. On some occasions, however, cloudy skies were present, preventing a good observation of the planets. A case in point is the following letter:

Concerning the watch for the eclipse about which the king our lord wrote–we kept watch, but the clouds were dense. On the 14th day, during the morning watch, the clouds dispersed, and we were able to see. The eclipse took place.21

Eclipses–both lunar or solar–could on frequent occasions (although not all the time) bring about evil omens, portending the death of the king. In this case, as is nowadays well known, the Assyrians (perhaps inheriting the custom from the Hittites) used to place a slave as “substitute king” on the throne, providing him with a sizeable entourage, and at times with a “queen”, so that the evil omens could befall him, while the real king abandoned the throne and repaired to a corner of the palace gardens, under the guise of a “farmer”. The slave remained on the throne for a maximum of 100 days, then he–as foreseen by the omens–went to his fate, i.e., he was put to death (possibly poisoned), thereupon obtaining a funeral of royal importance, whereas the “farmer”

19See F. M F, Esarhaddon e il potere della divinazione, in F. M. F-C. G (eds.), Sopran- naturale e potere nel mondo antico e nelle societa` tradizionali, Milano, Franco Angeli, 1985, pp. 95-118, for a “portrait” of Esarhaddon along these lines, which does not–however–contradict the judgment of P, Letters (cit. note 12), p. xxvii. 20P, Letters (cit. note 12), 143. 21Ibid., 147. Observation of Astronomical Phenomena in Assyria 367 was now entitled to regain his throne, sometimes with a repetition of the enthronement rites22. The substitution of the king by these means was enacted six times in the brief reign of Esarhaddon and at least a couple of times in the first years of , out of 16 perceived eclipses, which can be dated with accuracy. The ancient Near Eastern custom of the substitute king was known–albeit imprecisely–to Greek and Latin authors, such as Herodotus, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Suetonius, and others, and reached modern tradition through the partly humorous, partly moralistic tale of Abu-l-Hasan the Wag in the 1001 Nights, which was put into music by Carl Maria von Weber in a one-act opera23.

3. Mas. s. artu as “Vigilance”, a Comprehensive Deterrent-Repressive Measure

Let the king my lord summon me, and if I am to die, let me die; if I am to live, let me keep watching the stars of the sky, and if there is a portent that I see, let me report it to the lord of kings, my lord.24

This statement of professional dedication, as well as of political fealty, on the part of a court astrologer, leads us from the purely technical acceptation of the term mas. s. artu to a wider one. In numerous contemporary letters, we find the term mas. s. artu as one of the duties of the Assyrian subject, but in these cases not referring to the astrological “vigil” of the heavens–quite to the opposite, to a more general and vast “vigilance” or “surveillance” on earthly matters. In practice, this widespread attestation of the term mas. s. artu indicates that every Assyrian subject, whatever his professional qualification, was expected to perform an operation of prevention and/or protection, of deterrence and repression, to the benefit of the king and of the Assyrian state as a whole. To listen to anything that was worth hearing, and to observe anything that was worth seeing: in the vast territories of the Assyrian empire, stretching from western to the Egyptian delta, no police force of any size would have been able to substitute the day-to-day work of “surveillance” performed by all faithful subjects–military, civilians, courtiers, artisans, farmers–on anything out of the ordinary regarding their neighbors, their companions, superiors and inferiors. But to observe and hear was not enough: the further implication of mas. s. artu was to communicate any single anomaly to the king, by means of a written report. No wonder that we find some letters which have virtually no other content than the report of an ongoing “surveillance”, even with negative results (in the sense of “no news, good news”), such as the following, from :

To the king my lord, [from] your servant Adda-hati. Good health to the king my lord. My vigilance (mas. s. artu) proceeds well, the district of Hamat as a whole is in good shape. May the king my lord be pleased.

22On the “substitute king ritual” in Assyria, see S. P, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, Neukirchen-Vluyn, Neukirchener Verlag, 1983, pp. xxii- xxxii. 23See P, Letters to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (cit. note 22), pp. xxvi-xxxii, for an exhaustive catalogue of sources, although the opera by von Weber (Abu Hassan, first performed in 1811) is not mentioned. 24P, Letters (cit. note 12), 160:33-35. 368 Fales

We have not heard anything from the since the king my lord returned to Assyria. All is well.25

We might go even as far as to think, at this point, that most of the abundant cor- respondence that the Assyrian palaces have yielded for us, was conceived, written by military or civilians, and painstakingly sent by messenger over long distances, in order to fulfill one single, basic, imperative: that of the mas. s. artu. In point of fact, however, the letters directly or indirectly relevant to the operation of mas. s. artu–i.e., stemming from people who were formal or informal collaborators of the Assyrian Crown–have a clear and full counterpart with those bearing supplications “from below” directed to the king, i.e., from people asking for royal protection and favors–the so-called “clients” of the Assyrian ruler26. But in any case, many hundreds of the almost 3,000 letters from the Assyrian empire which have come down to us go decidedly back to the will to communicate to the ruler-immovable in his centrality and absolute power-every single event outside of the most rigid routine that took place in the mutable and varied periph- ery of the empire27. Thus, for example, one Sarru-emuranni,˘ once having been made governor of the eastern province of Mazamua, went so far as to renounce his birth ties to the local , in order to assert that observance of the mas. s. artu for the Assyrian king constituted his only guiding principle:

Verily, I am not the son of the city-lord of Qumbuna, [but only] a domestic slave, a servant of the king my lord! The king my lord has appointed me over Qumbuna, [and]I tell everything I see and hear to the king my lord. I hide nothing to the king.28

Counter to some of the oldest interpretations, mas. s. artu should in no way be viewed as a formalized task of internal control assigned to a specific office or force. Rather, it was a practical-ethical imperative with broadly political implications–somewhat like the tenet of “identifying dangers for national security” which is propounded nowadays– to be applied both to the domestic sector and to foreign relations, to city and to coun- tryside, to military and civilians alike. Mas. s. artu was thus in practice a collective mechanism–possibly even, we might say, an ingrained mental habit–of alertness against untoward behavior of any type, of greater or smaller import as the case may be: from unruly personal conduct to social unrest, from simple insubordination to overtly hostile acts against king and country–even to unexpected natural phenomena occurring in the land. The implications of mas. s. artu in this sense are hinted at by a provincial governor, in concluding a letter to king Sargon concerning an earthquake, which had luckily had scarce consequences:

25S. P, The Correspondence of Sargon, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West, Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1987, 174. 26I owe this definition to my colleague Dr. Karen Radner, University College , to whom I am grateful. 27S. P, Royal Decisions and Courtiers’ Compliance: on Some Formulae in Neo-Assyrian and Neo- Babylonian Letters, “State Archives of Assyria Bulletin”, 3, 1989, pp. 115-128. 28G. B. L-S. P, The Correspondence of Sargon, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces, Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990, 243:Rev. 4-11. Observation of Astronomical Phenomena in Assyria 369

The king my lord will hear many voices [on this event] tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and might say, “Why did you not write, since you were aware?” That is why I am now writing to the king my lord.29

4. The Consequences of Mas. s. artu: The 7th-Century Evolution towards Science

From this observation of an earthquake we may proceed to final questions and conclud- ing remarks. Should a structural link be seen to connect the two notions of mas. s. artu that we have examined in brief above, and if so, which? What linked the technical sphere of the astrological-astronomical vigil performed by professionals concerning the heavens to the diffuse surveillance that every Assyrian was expected to effect on neighbours, colleagues, bordering peoples, and so forth? On one hand, we find a set of already refined and complex techniques of celestial observation that would lead in the next few centuries to the progressive rationalization and clarification of the overall discipline towards astronomy-based mathematics; on the other hand, we have to deal with customs of general surveillance which would seem to make the Assyrian empire the precursor of the many “police states” of the Near East of today. At first sight, the two studied definitions of mas. s. artu would seem to have more traits of opposition than of analogy. But in fact, things stand rather differently, and the two typologies of observations how many points in common, within the context of the policy and prospects of the As- syrian state during the 7th century BC. The “heavenly” mas. s. artu aimed at the search for ominous signs in the sky–signs which could, as e.g., did the eclipses, portend evil and disruption for the ruling dynasty of Assyria, the first “world” empire. In parallel, the “earthly” mas. s. artu aimed at the search for signs of untoward behavior within the very fabric of that empire–behavior which could, if not faced and controlled, possibly lead to acts of evil or disruption for the ruling dynasty. In both cases, the king needed to be informed by means of written reports; it was he, all said and done, who was uniquely entitled to take matters in hand, seeking remedies for any negative outcome together with his most faithful courtiers. To watch the sky constantly, in search for possible al- terations in the heavenly texture affecting the king, corresponded to keeping constantly one’s eyes and ears open in the vast territory of the state, in search for possible alter- ations in the social and political texture which could affect the king. The two mas. s. artus thus reflect, in point of fact, the combined preoccupations of an imperial dynasty which saw its end slowly approaching, and which needed to be constantly reassured on its “hold” over things-even by the goddess Ishtar, whom we find prophesying to Esarhaddon through the mouth of a priestess that the deities themselves are standing guard, with a powerful mas. s. artu, for his sake: The watch over all the lands is very strong. Sixty gods are standing at my right, sixty gods at my left. Esarhaddon, king of Assyria!I will vanquish your ene- mies.30

All said and done, however, the basic correspondence of the two mas. s. artus may be traced back to the principles of Mesopotamian astrology-astronomy itself. One of

29P, Correspondence of Sargon. Part I (cit. note 25), 125:Rev. 8-15 30P, Assyrian Prophecies (cit. note 6), 2:I,20’-23’. 370 Fales the central passages from the Babylonian text called the “diviner’s manual” from Sar- gonid Nineveh aptly summarizes the Mesopotamian attitude toward astrology, both in its traditional foundations, dating as far back as the early 2th millennium, and in its innovative thrusts, which begin in the 7th century BC, leading toward the first formu- lations of astronomical science31. As may be seen, this text implicitly explains why a heavenly and an earthly “watch” were in no way contradictory:

The signs on earth just as those in the sky give us signals. / Sky and earth both produce portents; / though appearing separately, they are not separate [because] sky and earth are related. A sign that portends evil in the sky is [also] evil on earth; / one that portends evil on earth is evil in the sky.32

31In particular, from the Neo-Assyrian period onward, Mesopotamian astrology shows an accelerated de- velopment in techniques of observation leading to the progressive rationalization and specification of this discipline in the direction of mathematics-based astronomy. Two different moments mark this veritable revolution in knowledge (D. B, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology, Groningen, Styx, 2000), which constituted the first step toward an understanding of the physical mechanism of the uni- verse (S, The Babylonian Theory of the Planets (cit. note 7), pp. 23-32). The first turning point occurred in perhaps as early as the BC (under king Nabonassar, 747-734 BC), and was marked by the beginnings of astronomical “diaries”. These punctual registrations, which were performed–on the basis of estimate and later of calculus–on a yearly, monthly or even daily basis, re- garded the movements of the Moon, Sun, and stars complemented by geographical information and on the variations in prices. These diaries were used–during some 600 years–for the compilation of a series of chronological tables of lunar and planetary phenomena, which seem to have constituted some of the chronographic materials used by Ptolemy in his Almagest (J. B-C. B. F. W, Astronomy and Astrology in Mesopotamia, in C. B. F. W (ed.), Astronomy Before the Telescope, London, Press, 1996, pp. 42-67:50-51). In practice, therefore, through the “diaries”, the observation of the heavens came to link up with the concept of diachrony, and more widely with the flow of political and social history (cf. W. W. H, The Nabonassar Era and Other Epochs in Mesopotamian Chronology and Chronography, in E. L  . (eds.), A Scientific Humanist: Studies in Memory of Abraham Sachs, Philadelphia, The University Museum, 1988, pp. 175-190). The second development–which took place around 500 BC, but whose premises may also be traced to the court of the last Sargonids–led instead to the founding of a real astral science based on calculus. Generally speaking, the constant registration of the dates of heliacal rising of the constellations led to an exact prediction of eclipses and of the periodicity of heliacal events of individual planets, and to the creation of systems for measuring distances in space, as well as of mathematical artifacts for calendrical calculus, and for variations / margins of error in the evaluation of astral periods. All this will also yield the scientific-practical construct of the zodiac with twelve constellations, used to express astral distances, from which will derive–as well as an innovative branch of divination, the horoscope–the computation of detailed ephemerides of heliacal and synodic phenomena of the Moon and planets. Here, also, different results (especially the lunar theory) were taken outright by Hellenistic astronomy and acted as a foundations for the Greek astronomical revolution based on geometry (B-W, Astronomy and Astrology in Mesopotamia (cit. this note), pp. 51-52). It is essentially undisputed that the official Mesopotamian divination (and, primarily, astrology) led at the end of its bi-millennial process to the decipherment of all the signs of heaven and earth, in a construct of totally scientific character, the results of which influence us still nowadays. 32A. L. O, ABabylonian Diviner’s Manual, “Journal of Near Eastern Studies”, 33, 1974, p. 200:38-42.