6° of south latitude—with the gods’ negative
associations. Mars was thus known as “he who is
constantly wandering about,” “the angry fire
god,” or “the god of war.” According to Nick
Campion, Mars’s malefic qualities were thought
to be heightened when it was bright (and there-
fore closest to the earth), diminished when it
was faint, and when at its reddest could signify
prosperity but also epidemics. The Babylonian
legend of Irra speaks of the gods’ attempt to
overthrow Marduk, the patron god of the Baby-
lonians. In it, Irra lures the god of good (Mar-
duk) into the underworld and seizes the reigns
of power on Earth. As the new ruler of humans,
the god perverts their minds and gets them to
war against each other so that he may attain his
goal to destroy and annihilate Earth. When
Marduk returns from the underworld, he finds
his worshippers slain and his cities in ruins. In
his book History of the Planets,Powell said:
The poem ends with an exhorta-
tion to mankind to appease the
evil god by allotting a place in
their cult to his service, so that he
may spare them from another cat-
astrophe like the one described.
The subject matter of the legend
as well as its treatment implies
that, in his quality as a planet,
the patron god was unable to pro-
tect the community of his wor-
shippers during his periods of
absences from the nocturnal sky.
Thus, the Babylonians recognized the need to tame the dangerous, warlike
qualities of life by including the god into the sphere of human affairs. This may be
looked at as a psychological metaphor for the pacification of man’s wrathful and
destructive side through its integration into the psyche.
In another story, Nergal stormed into the land of the dead, deposed Ereshkigal,
the queen of the underworld, and set himself up as ruler. A variation of the story has
him having a passionate affair with her and ruling the underworld alongside her. This
second version mirrors the story of Hades and Persephone, king and queen of the
netherworld in Greek mythology. Both of these stories therefore connect the planet
Mars with rulership over the underworld, a role that was given to Pluto (Hades) by
modern astrologers since the planet bore the name of the Roman god of the under-
world. Until modern times, when astrologers assigned the rulership of the sign ScorpioMars
[426] THEASTROLOGYBOOK
An illustration of the Roman god Mars in his chariot
from the 1494 edition of Astrolabum Planum.
Reproduced by permission of Fortean Picture Library.