The Lovers Of Mylitta.

THE LOVERS OF MYLITTA

A new day was in the offing. A placenta-red sky slowly emerged from the dark horizon, and in its wake a translucent orange orb pierced the sterile firmament as it initiated its eastern ascent.

The encroaching light swept everything in its path, interrupted only by low mud dwellings and a ziggurat with its attending temple reigning imposingly over the Babylonian landscape. The tall structure, with its massive brick walls, loomed heavily over its surrounding as the long shadows of dawn desperately clung to the remnants of their midnight empire. As the tide of darkness reluctantly receded, a lone figure sprung to light, sprawled upon the dusty ground.

Tummaz could feel the radiant warmth slowly envelop him. The morning had not come too soon, for rest beneath the frigid stars was not comfortable. Gazing at the portico of the temple, he relished the thought of soon sleeping under a roof, anticipating the end of ordeal which lay within the temple walls. The last task required for his enfranchisement was at hand.

He pulled his tall husky frame upright against his body’s protest – it still felt the abuse received in the long bloody hours of battle and the subsequent trek back to Babylon. His limbs ached in every tendon and the cuts and bruises were still painful.

It had all started when he had finally saved the fifteen shekels required for the purchase of his freedom. But this was only the first step, for he then had to prove his worth to Babylon. It meant accomplishing two tasks prescribed by the head temple priest. The images of his first ordeal were still vividly imprinted upon his memory.

They had met the Egyptians at Carchemish, near the Euphrates, in sundrenched fields. Nebuchadnezzar led the Babylonian army in the battle that would seal the fate of his people. A defeat would have meant a return to the vassalage of olden days. Their hard-won victory had securred control of trade from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea.

Tummaz had done well in the confrontation: he had disposed of many of the enemy, even slaying an Egyptian commander, whose adornments he had stripped as proof of the deed. That completed the first part of his schedule.

But it had not been easy as the battle had been long and bloody and many sons and husbands, did not return to their loved ones. He could still see the corpse-ridden fields of the encounter in his mind; how peaceful and serene it seemed as one heard the song of passing birds, the only sign of continuing life. The shock came the following morning. Tummaz felt revulsion as he viewed the battleground strewn with naked bodies: the local peasants had stripped the dead soldiers of everything the pilfering soldiers had left behind, leaving the fertile landscape blooming with crimson-stained flesh. (As a freedman he would no longer be denied the privilege of participating in such carnal distractions.) But all of this was of little importance now as a new life loomed before him. He had but one more task to accomplish before securing his freedom; he was required to make love to a woman who lay within the confines of the temple of Mylitta. This task would perhaps prove the hardest yet.

At one time in her life every woman of the city must lay in the temple and sexually accommodate a stranger. Wealth could not buy one’s way out, for all women regardless of station, were required to discharge this sacred duty to Mylitta, the goddess of love.

The woman sits in the temple, wearing a crown of cord round her head. The stranger follows the indicated passages that leads to where a woman is to be found, surveys the crop and makes his choice. When a woman is in the temple she cannot return to her home until a stranger has thrown a piece of silver into her lap reciting the prescribed words: “I beseech the Goddess Mylitta to favour Thee”; then, taking her outside, he makes love to her. She must refuse no one, neither for his looks nor for the value of his silver. Her obligations being thus fulfilled she is permitted to return to her family. It naturally follows that the more seductive participants are quickly set free, but the ugly or deformed could be detained for years, living on the alms of the fane.