320 On Scriptural and profane Accounts 
Rhea and Juno, are at bottom the same, one 
and the same great female divinity being 
worshipped by different nations under these 
various names. ‘The dove was sacred to Se- 
miramis, because, as was pretended, she had 
been nourished by doves, and at her death 
disappeared under the form of a dove; but 
really because that bird was an emblem of pro- 
ductiveness, and therefore sacred to Venus, - 
with whom Semiramis was the same, as with 
the other goddesses already enumerated. The 
story of Venus changing herself into a fish 
on the banks of the Euphrates, identifies her 
with Atargatis the fishformed goddess, who 
was Derceto and Semiramis. (77) Hence 
the priests of Hierapolis religiously abstain- 
ed from eating fish. The extraordinary 
mixture of opposite qualities and inconsis- 
tent actions in the life of Semiramis, receive 
an easy solution from a reference to her my- 
thological character. Her masculine man- 
ners and dress of a male (**) are quite in 
harmony with what we observed before of 
the mixed sex and habit of this great fe- 
male divinity; her unbounded lust with the 
character of Venus or Mylitta, the represen- 
tative of the productive powers of nature, 
whose rites, at first symbolical, degenerated 
into occasions of thé grossest licentiousness. 
