128 TRAITS OF FISHERMEN— DEITIES OF FISHING 



Egyptian goddess, in mind when he penned his famous com- 

 parison for an incoherent simile : " Desinit in piscem muher 

 formosa supeme." 



Coins of Hierapohs in Cyrrhestica often show Atargatis 

 riding on a Hon or enthroned between two Hons,i sometimes 

 with the legend GEAC CYPIAC, 'of the Syrian goddess.' 

 Strabo (XVI. 27, p. 748) tells us that this city worshipped the 

 Syrian goddess Atargatis, who {Ihid., p. 785) according to 

 Ktesias the historian was called also Derceto.2 



Another reason for abstention from fish, apart from their 

 sacredness to the goddess, we owe to Antipater of Tarsus. ^ 

 Gatis, queen of Syria, developed such a passion for fish that 

 she issued a proclamation forbidding their being eaten without 

 her being invited {anp Tortgoc). Hence the common people 

 thought her name was Atargatis and abstained wholly from 

 fish. 



Mnaseas * assigns to her the deserved and not inappropriate 

 fate of being thrown into her own lake near Ascalon and 

 devoured by fishes. & But against this legend must be placed 

 the fact that Atargatis, in common with many Asian deities 

 and cults translated westward, found sanctuary and high 

 veneration, in her case at Delos.^ 



^ See Brit. Mus. Cat. of Coins, Galatia, pi. iS, 14, or B. V. Head, Historia 

 Ntononmi^ (Oxford, 191 1), p. 777. 



* For Derketo, standing on a Triton, on coins of Ascalon, see G. F. Hill, 

 Catalogue of The Greek Coins of Palestine (London, 1914), pp. Iviii. f., 130 f., 

 PI. XIII. 21. The dove in the right hand of the goddess is her very usual 

 attribute. The Triton on which she stands expresses her marine nature. 

 Ovid, Met. IV. 44 : 



" De te, Babylonia, narret, 

 Derceti, quam versa squamis velantibus artus 

 Stagna Palaestini credunt celebrasse figura." 

 Although Roscher's Diet, of Myth, does not in the long article devoted to 

 Isis specify her as fish-tailed, Isis is distinctly identified with Atargatis of 

 Bambyke in Papyrus Oxyr., 1380, line 100 f., kv ^avfivKr, 'ArapydTd. Cf. also 

 Pliny, V. 19 : Ibi (Syria) prodigiosa Atargatis, Graecis autem Derceto dicta, 

 coHtur. 



3 De Super stitione, Bk. IV., quoted by Athen., VIII. 2,7- 



* History of Asia, Bk. I., quoted ibid. VIII. 37. 



* According to an inscription at Smyrna, H. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscrip- 

 tionum Gracarum. (Lipsice, 1900), ii. 284 f., No. 584, a violator of the sacred fish 

 was forthwith punished by all sorts of misfortunes and finally wa,s eaten up 

 by fish. If one of these fish died, an ofiering must on the self-same day be 

 burnt on the altar. Cf. Newton, Gk. Inscript., 85. 



* Keller, op. cit., 345. 



