PRIMITFVE HISTORY OP THE lONIANS, 413 



tliat tlie Septuagint version of Jeremiah renders tlie word Jonah, 

 which our translators of the Bible have found to be derived from the 

 verb Janah to 02yj)Tess, by the Greek " Hellenike or Hellenic," so that 

 ^' the oppressing sword" of Jeremiah xlvi. 16., 1. 16, becomes "the 

 Hellenic sword." With the Seventy, therefore, the Jonah designated 

 the Ionian people, and, as the enemy represented by the sword was 

 the Babylonian nation under Nebuchadnezzar, they must have recog- 

 nized some identity between. Babylonians and lonians. Bryant cites 

 also a passage from the Chronicon Paschale, in which the lonians 

 are spoken of as a colony from Babel, and another from Joannes 

 Antiochenus to the same effect, which states lil^ewise that the lonians 

 were' instructed by Joannes, one of the i*ace of giants.®" The same 

 author indulges in some ingenious speculations regarding the Jonah 

 or dove of Babylonia, which he connects with the Hellenic traditions. 

 In these speculations Bryant has been followed by many writers of 

 repute in England, France and Germany, and any one who Avishes to 

 see an authoritative reference to the emblem of the dove in its mytho- 

 logical connections, will find it in an essay of Sir Gardner Wilkin- 

 son's, in which Athor of Egypt, Atargatis^ of Syria, and Semiramis 

 of Babylonia are found together with this ancient symbol.^ Athor, 

 let it be remembered, is Atarah, the mother of Onam. 



I have already referred to Miss Fanny Corbeaux' identification of 

 the Egyptian An, On, or Onnos with the Oanjies of Chaldea. The 

 figui'e of a fish represented the Egyptian An, and Cannes or Anu 

 has been universally recognized as the fish-god of Babylonia, who 

 connects intimately with Atargatis or Athara, the fish-goddess of 

 Syria, his mother. I need not repeat the story of Cannes as given 

 by Berosus, which must be familiar to all who will find any interest 

 in the researches of this paper. His coming into Babylonia from the 

 Erythraean sea, marks either an eastern exte^ision of the kingdom of 

 Onam or the period of expulsion from Egypt, when, from Arabia 

 Petraea, his descendants spread eastward towards the home of their 

 ancestors. It is not difiicult to trace the names of the families of 

 Onam in those of the successors of Oannes, although these are not 

 always mentioned in their proper order. The only member of the 

 line of Shammai that finds a place among them is Anodaphus, or 

 Nadab, his eldest son. Jadag, however, who is the true Dagon, is 



«5 Ih. V. 8, 16. 



^s Rawlinson's Herodotus, App. Book iii. Essay 1. 



