124 TRAITS OF FISHERMEN—DEITIES OF FISHING 
The point of the pleasantry is akin to the caustic defence 
offered on behalf of a Jewish portrait painter, ‘‘ as none of the 
pictures are /ikenesses, he is guiltless of breaking the Second 
Commandment !”’ 
Ovid’s pretty fancy to account for the Syrian abstention 
doubtless hangs together with the Greek conception of Atargatis 
and Aphrodite being one and the same. When the Giants 
revolted against the Gods, Venus fleeing with Cupid reaches, 
but is stayed by, the Euphrates: thither, Palestine margine 
aque, in answer to her piteous plaints to heaven above and 
earth below, two fish approach and convey mother and child 
safely across the flood.! 
“Inde nefas ducunt genus hoc imponere mensis 
Nec violant timidi piscibus ora Syri.” 
Fasti, II. 473-4. 
But other books, other legends! for the same author (in 
Met., V. 331) tells us that in the battle Venus changes herself 
into a fish. 
Ktesias gives another account.2 Derceto by the wiles of 
Aphrodite “fell in love with a beautiful young man and was 
brought to bed of a daughter: being ashamed of what she had 
done, she slew the young man, exposed in the desert the 
child (who, fed with milk and then with cheese by pilfering 
pigeons, grew up to become the famous Semiramis) and then 
cast herself into the lake at Ascalon and was transformed into 
a fish—whence it came to pass that at this very day the 
Syrians eat no fishes, but adore them as gods” (Booth’s 
Trans.). 
Of the instances of calliditas or shrewd wit of fishermen, 
the story (supra) of the fisher lads’ answer to Homer and the 
following from Alciphron (I. 16) must suffice, although from 
ZEsop, etc., many others can be gleaned. The whole passage 
is far too long for quotation, but the final retort of the fisher, 
1 In gratitude for the part played by certain fish in bringing to the banks 
of the Euphrates the egg, from which came Aphrodite, Zeus placed fishes 
among the stars—hence the Pisces. Diognetos of Erythrai ap. Hyg., poet. 
astr., 2. 30, make these ‘‘ certain fish’ Venus and Cupid. Cf. Myth. Vat., I. 
86. 
2 Cf. Diod. Sic., II. 20. 
