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 mulier 
formosa superne.” 
Coins of Hierapolis in Cyrrhestica often show Atargatis 
riding on a lion or enthroned between two lions,! sometimes 
with the legend @EAC CYPIAC, ‘of the Syrian goddess.’ 
Strabo (XVI. 27, p. 748) tells us that this city worshipped the 
Syrian goddess Atargatis, who (Ibid., p. 785) according to 
Ktesias the historian was called also Derceto.? 
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 (arep T'avdoc). 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.6 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.® 
1 See Brit. Mus. Cat. of Coins, Galatia, pl. 18, 14, or B. V. Head, Historia 
Numorum? (Oxford, 1911), p. 777: 
2 For Derketo, standing on a Triton, on coins of Ascalon, see G. F. Hill, 
Catalogue of The Greek Cotns of Palestine (London, 1914), pp. lviii. f., 130 f£., 
Pl. 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 Palestini credunt celebrasse figura.” 
Although Roscher’s Dict. 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., ty BavBuxn ’Atapydre:. Cf. also 
Pliny, V. 19: Ibi (Syria) prodigiosa Atargatis, Grecis autem Derceto dicta, 
colitur. 
3 De Superstitione, Bk. IV., quoted by Athen., VIII. 37. 
4 History of Asia, Bk. I., quoted #bid. VIII. 37. 
5 According to an inscription at Smyrna, H. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscrip- 
tionum Grecarum. (Lipsiz, 1900), ii. 284 f., No. 584, a violator of the sacred fish 
was forthwith punished by all sorts of misfortunes and finally was eaten up 
by fish. If one of these fish died, an offering must on the self-same day be 
burnt on the altar. Cf. Newton, Gé. Inscript., 85. 
® Keller, op. cit., 345. 
