Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

128 TRAITS OF FISHERMEN—DEITIES OF FISHINGEgyptian goddess, in mind when he penned his famous comparisonfor an incoherent simile ": Desinit in piscem muUerformosa superne."Coins of HierapoUs in Cyrrhestica often show Atargatisriding on a lion or enthroned between two lions, i sometimeswith the legend eEAC CYPIAC, 'of the Syrian goddess.'Strabo (XVI. 27, p. 748) tells us that this city worshipped theSyrian goddess Atargatis, who [Ibid., p. 785) according toKtesias the historian was called also Derceto.2Another reason for abstention from fish,apart from theirsacredness to the goddess, we owe to Antipater of Tarsus. ^Gatis, queen of Syria, developed such a passion for fish thatshe issued a proclamation forbidding their being eaten withouther being invited {artp randog). Hence the common peoplethought her name was Atargatis and abstained wholly fromfish.Mnaseas * assigns to her the deserved and not inappropriatefate of being thrown into her own lake near Ascalon anddevoured by fishes. ^ But against this legend must be placedthe fact that Atargatis, in common with many Asian deitiesand cults translated westward, found sanctuarj'' and highveneration, in her case at Delos.^^ See Brit. Mus. Cat. of Coins, Galatia, pi. 18, 14, or B. V. Head, HistoriaNumorum^ (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 usualattribute. The Triton on which she stands expresses her marine nature.Ovid, Met. IV. 44" De te, Babylonia, narret,Derceti, quam versa squamis velantibus artusStagna Palaestini credunt celebrasse figura."Although Roscher's Diet, of Myth, does not in the long article devoted toIsis specify her as fish-tailed, Isis is distinctly identified with Atargatis ofBambyke in Papyrus Oxyr., 1380, line 100 f., kv fiavfivKti 'Arapydrtt. Cf. alsoPliny, V. 19 : Ibi (Syria) prodigiosa Atargatis, Graecis autem Derceto dicta,colitur.' De Superstitione, Bk. IV., quoted by Athen., VIII. 37.* History 0/ Asia, Bk. I., quoted ibid. VIII. 37.^ According to an inscription at Smyrna, H. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionumGrcscarum. (Lipsise, 1900), ii. 284 f., No. 584, a violator of the sacred fishwas forthwith punished by all sorts of misfortunes and finally was eaten upby fish. If one of these fish died, an offering must on the self-same day beburnt on the altar. Cf. Newton. Gk. Inscript., 85.* Keller, op. cit., 345.