Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

426 FISH NOT IN SACRIFICE OR AUGURYsometimes identified with Astarte and with Atargatis ^—undoubtedlya fishgoddess—Ichthyolatry has been claimed forIsrael.But Cheyne, after showing that the mistake of identificationarose from Carnaim, where (Maccabees v. 26) the temple ofATARGATIS.From a coin of Hierapolis.See Brit. Mus. Cat. of Coins,Galatia, PI. i8. 14, or B.V.Head, Historia Numorum *(Oxford, 191 1), p. 777. ForAtargatis, see ante, 127.apparently the name,Atargatis stood, being also called (Gen.xiv. 5) Ashtoreth-Carnaim, disputesthe deduction, and denies that thesegoddesses were one and the same.He points out that at Ascalonthere were two separate temples, oneto Astarte (Ashtoreth) and one toAtargatis (Derceto), standing side byside. 2Ashtoreth were considered identical. ^Milton, at any rate, evinces no doubt,Strabo, however, states (XVI. p.748) that in Hierapolis, or Bambyce,or Magog, " there was worshipped theSyrian goddess Atargatis," and onp. 785 that this same goddess is calledby the historian Ctesias Derceto, andby others Athara. In Strabo's dayif not the cult, of Atargatis and" Came Ashtoreth, whom the Phoenicians calledAstarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns :In Sion also not unsung, where stoodHer temple on the offensive Mount." ** For data on Atargatis and Derceto, and for various Syrian coins bearingfish, see J. B. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, III. pp. 503-4 (Paris, 1855).* Ency. Bibl., p. 379.^ In Some Palestinian Cults in the Greek and Roman Age (Proceedings ofBritish Academy, vol. V. p. 9), Mr. G. F. Hill, speaking of the worship in thetwo cities, concludes that the one at Ascalon is identified by Herodotus withLucianthat of Aphrodite Urania, and that at Gaza with Derceto, or Atargatis.(if he wrote De dea Syria) distinguishes the goddess of Ascalon from her ofHierapolis, who was worshipped in human not semi-human form, but there islittle doubt of the connection between them. The Greeks identified both withAphrodite. Other writers state that the Canaanite Ashtoreth, pre-eminentlythe goddess of reproduction and fecundity, became the goddess of fish (which,as sacred to her, were forbidden food) and of the pomegranate, both of whichfrom their thousands of eggs or seeds are striking emblems of fertility.* Graf Wolf von Baudissin in Hauck's Protestantische RealencycL, 3rd ed..