Read Ebook: Fishes Flowers & Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths & Worship of the Ancient Religions of Greece Babylon Rome India &c. by Anonymous

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 217 lines and 41922 words, and 5 pages

PAGE.

Frequent occurrence of the Fish Symbol--Fish Heraldry--Earliest devices--Fish devices on Churches and other public buildings--The Catacombs--Ichthus--Fish devices at Glastonbury Abbey, &c.--The Book-fish--Glasgow Fish-arms--The Fish and the Ring Story of Scotland--Solomon and the Fish and Ring--The Hermit's Fish Pond of St. Neot's--The Sacred Perch--The Dolphin--Neptune.

The Ancient Sacred Fish--Fish diet and its supposed effects--Fish and the Jews--The God Krodo--Oanes--Dagon--The Fish-god at Nimrod--Khorsabad--Fish Worship in Syria--Temple of Dagon at Azotus--The Dagon of the Bible--Adramelech--Abstinence from Fish-food--Ancient character of Fish Worship--"Paradise Lost"-- The Irish demi-god Phin--The Fish as a Christian Symbol--Idea involved in Fish Worship--Holy Fish Ponds--Ancient Caledonian objections to Fish--Other anti-fish-eating nations--Ishtar.

Universal Love of Flowers--Indifference to Flowers--Excessive Love of Flowers leading to adoration--Myths and Legends connected with Flowers--The Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle, Silene inflata, Clover--The Hundred-leaved Rose--Worship of Lily species--Signification of the Lotos--Hermaphroditic character of the Lotos--The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part played by the Lotus during its instigation.

Importance of the Lotos--Varieties of Lotos--Statements by Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Athenaeus and others--The arborescent Lotos--The Sacred Lotos of the Nile--The Indian Lotos--Nepaulese adoration of the Lotos-- Shing-moo, the Chinese Holy Mother--Lakshmi--The Queens of Beauty--The Loves of Krishna and Radha.

Story of the Fire-god and his Secret--Growth of Fire Worship-- Fire an essential in Hindoo Worship--The Chaldeans--The Persians--The Hebrews--Fire in Hindu Ceremonies--Duties of Hindu Life--The Serpent and Fire--Phallo-Pythic Solar Shrines-- Fire and Phallic Worship--Leaping through fire--Fire-treading in Scotland--Fire-leaping in Russia--The Medes as Fire Worshippers--The Sabines--Fire and the Ancient Christians--The Roman Church and Fire--The Jews--Temple of Vesta--Fire Worship in Ireland--Phallo-fire-worship of the Greeks and Romans.

Fire Worship in the States of the Mediterranean--Special sacredness of the Public City-fire of Greece and Rome--The Sacred Fire of Tlachtga--Ceylon Fire Worship--The Parsees-- Persian Monuments--Impiety of Cambyses--Cingalese Terms, Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.--The Yule Log--Fire Worship in England-- Fire of Beltane--Druidical Fires--May-day Fires--November Fires in Ireland--Between two Fires--Scotland--The Summer Solstice-fire Ceremonies--Worship of Baal in Ireland--St. John's Day-- Bonfires--Decree of Council of Constantinople.

Paradise Lost and Moloch--The God of the Ammonites--The slaughter of Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures--Fire Ceremonies and Moloch--Sacred Fire of the Phoenicians--The Carthaginians-- Custom of Oziese--Sardinian Customs and Moloch--The Cuthites-- Persian Fire Worship--House-fires of Greece and Rome--Sacred Books of the East--Laws of Manu--The Rig Veda and Hymns to Agni, the God of Fire--Vesta, Worship of--The Magi--Zoroaster.

FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE.

It is not unlikely that the vast numbers of fishes and their great variety may have had much to do with their employment in this connection; some years ago the British Museum contained fifteen hundred different species, while the museum in Paris--one unusually rich in specimens of this part of the animal kingdom--possessed as many as five thousand, a number which has steadily gone on increasing. "As the symbol of a name, almost all fish have been used in Heraldry; and in many instances fish have been assumed in arms in reference to the produce of the estate, giving to the quaint device a twofold interest. They are borne upright and extended, and when feeding are termed devouring; Allum?, when their eyes are bright, and Parn? when their mouths are open."

"The earliest known device of fish, the zodiacal sign, is emblematical of the fishery of the Nile, commencing in the month of February, about the time when the sun enters Pisces, which is the best season for fishing, according to Pliny. Modern travellers relate that the walls of the temple of Denderah are literally covered with magnificent sculpture and painting. The figures representing the Zodiac are on the ceiling of the portico, and are engraved in the great work on Egypt published by order of the French Government. The signs of the Zodiac were frequently sculptured on the exterior of ancient churches, presenting a sort of rural calendar for the labours of the field each month in the year, which was of practical use.

'When in the Zodiac the fish wheel round, They loose the floods and irrigate the ground.'

"In his directions to the husbandman for the month of February, old Tusser says:

'To the coast, man, ride, Lent stuff provide;'

with another couplet in encouragement of the fisherman,

'The land doth will, the sea doth wish, Spare sometimes flesh, and feed off fish.'

"The Zodiacal signs also appear as an ornament on antique vases, coins, pavements, &c., and are painted in bright colours on the inside of several mummy cases now in the British Museum. A manuscript in the Cottonian Library shows the sign Pisces having a connecting line from the tail of each fish."

On many churches and other buildings both in England and on the continent the same device is found. The porch of the Virgin at Notre Dame at Paris has a number of compartments representing the zodiacal signs and the labours of the different months. The doorway of the church of St. Margaret, York, is similarly adorned, as is one of the porches of Merton College, Oxford. The western doorway of Iffley Church, said to be one of the most beautiful specimens of Anglo-Norman architecture in England, bears the sign of the fishes.

In Canterbury Cathedral also is a pavement of large stones, somewhat rudely inlaid, bearing figures of the zodiacal signs in circular compartments. The fishes are attached by a line passing from mouth to mouth.

In the Roman Catacombs the fish is frequently found amongst the countless inscriptions with which the walls are crowded. Maitland describes it as there found as a symbol expressive of the name of Christ, and remarkable as affording a combination of everything desirable in a tessera, or mystic sign. The Greek for fish, ?????, contains the initials of ??????, ??????? ???? ???? ?????: Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour; a sentence which had been adopted from the sibylline verses. Moreover the phonetic sign of this word, the actual fish, was an emblem whose meaning was entirely concealed from the uninitiated: an important point with those who were surrounded by foes ready to ridicule and blaspheme whatever of Christianity they could detect. Nor did the appropriateness of the symbol stop here. "The fish," observed Tertullian, "seems a fit emblem of Him whose spiritual children are, like the offspring of fishes, born in the water of baptism."

"Fish" says Moule, "have often been made the vehicle of religious instruction, and for this purpose all the fine arts have been put in requisition. Amongst many pictures by the first masters in which the finny tribe are introduced, that of Saint Anthony, of Padua, preaching to the fish, may be mentioned. This fine picture, by Salvator Rosa, is in the collection at Althorp House, in Northamptonshire; the sermon itself is given in Addison's Travels in Italy.

"On the conventual seal of Glastonbury Abbey are represented the figures of Saint Dunstan between Saint Patrick and Saint Benignus; each has his emblem beneath his feet; the last has a party of fish: perhaps, adds the historian of the abbey, he also preached to them, as Saint Anthony did.

"A fish furnishing the University of Cambridge with a religious feast was the occasion of a tract, entitled 'Vox Piscis; or, the Book-fish;' containing three treatises which were found inside a cod fish in Cambridge market, on Midsummer Eve, 1676. This fish is said to have been taken in Lynn deeps, and after finding a book within it, the fish was carried by the bedel to the vice-chancellor; and coming as it did at the commencement, the very time when good learning and good cheer were most expected, it was quaintly remarked, that this sea guest had brought his book and his carcass to furnish both.

Some of the early bishops of Glasgow displayed the figure of a salmon, either on the sides of or below the shield of arms on their seals, a circumstance which may be accounted for, without reference to a miracle, as depicting the produce of the Clyde. The revenue of the church of Glasgow at the Reformation included one hundred and sixty-eight salmon arising from the franchise or fishing in that river.

"It is curious to note how the emblem of the same fish has continued to enter into the composition of the Glasgow arms and those of the ecclesiastical establishment.

"The diocese of Glasgow was erected into an archbishopric in 1491, with Galloway, Argyll and the Isles as suffragans. James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow and abbot of Dumfermline, the uncle of Cardinal Beaton, died primate of Scotland in 1539. Many munificent marks of his public spirit and piety long resisted time, and remained after the cathedral ceremonies had been deserted for the plain offices of the kirk of Scotland.

"On the walls of the Episcopal Palace or Castle of Glasgow were sculptured the arms of Beaton--azure, a fess between three mascles, or, quartered with Balfour, argent, on a chevron sable and otter's head erased of the first, and below the shield, a salmon with a ring in its mouth, as represented on the seals of his predecessors.

"Another Archbishop Beaton re-founded the Scotch College at Paris in 1603, where, as a monument to his memory, are his arms, surmounted by the episcopal hat, and beneath the shield the fish and ring, the emblem of the see of Glasgow. In more recent times Archbishop Cairncross, in 1684, bore the arms of the see impaled with his paternal coat.

"The arms of the city of Glasgow are those of the former see, argent, on a mount a tree with a bird on a branch to the dexter, and a bell pendent on the sinister side, the stem of a tree surmounted by a salmon in fess having in its mouth a gold ring."

Dr. Dibdin says, "The legend of the 'Fish and the King,' is extant in well nigh every chap-book in Scotland; old Spotswood is among the earliest historians who garnished up the dish from the Latin monastic legends, and Messrs. Smith, McLellan and Cleland, have not failed to quote his words. They report of St. Kentigern, that a lady of good place in the country having lost her ring as she crossed the river Clyde, and her husband waxing jealous, as if she had bestowed the same on one of her lovers, she did mean herself unto Kentigern, entreating his help for the safety of her honour; and that he, going to the river after he had used his devotion, willed one who was making to fish, to bring the first that he caught, which was done. In the mouth of this fish he found the ring, and sending it to the lady, she was thereby freed of her husband's suspicion. The credit of this I believe upon the reporters; but however it be, the see and city of Glasgow do both of them bear in their arms a fish with a ring in its mouth even to this day."

Moule remarks that "the classical tale of Polycrates, related by Herodotus a thousand years before the time of St. Kentigern, is perhaps the earliest version of the fish and ring, which has often been repeated with variations. The ring, Herodotus says, was an emerald set in gold and beautifully engraved, the work of Theodorus the Samian; and this very ring, Pliny relates, was preserved in the Temple of Concord at Rome, to which it was given by the Emperor Augustus. The device of the fish is engraved in M. Claude Paradin's "Hervical Devices" as an emblem of uninterrupted prosperity."

"If we turn to chapter xxxviii. of Mahomet's Koran, we find the story of the fish and the ring in another form. The note upon the words--'We placed on his throne a counterfeit body,' says: 'The most received exposition of this passage is taken from the following Talmudic fable: Solomon, having taken Sidon, and slain the king of that city, brought away his daughter Jerada, who became his favourite; and because she ceased not to lament her father's loss, he ordered the devils to make an image of him for her consolation: which being done, and placed in her chamber, she and her maids worshipped it morning and evening, according to their custom. At length Solomon being informed of this idolatry, which was practised under his roof by his vizier, Asaf, he broke the image, and having chastised the woman went out into the desert, where he wept and made supplications to God; who did not think fit, however, to let his negligence pass without some correction. It was Solomon's custom, while he washed himself, to entrust his signet, on which his kingdom depended, with a concubine of his named Amina: one day, therefore, when she had the ring in her custody, a devil named Sakhar came to her in the shape of Solomon, and received the ring from her; by virtue of which he became possessed of the kingdom, and sat on the throne in the shape which he had borrowed, making what alterations in the law he pleased. Solomon, in the mean time, being changed in his outward appearance and known to none of his subjects, was obliged to wander about and beg alms for his subsistence; till at length, after the space of forty days, which was the time the image had been worshipped in his house, the devil flew away and threw the signet into the sea; the signet was immediately swallowed by a fish, which being taken and given to Solomon, he found the ring in its belly, and having by this means recovered the kingdom, took Sakhar, and, tying a great stone to his neck, threw him into the lake of Tiberias."

One of the windows of St. Neot's Church, Cornwall, contains the history of that saint known as the pious sacristan of Glastonbury Abbey, "perhaps," says Moule "the only instance of the legend of a local saint so represented, and one of the most splendid specimens of stained glass in the kingdom. The hermit's fish-pond, now remaining in the valley near his cell, afforded materials for one of the legendary tales now represented in the window. In this pool there were three fishes, of which Neot had divine permission to take one every day, with an assurance that the supply should never be diminished. Being afflicted with a severe indisposition, his disciple Barius one day caught two fishes, and having boiled one and broiled the other, placed them before him: 'What hast thou done?' exclaimed Neot; 'lo, the favour of God deserts us: go instantly and restore these fishes to the water.' While Barius was absent Neot prostrated himself in earnest prayer, till he returned with the intelligence that the fishes were disporting in the pool. Barius again went and took only one fish, of which Neot had no sooner tasted than he was restored to perfect health."

"The dolphin, as a most peculiarly sacred fish, was called Philanthropist by the ancients, and said to delight in music. It saved the great bard Arion when he threw himself into the Mediterranean on his way to Corinth, which event is said to have happened in the seventh century B.C., or about the time the story of Jonah arose. The Greeks placed the dolphin in their Zodiac. Burckhardt says in his travels in Nubia, that no one is permitted to throw a lance at or injure a dolphin in the Red Sea; and the same rule is enforced among most of the Greek islands.

"Neptune, the male sea-god of Rome, was identical with Poseidon of Greece, and his temples and festivals were in the Campus Martius. Poseidon was a brother of Jupiter and Pluto, and a mighty representative god-man of the waters, and of what the sea symbolised; his was the teeming womb of fertility, and therefore woman. His hosts are dolphins and innumerable sea-nymphs and monsters. His chariots are yoked with horses, which he is said to have created and taught men to manage. His symbol is the phallic trident, or rather the Trisool, or 'giver of life' of Siva, which can cleave rocks, produce water, and shake heaven and earth. The Nephthus of Egypt was the goddess of the coasts of the Red Sea and the wife of the wicked serpent deity Typhon. The Dolphin as a highly emblematic fish often stands for Neptune himself, although it probably first rose in importance from a mere punning on the words delphis a dolphin, and delphus the womb, and occasionally the pudenda. Delphax was also a young pig which was occasionally offered to Juno; Delphi was goddess Earth: symbolic chasm, and Delphinius was her Apollo, and from dolphin springs the name Delphin or Dauphin, the eldest son of the King of France."

"At the present time there are certain fish which are supposed to give greatly increased virile power to those who eat them. I have indistinct recollection of a similar fact having been recorded in Athenaeus, who quotes Theophrastus as his authority. The passage is to the effect, that a diet on a certain fish enabled an Indian prince to show one hundred proofs of his manhood in a single day. The same writer mentions goat's flesh as having something of the same effect. The Assyrian Oannes was represented as a man-fish, and the Capricorn or goat with fish tail, in the Zodiac, is said to have been an emblem of him.

"The fish was also associated with Isis, who, like Venus, represented the female element in creation. It was likewise a sacred emblem amongst the Buddhists.

"Since writing the above, I have ascertained that eating fish for supper, on Friday night, is a Jewish custom or institution. As amongst that nation fecundity is a blessing specially promised by the Omnipotent, so it is thought proper to use human means for ensuring the blessing on the day set apart by the Almighty. The Jewish Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday, and three meals are to be taken during the day, which are supposed to have a powerful aphrodisiac operation. The ingredients are meat and fish, garlic and pepper; and the particular fish selected, so far as I can learn, is the skate--that which in the Isle of Man is still supposed to be a powerful satyrion. The meal is repeated twice on a Saturday. Mons. Lajard bears testimony to the extent of this custom in the following passage, though he does not directly associate it with the fish, except that the latter are often seen on coins, with the other attributes of Venus. After speaking of the probable origin of the cult, he says--'In our days, indeed, the Druses of Lebanon, in their secret vespers, offer a true worship to the sexual parts of the female, and pay their devotions every Friday night--that is to say, the day which is consecrated to Venus; the day in which, on his side, the Mussulman finds in the code of Mahomet, the double obligation to go to the mosque and to perform the conjugal duty.'"

"It is said Oanes was a man-headed fish, and the earliest Hermes or Messenger of God to Kaldia. Berosus says he ate not, yet taught all the arts of geometry, and the harvesting and storing of fruits and seeds. Every night he retired to the sea , and after him came Messiahs. Helladius called him Oes, but says he had the feet of a man, and sprang from a mundane egg. He had a fish's skin, and Higgins says he first taught astrology in Kaldia. The mother of Oanes was worshipped as Venus Atergates, 'the good spirit,' and Oanes himself possibly signifies the 'first-born of the Yoni,' the Protogonos of Sankuniathon. The Japanese represent their Messiah emerging like Vishnoo from a fish, and as such call him Kan-On or Can-on, and his temple, Onius, and make his spirit repose on twelve cushions, just as they do in the case of Fo or Boodha, showing clearly the solar significance of the whole. So we see a close connection between the Kaldian O-AN or Oanes the Hebrew AON, which in Koptic is the 'Enlightener,' and the Egyptian ON. In Armorik, Oan and Oanic, and in Irish, UAN is a lamb, and in Hebrew Jonas signifies the gentle one, a 'Revealer' or word from God, and a dove, so that the sum of the whole points to the Sanscrit Yoni.

"Pan, Jove's senior brother, used to be called 'a whale-like fish,' and he entangled Typhon in his nets and caught him, and yet who so unlike a fish in character as the goat-footed god.

"Eating fish was considered to induce venery even more than beef or garlic, and Shemitic races recommended or ordered such repasts on Frig's Day, or night--their Sabbath or Sabbath Eve. Among the Druses of Syria, Layard assures us such matters are still carefully attended to on Venus' or Frig's Eve, adding that 'in secret vespers' these pious persons 'offer a true worship to the sexual parts of the female.'"

"Oannes and Dag-on are identical. According to an ancient fable preserved by Berosus, a creature half man and half fish came out of that part of the Erythraean Sea, which borders upon Babylonia, where he taught men the arts of life, to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and, in short, instructed them in all things that tend to soften manners and humanize their lives; and, he adds, that a representative of this animal Oannes was preserved in his day. A figure of him sporting in the waves, and apparently blessing a fleet of vessels, was discovered in a marine piece of sculpture by M. Botta, in the excavations of Khorsabad.

"At Nimroud, a gigantic image was found by Mr. Layard, representing him with the fish's head as a cap and the body of the fish depending over his shoulders, his legs those of a man, his left hand holding a richly decorated bag, and his right hand upraised as if in the act of presenting the mystic Assyrian fir-cone."

Mr. Layard, in his interesting work "Nineveh and its Remains," thus alludes to this--"I must not omit to allude to the tradition preserved by Berosus, which appears to attribute to a foreign nation, arriving by sea, the introduction at some remote period of civilization and certain arts into Babylonia. According to the historian, there appeared out of the Erythraean or Persian Gulf, an animal endowed with reason, called Oannes. Its body was like that of a fish; but under the head of the fish was that of a man, and added to its tail were women's feet. Its voice, too, was human, and it spoke an articulate language. During the day it instructed the Chaldaeans in letters and in all arts and sciences, teaching them to build temples; but at night it plunged again into the sea. Five such monsters appeared at different epochs in Babylonia, and were called 'Annedoti' . The first was named the Musarus Oannes, and the last Odacon. Their images, he adds, were preserved in Chaldaea even to this day.

"In a bas-relief from Korsabad representing a naval engagement, or the seige of a city on the sea coast, we have the god nearly as described by Berosus. To the body of a man as far as the waist, is joined the tail of a fish. The three-horned cap, surmounted by the flower in the form of a fleur-de-lis, as worn by the winged figures of the bas-reliefs, marks the sacred character. The right hand is raised as in the representations of the winged deity in the circle. This figure is in the sea amongst fish and marine animals. On Assyrian cylinders and germs the same symbolical figure is very frequently found, even more closely resembling in its form the description of Berosus, numerous instances of which are given in Lajard's large work on the Worship of Venus.

"This Fish Worship extended to Syria, and appears to have been more prevalent in that country than in Assyria. The Dagon of the Philistines of Ashdad evidently resembled the figure on the Assyrian sculptures and cylinders. When it fell before the ark, the head and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the fishy part of Dagon was left to him. The same idol is mentioned in Judges xvi. The meaning of the word in Hebrew is 'a fish.' Although the image, like that of the Assyrians, appears to have been originally male; at a later period, it became female in Syria, as we learn from Lucian , and Diodorus Siculus, who describes the idol at Ascalon with the face of a woman and body of a fish. An icthyolatry, connected with Derceto or Atergates, was perhaps confounded with the worship of Dagon."

"In Azotus, or Asdotus, a renowned city of the Philistines, there was a celebrated temple of Dagon in which the inhabitants kept the ark of the covenant, in presence of the idols. And when they arose early in the morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; and rah dagon nischar aghlaju, that is, as R. D. Cimchi explains it, only the form of a fish was left to him. For Dag and Dagah are words interpreted to mean fish, whence he was called Dagon. The sacred scriptures, in Hebrews, bestow on him the masculine gender, and so do the authors of the Greek version. Philo Biblius says of Dagon, that he is a fruiterer and the son of Coelus, and thus thinks he should be called, because he first discovered fruit. For Dagon in Hebrew is translated by the Greek word Siton, which means fruit. He is also said to be the inventor of the plough, therefore was named Zeus the plougher, as if he were Jupiter, the president of agriculture.

"Ptolemus says that Ceres was called Sito among the Syracusans, from the same Greek word Sito. But he is mistaken; for, while he derives it from Dagon , he should have deduced it from Dag . There is the most ancient testimony outside of the Bible in regard to this god of Asia in what Berosus, Apollodorus, and Polyhistor write concerning Oannes. For Oannes is mentioned as a two-headed animal; that feet like those of human beings grew from his tail, and that the rest of him is a fish. His voice was likewise human, and they say that, emerging from the Red Sea, he came to Babylon, but that he returned to the sea at sunset. He did this every day as if he were an amphibious animal. From him men learned all the various arts, letters, agriculture, the consecration of temples, architecture, political government, and whatever could possibly pertain to civilised life, and the most wonderful history of Belus and Omorea. His image was preserved down to the time of Berosus, that is, to the beginning of the Grecian monarchy. This marine god can be no other than Dagon, whose history is found in Samuel. He was worshipped not only by the Philistines, but by the Babylonians also. Apollodorus, from the same Berosus, narrates more extensively of four Oannes, called Annedotos, who likewise in the lapse of ages appeared out of the Red Sea, every one of whom was half man and half fish. But in the time of AEdoracus, king of the Chaldeans, who preceded the deluge a few ages, another similar figure appeared, who was called Odakon. Dagon is undoubtedly intended and referred to in this fable of Odakon. Abydenos speaks of a second Annedotos, and bestows on him the form of a semi-demon. Helladius Besantinus speaks of a certain man of the name of Oleus arising out of the Red Sea, whose head, hands and feet were human, but that the other members of the body were those of a fish and that he taught letters, and the science of astronomy. As all these references are so applicable to the Oannes of Besorus, it is more than probable that the librarian made the mistake in the name of abbreviation in the copy.

"What has been extracted from the Scriptures and what has been said from the writings of the ancients will convince any one that the figure of Dagon was a mixture of the human and marine form. His body was marine, and his face, hands, and feet were human.

"The Scriptures say expressly that his hands and feet were cut off, or broken, when he fell before the ark of the Testament. These ancients wrote that his feet grew to his tail. The Scriptures make him a masculine god, but what has been said elsewhere of the common sex of the gods should be here considered, for this very Dagon was changed into the goddess Adirdaga, that is, Atergatis, Adargatis, Derceto, and those other names mispronounced by the Europeans. It is certain that the Phoenician and Babylon goddess is the very same figure as Dagon, if you will change the sex. Lucianus describes briefly the image of Derceto as seen by him in Phoenicia, and it answers to that of Dagon. But also among other great writers the goddess of Hierapolis is called Derceto, or Atergatis.

"Macrobius contends that, with the figures of Atergatis, she is Astarte, that very mother of gods, and he does not speak of her as any other than that goddess of Hierapolis.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet