ATARGATIS

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 823 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ARN-AUD

ATARGATIS , a Syrian deity, known to the Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Derketo (Strabo xvi. c. '785; Pliny, Nat. Hist. v. 23. 81), and as Dea Syria, or in one word Deasura (Lucian, de Dea Syria). She is generally described as the " fish-goddess." The name is a compound of two divine names; the first part is a form of the Himyaritic 'Athtar, the equivalent of the Old Testament Ashtoreth, the Phoenician Astarte (q.v.), with the feminine ending omitted (Assyr. Ishtar); the second is a Palmyrene name `Attie (i.e. tempus opportunum), which occurs as part of many compounds. As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified with Astarte. The two deities were, no doubt, of common origin, but their cults are historically distinct. In 2 Macc. xii. 26 we find reference to an Atargateion or Atergateion (temple of Atargatis) at Carnion in Gilead (cf. 1 Macc. v. 43), but the home of the goddess was unquestionably not Palestine, but Syria proper, expecially at Hierapolis (q.v.), where she had a

great

GREAT

temple. From Syria her

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

extended to Greece, Italy and the furthest west. Lucian and

Apuleius

APULEIUS, LUCIUS

give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the

great

GREAT

cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. The wide extension of the cult is attributable largely to Syrian merchants; thus we find traces of it in the great seaport towns; at Delos especially numerous

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

have been found bearing witness to its importance. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and

mercenary

MERCENARY (Lat. mercenarius, from merces, reward, gain)

troops, who carried it even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman empire. In many cases, however, Atargatis and Astarte are fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. This fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of Astarte at Ashtaroth-Karnaim.
Atargatis appears generally as. the wife of Hadad (Baal). They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, in the capacity of aohwuxos, wears a mural crown, is the ancestor of the royal

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of generation and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems), and the inventor of useful appliances. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite. By the conjunction of these many functions, she becomes ultimately a great Nature-Goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea (see GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS); in one aspect she typifies the

function

FUNCTION

of water in producing life; in another, the universal mother-earth (Macrobius, Saturn, i. 23); in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldaean astrology), the power of destiny. The legends are numerous and of an astrological character, intended to account for the Syrian dove-

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

and

abstinence

ABSTINENCE (from Lat. abstinere, to abstain)

from fish (see the story in Athenaeus viii. 37, where Atargatis is derived from amp Fanbos," without Gatis,"a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish). Thus Diodorus Siculus, using Ctesias, tells how she fell in love with a, youth who wasworshipping at the shrine of Aphrodite, and by him became the mother of Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, and how in shame she flung herself into a pool at Ascalon or Hierapolis and was changed into a fish (W. Robertson

Smith

in Eng. Hist. Rev. ii., 1887). In another story she was hatched from an egg found by some fish in the Euphrates and by them thrust on the bank where it was hatched by a dove; out of gratitude she persuaded Jupiter to transfer the fish to the Zodiac (cf. Ovid, Fast. ii, 459-474, Metam. v. 331).
See articles s.v. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. (1897), by W. Bain dissin; and Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyc.; Fr. Baethgen, Beitrdge zur Semit. Religiongesch. (1888) ; R. Pietschmann, Gesch. der Phonizier (1889).

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