Atargatis

Atar'gatis

(Α᾿ταργάτις, Strab. 16, p. 785 [Α᾿ταργατίου δὲ τὴν Α᾿θάραν ..... οἰ ῞Ελληνες ἰκάλουν] v. r. Ατεργάτις, also Α᾿τεργάτης) is the name of a Syrian goddess whose temple (Α᾿ταργατεῖον v. r. Α᾿τεργατεῖον) is mentioned in 2 Maccabees 12:26. It was destroyed by Judas Maccabaeus (1 Maccabees 5:43, 44), from which passage it appears to have been situated-at Ashteroth-Karnaim. Her worship also flourished at Mabug (i.e. Bambyce, afterward called Hierapolis),: according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. 5, 19), who also states that Atergatis is the same divinity as Derceto, Δερκετώ (Diod. Sic. 7:4), or Dercetio (Ovid, Met. 4, 45). Besides internal evidences of identity (see Creuzer, Symbol. 2, 76 sq.), Strabo incidentally cites Ctesias to that effect (16, p. 1132). Derceto was worshipped in rhenicia and at Ascalon (where fountains containing sacred fish are still kept — Thomson, Land and Book, 2, 330) under the form of a woman with a fish's tail, or with a woman's face only and the entire body of a fish (Athen, 8:346). Fishes were sacred to her, and the inhabitants abstained from eating them in honor of her (Lucian, De Dea Syria, 14). Farther, by combining Diodorus (2, 4) with Herodotus (1, 105), we may legitimately conclude that the Derceto of the former is the Venus (Aphrodite) Urania of the latter. Lucian compared her with Here, though he allowed that she combined traits of other deities (Aphrodite, Rhea, Selene, etc.). Plutarch (Crass. 17) says that some regarded her as "Aphrodite, others as Here, others as the cause and natural power which provides the principles and seeds for all things from moisture." This last view is probably an accurate description of the attributes of the goddess, and explains her fishlike form and popular identification with Aphrodite. Lucian also mentions a ceremony in her worship at Hierapolis which appears to be connected with the same belief, and with the origin of her name. Twice a year water was brought from distant places and poured into a chasm in the temple; because, he adds, according to tradition, the waters of the Deluge were drained away through that opening (De Syria dea, p. 883). Compare Burns, ad Ovid, Met. 4, 45, where most of the references are given at length; Movers, Phoniz. 1, 584 sq. Atergatis is thus a name under which they worshipped some modification of the same power which was adored under that of Astarte (q.v.). That the Α᾿τεργατεῖον of 2 Maccabees 12:26} was at Ashteroth-Karnaim, shows also an immediate connection with Ashtoreth (q.v.). Whether, like the latter, she bore any particular relation to the moon or to the planet Venus, is not evident. Macrobius (Sat. 1, 23, p. 322, Bip. ed.) makes Adargatis to be the earth (which, as a symbol, is analogous to the moon), end says that her image was distinguished from that of the sun by the direction of the rays around it (but see Swinton, in the Philosoph. Transactions, 41, pt. 1, p. 245 sq.). Creuzer maintains that those representations of this goddess which contain parts of a fish are the most ancient, and endeavors to reconcile Strato's statement that the Syrian goddess of Hierapolis was Atergatis, with Lucian's express notice that the former was represented under the form of an entire woman, by distinguishing between the forms of different periods (Symbolik, 2, 68). This fish form shows that Atergatis bears some relation, perhaps that of a female counterpart, to DAGON SEE DAGON (q.v.). There is an antique coin extant representing this goddess (Swinton, in the Philosoph. Transactions, LXI, 2, 345 sq.).

No satisfactory etymology of the word has been discovered. That which assumes that Atergatis is דָּג אִדּיר, addir' dag, i.e. magnificent fish, which has often been adopted from the time of Selden down to the present day, cannot be taken exactly in that sense. The syntax of the language requires, as Michaelis has already objected to this etymology (Orient. Biblioth. 6, 97), that an adjective placed before its subject in this manner must be the predicate of a proposition. The words, therefore, would mean "the fish is magnificent" (Ewald's Hebr. Gram. § 554); Michaelis himself, as he found that the Syriac name of some idol of Haran was תרעתא, which might mean aperture (see Assemani, Bibl. Or. 1, 327 sq.), asserts that that is the Syriac form of Derceto, and brings it into connection with the greatfissure in the earth mentioned in Lucian (ut sup. 13) which swallowed up the waters of the Flood (see his edition of Castell's Lex. Syr. p. 975). On the other hand, Gesenius (Thesaur. sub voce דגון) prefers considering Derceto to be the Syriac דרגתא for דגתא, 1 fish; and it is certain that such an intrusion of the Resh is not uncommon in Aramaic. (For other etymological derivations, see Alphen, Diss. de terra Chadrach, c. 5.) It has been supposed that Atargatis was the tutelary goddess of the first Assyrian dynasty (Dercetadce, fr. Derceto; Niebuhr, Gesch. Assur's, p. 131, 138), and that the name appears in Tiglath- or Tilgath Pileser (ibid. p. 37).