ATERGATIS ('Arcrycinis, or 'ArafydrLs) is the name of a Syrian goddess, whose temple ('Areryareiov) is mentioned in 2 Macc. xii. 26. That temple appears, by comparing t Macc. v. 43, to have been situated at Ashteroth-Kamaim. Her worship also flourished at Mabftg (i. e., Barn byce, afterwards called Hierapolis) according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. v. to).
There is little doubt that Atergatis is the same divinity as Derketo. Besides internal evidences of identity, Strabo incidentally cites Ctesias to that effect (xvi. p. 1132); and Pliny uses the terms Prodigiosa Atergatis, Griecis autem Derceto dicta' (I. c.) We read that Derketo was worshipped in Phcenicia and at Ascalon 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 ; that fishes were sacred to her, and that the inhabitants abstained from eating them in honour of her. These facts are found in Lucian (De Dea Syria, xiv.), and together with a mythological account of their origin, in Diodorus (ii. 4). Further, by com bining the passage in Diodorus with Herodotus (i. los), we may legitimately conclude that the Derketo of the former is the Venus Urania of the latter. Atergatis is thus a name under which they worshipped some modification of the same power which was adored under that of Ashtoreth. That the 'Aretyardov, of 2 Macc. xii. 26 was at Ashte roth-Karnaim, shews also an immediate connection with Ashtoreth. Whether, like the latter, she bore any particular relation to the moon, or to the planet Venus, is not evident. Macrobius makes Adargatis to be the earth (which as a symbol is analogous to the moon), and says that her image was distinguished from that of the sun by rays sursum versum inclinatis, monstrando radiorum vi superne missorum enasci quwcunque terra progen erat' (Saturnal. i. 23). Creuzer maintains that
those representations of this goddess which contain parts of a fish are the most ancient ; and endeavours to reconcile Strabo'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 distinguish ing between the forms of different periods (Symbolik, ii. 68). This fish-form shews that Atergatis bears some relation, perhaps that of a female counter part, to DAGON.
roo.
No satisfactory etymology of the word has been discovered. That which assumes that Atergatis is isltA addtr 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. vi. 97), that an adjective placed before its subject in this manner most be the pre dicate of a proposition. The words therefore would mean ' the fish is magnificent' (Ewald's Behr. Grunt. § 554). Michaelis himself, as he found that the Syriac name of some idol of Haran was which might mean aperture, asserts that that is the Syriac form of Derketo, and brings it into connection with the great fissure in the earth, mentioned in Lucian (1. c. xiii.), 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 DrI) prefers consider ing Derketo to be the Syriac Nroii, for fish; and it is certain that such an intrusion of the Resh is not uncommon in Aramaic.—J. N.