ATARGATIS, a Syrian deity referred to in the Apocrypha. She is generally described as the efish goddess.* The name is derived by compounding two divine names: the first part being a form of the Himyaritic eAthtar,s the equivalent of the Old Testament ((Ashtoreth,* and the Phoenician ((Astarte," with the feminine ending omitted; and the second is a Palmyrene name ((Attie" (i.e., tempus opportunum) which occurs as part of many compounds. This simi larity of the first syllable has led to the confu sion of the goddess with Astarte. The origin of both deities is probably the same. A plau sible hypothesis is that after the political ex tinction of the Semites and the consequent de terioration of the cult of Astarte, it was found necessary to perpetuate some of the leading features of such a widespread and deep-rooted cult. The fertility and life-giving power of water was one of the most familiar of the con ceptions of the world of thought and fancy of which Astarte was the centre, the idea being in a large measure suggested by the mysterious origin and fecundity of fish. These conse quently figure very largely among other elements in the cult of Atargatis which replaced but did not supersede the worship of Astarte. Atar gatis had a temple at Carnion in Gilead (1 Macc. v, 24, and 2 Macc. xii, 26, but the proper home of the goddess was not Palestine but Syria, at Hierapolis where she had a great temple and a large following. From Syria her worship extended to Greece, Italy, Sicily and even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman empire, carried no doubt by the Syrian merchants, slaves and mercenary troops. The legends concerning her origin are numerous and of an astrological character, intended to ac count for the Syrian dove-worship and absti nence from fish. According to the story in Athenwus VIII, 37, she is derived from prep nridoc, (without Gatis), a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish. Diodurus
Siculus tells how she fell in love with a youth who was worshipping at the shrine of Aphro dite, and by him became the mother of Semi ramis, the Assyrian Queen, and how in shame she flung herself into a pool at Ascalon and was changed into a fish. In another story she was hatched from an egg, found by some fish in the Euphrates and by them pushed ashore, 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). The source of the Chaboras River was worshipped also as the place where Atargatis bathed after her marriage with Hadad (Baal). It was said that the waters gave out a sweet odor and were full of sacred fishes. Together with Hadad, she is the protecting deity of the community, wearing a mural crown. She is the ancestor of the royal house, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of genera tion and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems) and the inventor of useful appliances. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite. By a conjunction of these many functions, she becomes ultimately a great Nature goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea; in one aspect she typifies the function of water in producing life in another, the uni versal mother-earth (Macrobius, Saturn 1, 23) ; in a third, the power of destiny. Consult articles in Herzog-Hauck, (Realencyklopidie) (1897) ; Robertson-Smith, of the (2d ed., pp. 172-75, London 1914) and in the English Historical Review, 1887; Pietschmann, der Phonizier' (1889).