Atargatis, in Aramaic ‘Atar‘atah, was a Syrian deity, more commonly known to the Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Derceto or Derketo (Strabo 16.785; Pliny, Nat. Hist. 5.81), and as Dea Syria, or in one word Deasura. She is often now popularly described as the mermaid-goddess.

The name appears in the Talmud ("Ab. Zarah" 11b, line 28) as tr‘th. The full name ‘tr‘th appears on a bilingual inscription found in Palmyra and on coins.

The name ‘Atar‘atah is a compound of two divine names: the first part is a form of the Ugaritic ‘Athtart, Himyaritic ‘Athtar, the equivalent of the Old Testament ‘Ashtoreth, the Phoenician ‘Ashtart rendered in Greek as Astarte. The feminine ending -t has been omitted. Compare the cognate Akkadian form Ishtar. The second half is a Palmyrene divine name Athe (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 as ‘Ashtart. The two deities were probably of common origin and have many features in common, but their cults are historically distinct. We find reference to an Atargateion or Atergateion, a temple of Atargatis) at Carnion in Gilead (cf. 1 Maccabees 5.43), but the home of the goddess was unquestionably not Palestine, but Syria proper, especially at Hierapolis, where she had a great temple.

From Syria her worship extended to Greece and to the furthest west. Lucian and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the 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 have been found bearing witness to its importance. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, who carried it even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman empire. In many cases Atargatis and ‘Ashtart and other goddesses who once had independent cults and mythologies became 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 ‘Ashtart at Ashtaroth-Karnaim. Atargatis generally appears as the wife of Hadad. They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, wears a mural crown, is the ancestor the royal house, 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; in one aspect she typifies the protection of water in producing life; in another, the universal of other-earth (Macrobius, Saturn. 1.23); in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldean astrology), the power of destiny.

The legends are numerous and of an astrological character. An account for the Syrian dove-worship and abstinence from fish is seen in the story in Athenaeus 8.37, where Atargatis is explained to mean "without Gatis", the name of a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish. Thus Diodorus Siculus (2.4.2) quoting Ctesias, tells how Derceto fell in love with a youth and became by him the mother of a child and how in shame Derceto flung herself into a lake near Ascalon and her body was changed into the form of a fish though her head remained human. Derceto's child grew up to become Semiramis, the Assyrian queen. In another story told by Hyginus, an egg fell from the sky into the Euphrates, was rolled onto land by fish, doves settled on it and hatched it, and Venus, known as the Syrian goodess, came forth.

Ovid in his Metamorphoses (5.331) relates that Venus took the form of a fish to hide from Typhon. Eratosthenes explained the constellation of Piscis Austrinus as the parent of the two fish making up the constellation of Pisces, placed in the heavens in memory of when Derceto fell into the lake at Bambyce near the Euphrates in Syria and was saved by a large fish which is why the Syrians don't eat fish. In his Fasti (2.459–74) Ovid instead relates how Dione, by which Ovid here means Venus/Aphrodite, fleeing from Typhon with her child Cupid/Eros came to the river Euphrates in Palestine. Hearing the wind suddenly rise and fearing that it was Typhon, the goddess begged aid from the river nymphs and leapt into the river with her son. Two fish bore them up and were rewarded by being transformed into the constellation Pisces and for that reason the Syrians will eat no fish.

External links

• Jewish Encyclopedia: Derceto
• Lucian of Samosata, Concerning the Syrian Goddess (English translation and commentary.)