Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

584 The Bull and the Sun in Syria

Twice every year it journeys to the sea to get the water that I men-
tioned1.'

It appears, then, that the thdlamos at Hierapolis contained a
statue of Atargatis carried by lions2, a statue of her partner (re-
sembling Zeus) seated on bulls3, and between them an aniconic
'sign' surmounted by a dove4. It can hardly be doubted that here,
as at Heliopolis5, the partner of Atargatis was Adad identified with
Zeus. The similarity of the two cult-centres, which may well
presuppose—as J. Garstang holds—a common Hittite nucleus6,
comes out clearly in connexion with their oracular practices. The

Cornut. theol. 6 p. 6, 11 ff. Lang, Philon ap. Euseb. praep. ev. 8. 14. 64 with Head Hist,
num? p. 804, Tib. 1. 7. 17 f.).

A related myth is the following. Certain fish found a great egg in the river Euphrates.
They rolled it ashore. A dove, or doves, sat on it and hatched out Venus the Syrian
goddess. She besought Iupiter to put the fish among the signs of the zodiac. And the
Syrians still abstain from eating these fish, and regard doves as divine (Nigidius ap. schol.
Caes. Germ. Aratea p. 402, 12 ft". Eyssenhardt, Hyg. fab. 197, Ampel. 2. 12). The fish
in question were really Venus and Cupido, who, scared by the sudden appearance of
Typho, had flung themselves into the Euphrates and taken the form of. fish (Diognetos of
Erythrai ap. Hyg. poet. astr. 2. 30, cp. Myth. Vat. 1. 86).

According to R. Azarias Meor Enajim 21 and R. David Ganz Chronologia ann. 1958,
Semiramis and all the kings of Assyria had the dove as their military standard—a doubtful
assertion (S. Bochart Hierozoicon rec. E. F. C. Rosenmuller Lipsiae 1794 ii. 528—533).

C. F. Lehmann-Haupt in Roscher Lex. Myth. iv. 694 conjectures that doves were
associated with Semiramis for two reasons. On the one hand, Semiramis was assimilated
to Istar, and the dove was sacred to that goddess. On the other hand, the Assyrian word

for dove {himmatii) was not very unlike the Assyrian name of Semiramis (Sammuramat).

1 This refers to a myth and a rite described by the pseudo-Lucian ib. 12 f. Beneath
the temple at Hierapolis was a small hole, through which the flood had run off. Hence
Deukalion built altars and a temple of Hera over it, and introduced a custom kept up in
memory of the event. Twice a year water was brought from the sea by the priests and
a multitude of people from Syria, Arabia, and the region beyond the Euphrates. The
water was poured out in the temple and ran off through the small hole beneath it. See
further infra p. 591 n. 3.

2 Imperial bronze coins of Hierapolis show Atargatis in three attitudes : (1) wearing
a turreted head-dress, chiton, and pttplos; holding two ears of corn in her left hand, a
tympanum in her right; and seated on a throne with a lion couching at either side of it
[Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins Galatia, etc. p. 144 pi. 17, 14) : (2) in the same pose, but holding
a tympanum'in her left hand and resting her right elbow on the throne {Brit. Mus. Cat.
Coins Galatia, etc. p. 145 pi. 17, 17, Hunter Cat. Coins iii. 138 f. pi. 71, 22, cp. ib. iii.
139 pi. 71, 24) : (3) with turreted head-dress, chiton, and peplos, holding a sceptre in
her right hand, a tympanum in her left, and seated on the back of a lion {Brit. Mus. Cat.
Coins Galatia, etc. p. 144 pi. 17, 15, Hunter Cat. Coins iii. 139 pi. 71, 25, cp. ib. iii. 140).
Cp. J. Garstang The Syrian Goddess London 1913 p. 20 ff. with P'rontisp. figs. 1—8.

3 S. Reinach in the Rev. Arch. 1902 i. 31 argues that we must not press the text of
Loukian. de dea Syr. 31 <x/x0w efavTcu' dWa rrjv /mev"llpr]v Xeovres (popeovai, 6 8e ravpoLai
iwe^eTai to mean that Zeus and Hera were literally seated on their sacred beasts: rather
they were flanked by them. So also R. Dussaud ib. 1904 ii. 242 n. 1 = id. Notes de
mythologie syrienne Paris 1905 p. 98 n. 1.

4 Cp. infra p. 586 f. 5 Supra p. 553.

6 This is the thesis of J. Garstang op. cit. pp. viii, n f., 17 n. 49, 27, 70 n. 43 .