CHAPTER XXXIII

FISH-GODS—DAGON

I find no trace in Assyria of Ichthyolatry, or of certain fish being accounted sacred, or forbidden as food. The nearest approach to abstention occurs in the warning that on the 9th day of Iyyar to partake of fish was almost certain to bring on an attack of sickness, just as in Syria ichthyophagy was held to entail ulcers and wasting diseases.[917]

Despite the Dagon or Oannes traditions, I am not convinced that in the crowded pantheon of Babylon or Assyria there can be found a fish-god proper, or god of fishing, _i.e._ a deity similar to those of Greece and Rome with a temple and established priesthood, to whom fishermen made prayer and offerings either for boons received or favours to come.

If the word, fish-god, is limited strictly to those images, half-man, half-fish, which are to be found on seal Cylinders,[918] or sculptured or depicted in the outer halls or walls of some deity’s temple, there is certainly—even if the images at Nineveh were importations from the Mediterranean coast and not indigenous—considerable proof of their existence. But if the word connotes the attributes of a special temple, a priesthood, and sacrifices, such as we find in connection with the Philistinian Dagon at Ashdod, I suggest there is no proof whatever. The fact seems to be that in early Sumeria the fish-god or man-fish was a _symbol_ of Ea, the god of water, and probably derived from Aquarius.[919]

The Assyrian colonists carried north with them the pantheon of the Babylonians, composed in part of the local deities of Sumeria, and in part of their own translated from their original habitat; but from the start they modified the hierarchy and changed materially the individual attributes of the gods.[920]

Thus we find that mighty Assyrian hunter, Tiglath-Pileser I., in his record of the beasts he had taken, _e.g._ four elephants caught alive, or had slain in the desert, which included “four wild oxen mighty and terrible, ten elephants, one hundred and twenty lions on foot, and eight hundred speared from his chariot,” ascribing his success to the help of the gods Ninurta and Nergal.

These gods were closely associated with battle and sport, but to both other characteristics were attributed at various epochs of their godhood. It has been suggested that the evolution of the fish-god Dagon from the Babylonian deity Dagān followed on such lines, but sufficient data for an identification of the two do not survive.

From the sculptures discovered at Kouyunjik and at Nimroud (now in the British Museum), and from an Assyrian cylinder,[921] Layard is able, although all three vary somewhat in details, to describe this so-called fish-god, be it Oannes or Dagon,[922] as “combining the human shape with that of the fish. The head of the fish formed a mitre above that of the man, whilst its scaly limbs, back, and fan-like tail fell as a cloak behind, leaving the human limbs and feet exposed.” But in identifying this mythic form with Oannes, he terms it merely “the sacred man-fish,” not deity.[923]

There were to be seen in the temple of Belus, according to Berosus, sculptured representations of men with two wings, or two faces, with the legs and horns of goats,[924] or the hoofs of horses; also bulls with the heads of men, and horses with the heads of dogs.[925]

I venture to suggest that the mystic fish-form of Dagon or Oannes is of the same nature and in the same category as the man with the legs and horns of goats, or with the hoofs of horses: but these mythic goat or horse forms were not elevated into goat-gods or horse-gods. The idea of the deification of the fish-forms, whether that of a man issuing from a fish or of a man whose upper half was human but lower piscine, may, perhaps, have sprung from the undoubted worship by the Philistines at Ashdod and elsewhere of the god called Dagon, and partly to the original description of him in the A.V., but now corrected in the R.V.

Dagon, it will be remembered (I Samuel v. 4), after being confronted with the ark of the Lord in the morning, was found fallen: “the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands lay cut upon the threshold, only the fishy part (A.V.) or stump (R.V.) of Dagon was left unto him.” From this passage Milton undoubtedly drew his conception of—

“Dagon his name; sea-monster, upward man And downward fish.”[926]

It is possible that the theory of his having from his navel down the form of a fish, and from his navel up the form of a man—a theory which is unknown to the _Targum_, Josephus, or the _Talmud_, and perhaps is as late as the twelfth century A.D.[927]—merely transfers by the help of etymology the description given by Lucian of the goddess Derceto, worshipped on the same coast-line by the Syrians, who were more partial to fish deities than the Assyrians.[928]

This Dagon has been mistakenly connected with Odacon, the last of the five sea-monsters who arose from the Erythræan Sea. His body (according to Berosus) was like that of a fish, but under the head of the fish was that of a man, to whose tail were added women’s feet, whose voice was human, and whose language was articulate. During the day he instructed the Sumerians in letters and in all arts and sciences, more especially in the building of temples, but at night he plunged again into the sea.[929]

Authorities disagree whether Dagon derives his name from the Hebrew _Dāg_, signifying fish, or _dāgān_, sheaf or agriculture. Sanchouniathon early held, as do most modern writers, the latter view. Reichardt errs in his conjecture that the representation in De Sarzec (p. 189) shows the deity holding in his hand ears of corn, instead of what really is a palm branch of the conventional type.[930]

Cylinder seals depict[931] river gods, some with streams rising from their shoulders, or flowing from their laps, or from vases in their laps, and containing fish, and others half men and half fish. Mythological beings with fish head-dress occur not only on seals but on the Ninevite reliefs, etc., where it has been suggested that they do represent Dagan.

The delineation of fish on vases, etc.,[932] and of a fish in a stream of water on a small fragment from Telloh, are of early Sumerian art. The representation of Gilgamesh carrying fish dates from at least 2800 B.C., or some thirteen hundred years previous to the Phylokapi Vase (the most ancient Greek representation of men similarly engaged) and so furnishes a comparison, and from the differences in delineation of face, arms, and eyes a contrast of singular interest.[933]

FOOTNOTES:

[917] See _antea_, p. 99, n. 1.

[918] See W. Hayes Ward, _Seal Cylinders of Western Asia_ (Washington, 1910), p. 217, figs. 658, 659, 660, 661.

[919] Ward, _op. cit._, p. 214, in fig. 249, gives apparent confirmation.

[920] In noting the attributes ascribed to various gods, we are confronted by the problem as to what suggested to the Babylonian his precise differentiation in their characters. These betray their origin: they are the personification of natural forces: in other words, the gods and many of the stories told of them are the only explanation the Babylonian could give, after centuries of observation, of the forces and changes in the natural world. In company with other primitive peoples he explained them as the work of beings very similar but superior to himself. See King, _Babylonian Religion_ (London, 1889). This inevitable tendency of anthropomorphism was tersely expressed by Xenophanes of Colophon (_frag._ 15):—

“If oxen, horses, lions had but hands To paint withal or carve, as men can do, Then horses like to horses, kine to kine, Had painted shapes of gods and made their bodies Such as the frame that they themselves possessed.”

[921] For the Nimroud sculpture, see _Monuments of Nineveh_, _op. cit._, 2nd Series, Plate 6, while for the agate cylinder, see _Nineveh and Babylon_ (London, 1853), p. 343, where in a note Layard writes, “It is remarkable that on this cylinder the all-seeing eye takes the place of the winged human figure and the globe in the emblem above the sacred tree.”

[922] For the data and authorities available in 1855 and examination into Oannes and Dagon, see J. B. Pitra, _Spicilegium Solesmense_, III., pp. 500, 501, 503.

[923] _Nineveh and Babylon_, _op. cit._, pp. 343, 350. See also _Le Mythe de Dagon_, by Ménant; _Revue de l’Hist. des Religions_ (Paris, 1885), vol. II. p. 295 ff., where a great variety of Assyrian fish-men may be found. Forlong (_op. cit._, I. 231) instances a cornelian cylinder in the Ouseley collection depicting Oannes or the Babylonian god or demi-god, attended by two gods of fecundity, on whom the Sun-god with a fish tail looks down benignantly. Forlong’s obsession detects in every representation, Indian or Irish, Assyrian or Australasian, some emblem of fecundity, while his ever-present “King Charles’s head” is some phallic symbol. We are almost reminded of the witty quatrain current some years back:

“Diodorus Siculus Made himself ridiculous By insisting that thimbles Were all phallic symbols!”

[924] The goat-fish god dates as far back as Gudea, _c._ 2700 B.C. He was like the man-fish or fish-god, a symbol of Ea, the god of water, and probably derives from Capricorn. See Ward, p. 214, fig. 649; and p. 249, figs. 745, 747.

[925] Cf. Ezekiel, VIII. 10, “Every form of creeping things and abominable beasts pourtrayed upon the wall round about.”

[926] _Paradise Lost_, I., 462.

[927] There was a Babylonian god Dagan whose name appears in conjunction with Anu and often with Ninurta (Ninib). Whether the Philistine Dagon is the same as the Babylonian Dagan cannot with our present knowledge be determined. The long and profound influence of Babylonia in Palestine in early times makes it quite possible that Dagon, like Anath, came thence. _Ency. Bibl._, p. 984. No evidence suggests Dagan as a Babylonian fish-god.

Some authorities now hold that Dagan came to Babylonia with the Amoritic invasion towards the latter half of the third millennium.

[928] For Derceto, see _antea_, p. 124, and for Atargatis, _antea_, pp. 127-8.

[929] Oannes of Berosus is identified with Enki (otherwise Ea) by Langdon, _Poème Sumérien, etc._ (Paris, 1919), p. 17. Tradition generally makes the earliest founders or teachers of civilisation come from the sea. Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, the children of the sun god, rose, however, not from the sea, but from _Lake_ Titicaca, when they brought to the ancient Peruvians government, law, a moral code, art, and science. Their descendants styled themselves Incas.

[930] See G. F. Hill, _Some Palestinian Cults in the Greek and Roman Age_, in _Proceedings of the British Academy_ (London, 1911-12), vol. V. p. 9.

[931] Cf. Heuzey, _Sceau de Goudéa_ (Paris, 1909), p. 6; also W. Hayes Ward, _Seal Cylinders of Western Asia_ (Washington, 1910), figs. 288-289; see also figs. 199, 661. The large number of seals, almost entirely cylinder, which have been found in the excavations is probably owing to every Assyrian of any means always carrying one hung on him. The use to which they were put was precisely similar to that of our signet ring. An Assyrian, instead of signing a document, ran his cylinder over the damp clay tablet on which the deed he was attesting had been inscribed. No two cylinder seals were absolutely alike, and thus this method of signature worked very well. The work on the cylinders is always intaglio; the subjects represented are very various, including emblems of the gods, animals, fish, etc.

[932] _Récherches Archéologiques_, vol. XIII. of _Délégation en Perse_, by Pottier, Paris, 1912, figs. 117, 204, etc.

[933] L. Heuzey, _Revue d’Assyriologie_, VI. 57, and Hayes Ward, _op. cit._, p. 74, fig. 199.