"Neptune, the male sea-god of Rome, was identical with Poseidon of Greece, and his temples and festivals were in the Campus Martius. Poseidon was a brother of Jupiter and Pluto, and a mighty representative god-man of the waters, and of what the sea symbolised; his was the teeming womb of fertility, and therefore woman. His hosts are dolphins and innumerable sea-nymphs and monsters. His chariots are yoked with horses, which he is said to have created and taught men to manage. His symbol is the phallic trident, or rather the Trisool, or 'giver of life' of Siva, which can cleave rocks, produce water, and shake heaven and earth. The Nephthus of Egypt was the goddess of the coasts of the Red Sea and the wife of the wicked serpent deity Typhon. The Dolphin as a highly emblematic fish often stands for Neptune himself, although it probably first rose in importance from a mere punning on the words delphis a dolphin, and delphus the womb, and occasionally the pudenda. Delphax was also a young pig which was occasionally offered to Juno; Delphi was goddess Earth: symbolic chasm, and Delphinius was her Apollo, and from dolphin springs the name Delphin or Dauphin, the eldest son of the King of France."[7] CHAPTER II. _The Ancient Sacred Fish--Fish Diet and its supposed Effects--Fish and the Jews--The god Krodo--Oanes--Dagon--The Fish-god at Nimroud-- Khorsabad--Fish Worship in Syria--Temple of Dagon at Azotus--The Dagon of the Bible--Adramelech--Abstinence from Fish Food--Ancient Character of Fish Worship--Paradise Lost--The Irish demi-god Phin--The Fish as a Christian Symbol--Idea involved in Fish Worship--Holy Fish Ponds--Ancient Caledonian Objections to Fish--Other anti-fish-eating Nations--Ishtar._ Inman remarks that "the fish selected for honour amongst the ancients was neither flat, globular, nor cylindrical; it was more or less oval, and terminated in a forked tail. In shape it was like the almond, or the 'concha' with the 'nates.' Its open mouth resembles the 'os uteri,' still called 'os tincæ,' or tench's mouth. Ancient priests are represented as clothed with a fish, the head being the mitre. The fish's head as a mitre still adorns the heads of Romish bishops. The fish was sacred to Venus, and was a favourite esculent among the luxurious Romans. The fish was an emblem of fecundity. The word _nun_, however, in the Hebrew, signifies to _sprout_, _to put forth_, as well as _fish_; and thus the fish symbolises the male principle in an active state. The creature had a very strong symbolic connection with the worship of Aphrodite, and the Romanists still eat it on that day of the week called Dies Veneris, Venus' Day."