It is with a start of surprise that one finds Priapus, far more notorious as the god of propagation and fecundity, among the gods of fisherfolk. Can this be accounted for by some subtle, but inverse connection between the belief in India that the Fish was the symbol of Fecundation, and the God of Fecundation in Greece? Some support for this may lie in the statement of de Gubernatis, that as in the East the fish was a phallic symbol, so now _pesce_ in the Neapolitan dialect means the _phallus_ itself. His lineage, either the son of Hermes, or his grandson, for among the many putative fathers of Priapus was Pan, may account for the inclusion of Priapus. To Priapus, arriving how he may at goddom, offerings were more freely made than to any other except Hermes.[292] In addition to these four flourished minor gods. Goddesses too of Fishing (such as Artemis[293]), of rivers, of springs, and of the fish therein found devotees. First and foremost, ranked Aphrodite or Venus: “But she Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea, And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds, and the viewless ways, And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays.” To her, seemingly, as many offerings, as many prayers were made as to any god. Whether she can be identified or not with Atargatis, through Derceto or Astarte, matters little here.[294] But the image of the goddess, as described by Lucian,[295] “In Phœnicia, I saw the image of Derceto, a strange sight truly! For she had the half of a woman, and from the thighs downwards a fish’s tail,” corresponds closely with an image of Ascalon,[296] “having the face of a woman, but all the rest of the body a fish.” [Illustration: ARTEMIS WITH A LARGE FISH IN FRONT OF HER DRESS. From _Ephemeris Archélogique_, Pl. 10.] When in addition we find this same image at Ascalon stated by Herodotus (II. 115) to be that “of the heavenly Aphrodite,” the identification of the Greek-Roman goddess appears, at any rate, to have gained wide acceptance. Doubtless Horace had this,[297] or perhaps some fish-tailed Egyptian goddess, in mind when he penned his famous comparison for an incoherent simile: “Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne.” Coins of Hierapolis in Cyrrhestica often show Atargatis riding on a lion or enthroned between two lions,[298] sometimes with the legend ΘΕΑΣ ΣΥΡΙΑΣ, ‘of the Syrian goddess.’ Strabo (XVI. 27, p. 748) tells us that this city worshipped the Syrian goddess Atargatis, who (_Ibid._, p. 785) according to Ktesias the historian was called also Derceto.[299]