This goddess, who is sometimes called Astarte, was the most important female deity of this early pantheon. The Persian form of the word is Astara. In Phœnician it is Ashtaroth,[96] and according to Dr. Oppert all the Phœnician goddesses were included under this general name. Another form of the name afterward appeared in Greek mythology as Asteria, and it was applied to the beautiful goddess who fled from the suit of Jove, and, flinging herself down from heaven into the sea, became the island afterward named Delos. The farther back we go in the world’s history the nearer we approach to the original idea of monotheism, and originally there was only one goddess, Ishtar or Ashtaroth, personifying both love and war, but two such opposite characteristics could not long remain the leading attributes of the same deity, and hence after a time, there were mentioned three goddesses bearing the same name. ISHTAR OF ARBELA was the goddess of war, the “Lady of Battles.” She was the daughter of Anū, whose messengers were the seven evil spirits, and the favorite goddess of King Assur-bani-pal, who claims that he received his bow from her, though he declares in his inscriptions that he worshipped also Bel or Baal, and Nebo; he frequently implores the protection of Ishtar. “Oh, thou, goddess of goddesses, terrible in battle, goddess in war, queen of the gods! Teūman, king of Elam, he gathered his army and prepared for war; he urges his fighting men to go to Assyria. Oh, thou, archer of the gods, like a weight, in the midst of the battle, throw him down and crush him.”[97] Ishtar of Arbela afterward became the Bellona of the Latins, and the Enyo of the Greeks. Under the name of Anatis, or Anāhid, she was worshipped in Armenia, and also in Cappadocia, where she had a splendid temple, served by a college of priests, and more than six thousand temple servants. Her image, according to Pliny,[98] was of solid gold, and her high priest was second only to the king himself. Strabo calls this goddess Enyo, and Berosus considers that she is identical with Venus. The inscriptions of Artaxerxes, discovered at Susa, call her Anāhid, which was the Persian name of the planet Venus. The characteristics of Venus, the queen of beauty, may seem somewhat at variance with Ishtar of Arbela, the goddess of war, but it will be remembered that the Greeks of Cythera, one of the Ionian islands, worshipped an armed Venus, and from this island she took the name of Cythera; the fable that she rose from the sea probably means that her worship was introduced into the island by a maritime people, doubtless the Phœnicians. ISHTAR OF ERECH, the daughter of Anū and Annatu, is another form of this popular goddess, and one of the Assyrian tablets refers to the dedication of horses at the temple of Bit-ili at Erech, where the king of Elam dedicated white horses with silver saddles to Ishtar, the tutelar divinity of Erech.