"What has been extracted from the Scriptures and what has been said from the writings of the ancients will convince any one that the figure of Dagon was a mixture of the human and marine form. His body was marine, and his face, hands, and feet were human.
"The Scriptures say expressly that his hands and feet were cut off, or broken, when he fell before the ark of the Testament. These ancients wrote that his feet grew to his tail. The Scriptures make him a masculine god, but what has been said elsewhere of the common sex of the gods should be here considered, for this very Dagon was changed into the goddess Adirdaga, that is, Atergatis, Adargatis, Derceto, and those other names mispronounced by the Europeans. It is certain that the Phœnician and Babylon goddess is the very same figure as Dagon, if you will change the sex. Lucianus describes briefly the image of Derceto as seen by him in Phœnicia, and it answers to that of Dagon. But also among other great writers the goddess of Hierapolis is called Derceto, or Atergatis.
"Macrobius contends that, with the figures of Atergatis, she is Astarte, that very mother of gods, and he does not speak of her as any other than that goddess of Hierapolis.
"Unless she had been half fish, she would by no means have been called Derceto. But Atergatis, Adergatis, Atargata, Derceto, Derce, Adargidis, Atargatis, all of which are names of this goddess, are corrupt words, and from Adardaga, which in Hebrew means a magnificent or potent fish. This name was surely most suitable for Oannes, who is said to have conferred so many benefits on mankind.
"In the same way the Sepharvites called their god Adramelech, which means a magnificent king. In the fables there is generally no other reason for the figure than that because formerly Dirce, the daughter of Venus, having fallen into the sea, was by fish preserved from all injuries of the waters, or on account of the metamorphosis of Venus into a fish, when she was running away terrified at the horrible advances of the monstre Typhon.
"Manilius, in his Astronomicon, book fourth, says:--
'When Heaven grew weak and a successful fight, The giants raised and gods were saved by flight, From snaky Typhon's arms, a fish's shape Saved Venus and secured her from a rape. Euphrates hid her, and from thence his streams Owe all obedience to the fish's beams.'