De Dea Syria

De Dea Syria is a text attributed to Lucian which describes the mythology and worship of the goddess Atargatis in the Syrian city of Hieropolis, as well as the temple dedicated to her and the legends surrounding it. It begins with a discussion of the rites of Astarte practiced in nearby Byblos, before turning its gaze to Hieropolis and the origins of its ancient temple through a retelling of the Atra-Hasis flood myth where the deluge is drained through a cleft in the rock beneath the sanctuary, and going on to state that others aver that it was founded by Semiramis in honor of her mother, the aquatic goddess Dirketo, or by a certain Attes in honor of Rhea, or, alternately, as a site of Bacchic worship. The construction of the current iteration of the sanctuary is attributed to a certain Kombabos who castrated himself as a way to cure himself of his attraction to his stepmother (an occurrence connected to the rites of self-castration practiced by the Galli). Finally, the temple itself is described as being an ionic building replete with statues, xoana, ritual implements, sanctified pools and flocks of sacred animals. The diverse rites practiced within the temple are also enumerated, including the animal sacrifices and ecstatic rites which characterize worship at the site, as well as the dedications made to it by the inhabitants of the regions (indeed the author states that he himself dedicated the first growth of his beard to the temple as was the custom among Syrian youths and maidens) It might also be argued to constitute an early work of cultural anthropology or comparative religion, owing to its focus on the origins of particular rites and rituals practiced at Hieropolis and the similarities (and, indeed, common origins) of these ceremonies with the practices of other antique cultures, often making comparison with wider Hellenistic religious culture. It is written in a Herodotean Ionic style, and implicitly references Herodotean notions of historiography and narrative.The nature of the religious pageantry attached to the temple complex is also described in detail, imparting a sense of the nature of Syrian religious practice at the beginning of Late Antiquity.