But, undoubtedly, the earliest representation of the real Merman—half-man, half-fish—comes to us from the uncovered palace of Khorsabad. On a portion of its sculptured walls is a representation of Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, sailing on his expedition to Cyprus, B.C. 720—on which occasion he had wooden images of the gods made and thrown overboard in order to accompany him on his voyage. Among these is Hea, or Oannes, which I venture to assert is the first representation of a Merman.
In Hindoo Mythology, one of the incarnations, or avatars of Vishnu, represents him as issuing from the mouth of a fish. The God Dagon (Dag in Hebrew, signifying fish) was probably Oannes or Hea—and Atergatis was depicted as a Mermaid, half-woman, half-fish.
The Greeks worshipped her as Astarte, and later on as Venus Aphrodite she was perfect woman, still, however, born of the Sea-foam, and attended by Tritons or Mermen.
These Tritons and Nereids, male and female, were firmly believed in by both Greek and Roman—who both depicted them alike—the Triton, sometimes having a trident, sometimes without, but both Triton, and Nereid, perfect man and woman, of high types of manly and feminine beauty, to the waist—below which was the body of a fish of the Classical dolphin type. So ingrained have these forms become in humanity, that it would seem almost impossible to realise a Merman, or Mermaid, other than as usually depicted.
Pliny, of course, tells about them:—“A deputation of persons from Olisipo (Lisbon) that had been sent for the purpose, brought word to the Emperor Tiberius that a Triton had been both seen and heard in a certain cavern, blowing a Conch shell, and of the form they are usually represented. Nor yet is the figure generally attributed to the nereids at all a fiction, only in them the portion of the body that resembles the human figure, is still rough all over with scales. For one of these creatures was seen upon the same shores, and, as it died, its plaintive murmurs were heard, even by the inhabitants, at a distance.
“The legatus of Gaul, too, wrote word to the late Emperor Augustus, that a considerable number of nereids had been found dead upon the sea-shore. I have, too, some distinguished informants of equestrian rank, who state that they themselves once saw, in the Ocean of Gades, a sea-man, which bore in every part of his body, a perfect resemblance to a human being, and that during
the night he would climb up into ships; upon which the side of the vessel, where he seated himself, would instantly sink downward, and, if he remained there any considerable time, even go under water.”
Ælian tells us, that it is reported that the great sea which surrounds the Island of Taprobana (Ceylon) contains an immense multitude of fishes and whales, and some of them have the heads of lions, panthers, rams, and other animals; and (which is more wonderful still) some of the Cetaceans have the form of Satyrs.