Terrestrial and Aerial animals were far more familiar to the Ancients than were the inhabitants of the vast Ocean, and not knowing much about them, their habits and ways, took “omne ignotum pro magnifico.”
We have seen the union of Man and Beast, and Man and Bird; and Man and Fish was just as common, and perhaps more ancient than either of the former—for Berosus, the Chaldean historian, gives us an account of Oannes, or Hea, who corresponded to the Greek Cronos, who is identified with the fish-headed god so often represented on the sculptures from Nimroud, and of whom, clay figures have been found at Nimroud and Khorsabad, as well as numerous representations on seals and gems.
Of this mysterious union of Man and Fish, Berosus says:—“In the beginning there were in Babylon a great number of men of various races, who had colonised Chaldea. They lived without laws, after the manner of animals. But in the first year there appeared coming out of the Erythrian Sea (Persian Gulf) on the coast where it borders Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, named Oannes. He had all the body of a fish, but below the head of the fish another head, which was that of a man; also the feet of a man, which came out of its fish’s tail. He had a human voice, and its image is preserved to this day. This animal passed the day time among men, taking no nourishment. It taught them the use of letters,
of sciences, and of arts of every kind; the rules for the foundation of towns, and the building of temples, the principles of laws, and geometry, the sowing of seeds, and the harvest; in one word, it gave to men all that conduced to the enjoyment of life. Since that time nothing excellent has been invented. At the time of sunset, this monster Oannes threw itself into the sea, and passed the night beneath the waves, for it was amphibious. He wrote a book upon the beginning of all things, and of Civilisation, which he left to mankind.”
Helladice quotes the same story, and calls the composite being Oes; while another writer, Hyginus, calls him Euahanes. M. Lenormant thinks that it is evident that this latter name is more correct than Oannes, for it points to one of the Akkadian names of Hea—“Hea-Khan,” Hea, the fish—and must be identified with the fish-God in the illustration.
Alexander Polyhistor, who mainly copied from Berosus, says that Oannes wrote concerning the generation of Mankind, of their different ways of life, and of their civil polity; and the following is the purport of what he wrote:—
“There was a time in which there existed nothing but darkness, and an abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings, which were produced on a twofold principle. There appeared men, some of whom were furnished with two wings, others with four, and two faces. They had one body, but two heads; the one that of a man, the other of a woman; they were likewise in their several organs both male and female. Other human beings were to be seen with the legs and horns of a goat; some had horse’s feet, while others united the hind-quarters of a horse with the body of a man, resembling in shape the hippocentaurs. Bulls likewise were bred then with the heads of men, and dogs with fourfold bodies, terminated in their extremities with the tails of fishes; horses also with the heads of dogs; men, too, and other animals, with the heads and bodies of horses, and the tails of fishes. In short, there were creatures in which were combined the limbs of every species of animals. In addition to these, fishes, reptiles, serpents, with other monstrous animals, which assumed each other’s shape and countenance. Of all which were
preserved delineations in the temple of Belus, at Babylon.”
