It has been assumed in some quarters that the Bel of the Assyrians was identical with the Phoenician Dagon.  A word which reads Da-gan is found in the native lists of divinities, and in one place the explanation attached seems to show that the term was among the titles of Bel.  But this verbal resemblance between the name Dagon and one of Bel’s titles is probably a mere accident, and affords no ground for assuming any connection between the two gods, who have nothing in common one with the other.  The Bel of the Assyrians was certainly not their Fish-god; nor had his epithet Da-gaga any real connection with the word dag, “a fish.”  To speak of “Bel-Dagon” is thus to mislead the ordinary reader, who naturally supposes from the term that he is to identify the great god Belus, the second deity of the first Triad, with the fish forms upon the sculptures.

HEA, or HOA.

Hen, or Hoa, the third god of the first Triad, was not a prominent object of worship in Assyria.  Asshur-izir-pal mentions him as having allotted to the four thousand deities of heaven and earth the senses of hearing, seeing, and understanding; and then, stating that the four thousand deities had transferred all these senses to himself, proceeds to take Hoa’s titles, and, as it were, to identify himself with the god.  His son, Shalmaneser II., the Black-Obelisk king gives Hoa his proper place in his opening invocation, mentioning him between Bel and Sin.  Sargon puts one of the gates of his new city under Hoa’s care, joining him with Bilat Ili—­“the mistress of the gods”—­who is, perhaps, the Sun-goddess, Gula.  Sennacherib, after a successful expedition across a portion of the Persian Gulf, offers sacrifice to Hoa on the seashore, presenting him with a golden boat, a golden fish, and a golden coffer.  But these are exceptional instances; and on the whole it is evident that in Assyria Hoa was not a favorite god.  The serpent, which is his emblem, though found on the black stones recording benefactions, and frequent on the Babylonian cylinder-seals, is not adopted by the Assyrian kings among the divine symbols which they wear, or among those which they inscribe above their effigies.  The word Hoa does not enter as an element into Assyrian names.  The kings rarely invoke him.  So far as we can tell, he had but two temples in Assyria, one at Asshur (Kileh-Sherghat) and the other at Calah (Nimrud).  Perhaps the devotion of the Assyrians to Nin—­the tutelary god of their kings and of their capital—­who in so many respects resembled Hoa, caused the worship of Hoa to decline and that of Nin gradually to supersede it.

MYLITTA, or BELTIS.