they believed, by the mistake committed of placing the ark of Israel in the temple at Ashdod.  The Philistines came from Crete, and if their Dagon was imported from that island, he may have had some connection with Poseidon, whose worship extended throughout Greece.  This god of the sea, who is somewhat like the Roman Neptune, carried a lightning trident and caused earthquakes.  He was a brother of Zeus, the sky and atmosphere deity, and had bull and horse forms.  As a horse he pursued Demeter, the earth and corn goddess, and, like Ea, he instructed mankind, but especially in the art of training horses.  In his train were the Tritons, half men, half fishes, and the water fairies, the Nereids.  Bulls, boars, and rams were offered to this sea god of fertility.  Amphitrite was his spouse.

An obscure god Shony, the Oannes of the Scottish Hebrides, received oblations from those who depended for their agricultural prosperity on his gifts of fertilizing seaweed.  He is referred to in Martin’s Western Isles, and is not yet forgotten.  The Eddic sea god Njord of Noatun was the father of Frey, the harvest god.  Dagda, the Irish corn god, had for wife Boann, the goddess of the river Boyne.  Osiris and Isis of Egypt were associated with the Nile.  The connection between agriculture and the water supply was too obvious to escape the early symbolists, and many other proofs of this than those referred to could be given.

Ea’s “faithful spouse” was the goddess Damkina, who was also called Nin-ki, “lady of the earth”.  “May Ea make thee glad”, chanted the priests.  “May Damkina, queen of the deep, illumine thee with her countenance; may Merodach (Marduk), the mighty overseer of the Igigi (heavenly spirits), exalt thy head.”  Merodach was their son:  in time he became the Bel, or “Lord”, of the Babylonian pantheon.

Like the Indian Varuna, the sea god, Ea-Oannes had control over the spirits and demons of the deep.  The “ferryman” who kept watch over the river of death was called Arad-Ea, “servant of Ea”.  There are also references to sea maidens, the Babylonian mermaids, or Nereids.  We have a glimpse of sea giants, which resemble the Indian Danavas and Daityas of ocean, in the chant: 

    Seven are they, seven are they,
    In the ocean deep seven are they,
    Battening in heaven seven are they,
    Bred in the depths of ocean.... 
    Of these seven the first is the south wind,
    The second a dragon with mouth agape....[44]

A suggestion of the Vedic Vritra and his horde of monsters.

These seven demons were also “the messengers of Anu”, who, although specialized as a sky god in more than one pantheon, appears to have been closely associated with Ea in the earliest Sumerian period.  His name, signifying “the high one”, is derived from “ana”, “heaven”; he was the city god of Erech (Uruk).  It is possible that he was developed as an atmospheric god with solar and lunar attributes.  The seven demons, who were his messengers, recall the stormy Maruts, the followers of Indra.  They are referred to as