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But on the side towards the east, the architecture of mountains, wildly sculptured, stands against the level reaches of the horizon. Upon the clear background of the sky, shew, distinctly, lateral spurs and a cone like to the mystic representation of Tanit.
They called it Carthago Veneris Carthage of Venus. And certainly the old Phoenician Tanit always reigned there. Since the rebuilding of her temple by the Romans, she had transformed herself into Virgo Coelestis. This Virgin of Heaven was the great Our Lady of unchastity, towards whom still mounted the adoration of the African land four hundred years after the birth of Christ.
There has been established the identity of Istar, Astarte, Tanit, Baalath, Derketo, Mylitta, Aschera, and still others. But it is in the early religion of the Hindoos that we perceive best this kaleidoscopic process applied to divine beings. "We cannot imagine," says Taine, "such a great clearness. The myth here is not a disguise, but an expression; no language is more true and more supple.
Who, for instance, is the goddess 'Ashiti-Khaur, who is addressed, along with Kedesh, on an Egyptian monument now at Vienna, as "the mistress of heaven" and "ruler of all the gods"? The votive altars of Carthage make repeated mention of the goddess Tanit, the Peni or "Face" of Baal, whom the Greeks identified with Artemis.
It would not only be interesting, it would give one an insight into just how much the Romans could stand. It would have been curious, also, to have assisted at that superb and poetic ceremonial, in which, having got Tanit from Carthage as consort for Elagabal, he presided, girt with the pomp of church and state, over the nuptials of the Sun and Moon.
Springing up through that polychromatic flood myriads of pedicles slender and straight as spears, or soaring in spirals, or curving with undulations gracile as the white serpents of Tanit in ancient Carthaginian groves and all surmounted by a fantasy of spore cases in shapes of minaret and turret, domes and spires and cones, caps of Phrygia and bishops' mitres, shapes grotesque and unnameable shapes delicate and lovely!
But the probability is that it is identical in sense with the one mentioned above. Tanit was the great goddess of Carthage; she is called "Adon," 'lord, and her equality with Baal is indicated by the statement that she had his face, the word 'face' being here equivalent to 'personality' and 'power.
But such change of name is hardly probable, and this is not necessarily the natural force of the phrase. In Hebrew to "call one's name on a person or thing" is to assert ownership in it or close connection with it. +410+. Another phrase, occurring in many Carthaginian inscriptions, makes mention of "Tanit face of Baal," an expression that may point to a female body with male face.
In Italy I am Venus; in Egypt, Hathor; in Armenia, Anaitis; in Persia, Anâhita; Tanit in Carthage; Baaltis in Byblus; Derceto in Ascalon; Atargatis in Hierapolis; Bilet in Babylon; Ashtaroth to the Sidonians; and Aschera in the glades of Judæa. And everywhere I am worshipped, and everywhere I am Love. I bring joy and torture, delight and pain. I appease and appal. It is I that create and undo.
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