Astar'té, the Greek and Roman form of the name of the supreme female divinity of the Phoenicians. Like that of Baal, the corresponding male divinity, the name frequently occurs in the earlier books of the Old Testament in the plural form Ashtaroth, and indeed it is not till the time of Solomon that the singular form Ashtoreth occurs. This plural refers rather to different modifications of these deities than to different statues of Baal and Ashtoreth, as Gesenius explained it. The worship of this goddess extended wherever Phœnician colonies were founded, as at Cyprus and Carthage. The general notion symbolised in her attributes was that of productive power, as that of Baal was generative power. Hence, as the sun is the great symbol of the latter, the moon is of the former; and consequently we find the moon identified with Astarte, and the goddess represented horned like the crescent moon. By others she is supposed to be symbolised by the planet Venus, as was also the Greek Aphrodite, who was undoubtedly borrowed from the Phœnician Astarte. Gesenius, Fürst, and most Hebrew scholars, accept the etymology that identifies the name with our word star (Sanskrit, tárā for stárā; Zend, stāramm; Pehlevi, setaran; Gr. astēr; Lat. stella). It seems probable that she was at various times symbolised by either. At any rate it is clear that she was an astral deity, like most gods in the Phœnician pantheon, and that the things holy to her on earth were merely symbols, not dwelling-places. Astarte was the object of a sensual nature-worship, attended by many licentious rites and wild orgies. Ashtoreth is no other than the Assyrian Istar with a feminine termination, th, in accordance with the Phœnician idiom. The worship of Istar was less practised in Babylonia than in Assyria. Some of the legends of Babylonia make her the daughter of
Sin, the moon-god, the Accadian Agu or Acu; but others place her among the older gods, making her daughter of Ann, the sky. Considered as the evening star, she was known as Istar of Erech; as the morning star, she was identified with Anunit or Anat, the goddess of Accad. With the Accadians she had a separate and independent existence as a divinity, though she came to be considered by the Semites as but the consort and shadow of the god. She presided over love and war, as well as the chase. She was invoked as 'the queen of heaven,' and 'the queen of all the gods.' Her chief temples were at Erech, Nineveh, and Arbela. Carried through the Semitic world, she was identified with the sun-god Chemosh in Moab, became the Ashtoreth of the Canaanites, and appears in a somewhat different form as the Aphrodite of the Greeks, and the Artemis polymastos of Ephesus. One of the most popular of Babylonian myths told how Istar had wedded the young and beautiful sun-god Tammuz, 'the only begotten,' and had descended into Hades in search of him when he had been slain by the boar's tusk of winter. The month of August was called by the Accadians 'the month of the errand of Istar'; while June was 'the month of Tammuz' of the Semites. This 'abomination' could be seen within the very precincts of the temple at Jerusalem (Ezek. viii. 14). She is also identical with the Egyptian Hathor, but it is difficult to say which of the two has the greater antiquity. The worship of Hathor, as Tiele points out, may be traced in Egypt long before the time when there was any possibility of Semitic influence, so that we may conclude either that Istar is the Egyptian Hathor in Semitic guise, or that both are forms, modified in accordance with varying national genius, of a goddess originally invoked under a similar name by the common forefathers of the Hamites and the Semites.