Anonymous ID: 7f942b Nov. 24, 2021, 10:11 a.m. No.15072218   ๐Ÿ—„๏ธ.is ๐Ÿ”—kun   >>2305

>>15072129

 

According to Diodorus, Semiramis was of noble parents, thedaughter of the fish-goddess Derketo of Ascalon in Assyriaand of a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. Doves fed the child until Simmas, the royal shepherd, found her. Semiramis married Onnes or Menones, one of King Ninus' generals. Her advice led him to great successes, and at the Siege of Bactra, she personally led a party of soldiers to seize a key point in the defense, leading to the city's surrender. Ninus was so struck that he fell in love with her and tried to compel Onnes to give her to him as a wife, first offering his own daughter Sonanรช in return and eventually threatening to put out his eyes as punishment. Onnes, out of fear of the king, and out of doomed passion for his wife, "fell into a kind of frenzy and madness" and hanged himself. Ninus then married her.

 

Semiramis and Ninus had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including the Bactrians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis then masqueraded as her son and tricked her late husband's army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. After Ninus' death she reigned as queen regnant for 42 years, conquering much of Asia. Semiramis restored ancient Babylon and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. She also built several palaces in Persia, including Ecbatana. Diodorus also attributes the Behistun Inscription to her, now known to have been produced by Darius the Great. She not only ruled Asia effectively but also added Libya and Aethiopia to the empire. She then went to war with king Stabrobates (Satyavrata) of India, having her artisans build an army of false elephants by putting manipulated skins of dark-skinned buffaloes over her camels to deceive the Indians into thinking she had acquired real elephants. This ploy succeeded initially, but then she was wounded in the counterattack and her army mainly annihilated, forcing the surviving remnants to re-ford the Indus and retreat to the west.

 

In ancient traditions

 

Semiramis staring at the corpse of Ara the Beautiful, 1899, by Vardges Sureniants

Legends describing Semiramis have been recorded by about 80 ancient writers including Plutarch, Eusebius, Polyaenus, Valerius Maximus, Orosius and Justinus. She was associated withIshtar and Astartesince the time before Diodorus. The association of the fish and dove is found at Hierapolis Bambyce (Mabbog, now Manbij), the great temple which, according to one legend, was founded by Semiramis, where her statue was shown with agolden doveon her head.

 

The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia and Anatolia, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown. Various places in Assyria and throughout Mesopotamia as a whole, Media, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Caucasus bore the name of Semiramis, but slightly changed, even in the Middle Ages. She is credited with founding the city of Van in order to have a summer residence, and the city may also be referred to as Shamiramagerd (city of Semiramis). Strabo credits her with building earthworks and other structures "throughout almost the whole continent." Nearly every stupendous work of antiquity by the Euphrates or in Iran seems to have ultimately been ascribed to her, even the Behistun Inscription of Darius. Herodotus ascribes to her the artificial banks that confined the Euphrates and knows her name as borne by agate of Babylon.

 

Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus credits her as the first person to castrate a male youth into eunuch-hood: "Semiramis, that ancient queen who wasthe first person to castrate male youthsof tender age"

 

Armenian[Barsoomian?] tradition portrays Semiramis negatively, possibly because of a victorious military campaign she prosecuted against them. One of the most popular legends in Armenian tradition involves Semiramis and an Armenian king, Ara the Handsome.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiramis