SEMIRAMIS. According to the legend which the Greeks received from Ctesias, and which is most fully preserved by Diodorus (book ii.) in a form that, according to the researches of C. Jacoby (Rhein. Museum, 1875, p. 555 sq.), is not taken direct from Ctesias but comes through Clitarchus, and has been modified by traits borrowed from the history of Alexander the Great, the Assyrian empire over all Asia as far as the borders of India was created by Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, and his greater spouse Semiramis, who was first the wife of his captain, Onnes, but won the king’s love by an heroic exploit, the capture of Bactra, which had defied the royal forces. Ninus died, and Semiramis, succeeding to his power, traversed all parts of the empire, erecting great cities (especially Babylon) and stupendous monuments or opening roads through savage mountains. She was unsuccessful only in an attack on India. At length, after a reign of forty-two years, she delivered up the kingdom to her son Ninyas and disappeared, or, according to what seems to be the original form of the story, was turned into a dove and was thenceforth worshipped as a deity. This legend is certainly not Assyrian or Babylonian; Ctesias must have had it from Persians or Medes, and the fulness of detail, the multitude of proper names, favour the conjecture that Ninus and Semiramis were celebrated in some Median epic tale which went on to tell of the fall of Assyria before the Medes (Duncker, Gesch. d. Alt., 5th ed., ii. 18 sq.). In this legend all the conquests of Assyria were crowded together into one lifetime, and King Ninus and his son Ninyas are mere eponyms of Nineveh, personifications of the Assyrian monarchy. But it is round the figure of Semiramis that all the real interest of the legend gathers; nor can ...