Note 917 — ANTIENT HEROES.

If we take the history of Semiramis, as it is given us by Ctesias and others; nothing can be more inconsistent. Some make her the wife of Ninus: others say that she was his [917]daughter: and about the time of her birth they vary beyond measure. She is sometimes made cöeval with the city Nineve: at other times she is brought down within a few centuries of [918]Herodotus. She invades the Babylonians before the city was [919]built, from whence they were denominated: and makes sumptuous gardens at Ecbatana. Hence that city is introduced as coëval with Nineve: though, if the least credit may be given to [920]Herodotus, it was built many ages after by Deïoces the Mede. The city Nineve itself is by Ctesias placed upon the [921]Euphrates; though every other writer agrees, that it lay far to the east, and was situated upon the Tigris. This shews how little credit is to be paid to Ctesias. The whole account of the fleet of ships built in Bactria, and carried upon camels to the Indus, is a childish forgery. How can we suppose, that there were no woods to construct such vessels, but in the most inland regions of Asia? The story of the fictitious elephants, made out of the hides of black oxen, which put to flight the real elephants, is another silly fable. Megasthenes, who wrote of India, would not allow that Semiramis was ever in those [922]parts. Arrian seems to speak of it as a groundless [923]surmise. Her building of Babylon was by [924]Berosus treated as a fable. Herennius Philo maintained, that it was built by a son of Belus the wise, two thousand years before her [925]birth. Suidas says, that she called Nineve [926]Babylon: so uncertain is every circumstance about this Heroine. She is supposed to have sent to Cyprus, and Phenicia, for artists to construct and manage the ships abovementioned; as if there had been people in those parts famous for navigation before the foundation of Nineve. They sometimes give to Semiramis herself the merit of building the [927]first ship; and likewise the invention of weaving cotton: and another invention more extraordinary, which was that of emasculating [928]men, that they might be guardians, and overseers in her service. Yet, it is said of her, that she took a man to her bed every night, whom she put to death in the morning. How can it be imagined, if she was a woman of such unbridled [929]lust, that she would admit such spies upon her actions? We may as well suppose, that a felon would forge his own gyves, and construct his own prison. Claudian thinks, that she did it to conceal her own sex, by having a set of beardless people about her.