Note 14 — Chapter II · Ancient Historical Legends

How then could Semiramis ever have come to Van in quest of an Armenian king, since it seems that the Scythians had already conquered Assyria before the great influx of Armenian hordes? Nor does it seem that the city of Van was built by the Assyrian queen, for the inscriptions make no mention of her name. King Memas who, in the view of Lynch, constructed the famous canal, was in all probability the author of the garden city. The belief, according to Lynch, as already stated, is that this legend is the Armenian version of the old Hellenic myth of Aphrodite and Adonis, taken over during the domination of the Seleucid dynasty which followed the conquest of Alexander about 325 B.C.14