Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/49

 HISTORY OF THE EMPIRES OF WESTERN ASIA.

mentions two queens of Babylonia, Semiramis and Nitocris, whose names he associates with the building of Babylon. Semiramis, he says, ruled over Babylon five generations before Nitocris, and constructed dikes through the plains to prevent the overflowing of the Euphrates. Although this work was very useful, yet Nitocris, the other queen, is spoken of several lines later as the "wiser,". (I., 185.) Herodotus is the first Greek writer to mention Semiramis. According to Ctesias (Dioclorus II., 4 fg.) this queen was the wife of the half-mythical Assyrian king Ninos, the legendary builder of Nineveh. After the death of her husband Semiramis built the city of Babylon, and made numerous expeditions into Asia and Egypt. Ctesias brings out prominently, as the special characteristic of this queen, her exceeding profligacy. Berossus, according to Josephus (c. Apion I., 20), opposes the view of Greek writers who make Semiramis the founder of Babylon. Yet, even in his judgment, she is a historical personage, for he mentions her name after the enumeration of the fifth (the fourth so-called historical) dynasty of the Arabians, which represents nine kings and two hundred and forty-five years. (Eusebius, Chron. ed. Schoene I., 26). (43)