Page:Herodotus and the Empires of the East.djvu/51

Rh Now since the buildings of Nitocris, as we shall show, are to be identified with those of Nebuchadrezar, therefore Seiniramis must have lived about the year 800 B. C. But has there been found in Assyrian or Babylonian history a queen who corresponds with the statements of Herodotus, and who furnishes the solution of the problems contained in the accounts of the Greek writers? In the cuneiform inscriptions we meet an Assyrian queen, Sammuramat. She lived during the reign of King Ramman-nirari III. (812–783), and was either his wife or his mother. One of the most remarkable events of this king's reign was the introduction of the purely Babylonian Nebo cult into Assyria. The inscription on a Nebo statue, prepared by a high Assyrian official, reads: " To him who dwells at Ezida, the great lord, his master, has Bel-tarsi-ilu-ma, the governor of Kalah, etc., erected in the midst of Kalaḫ (this statue), to perpetuate the life of Ramman-nirari, the king of Assyria, his lord, and to perpetuate the life of Sammuramat, the queen of the palace (aššat êkalli), his mistress, in order that he may live long," etc. The government lists show that the Nebo temple at Kalaḫ was begun in the year 789, and was dedicated in 787, the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Ramman-nirari. We know further that the Nebo cult had not hitherto extended into Assyria. This fact, especially when we consider that the women of royal family were not mentioned in the historical documents of the Assyrian kings, compels us to conclude that Sammuramat, the mother or wife of the ruling monarch, was a Babylonian, who possessed such influence as to