Queens of Mesopotamia – Part I: Semiramis

In his Histories, Herodotus discusses two famous Assyrian women who ruled ancient Babylon (among many other cities in the Neo-Assyrian Empire): Semiramis and Nitocris. Our historical knowledge of these leaders is scant, but there are plenty of colorful legends. We will first take a look at Semiramis, and consider Nitocris in a later post.

Herodotus says of Semiramis:

Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adornment of its temples, of whom I shall make mention in my Assyrian history. Among them were two women. Of these, the earlier, called Semiramis, held the throne five generations before the later princess. She raised certain embankments well worthy of inspection, in the plain near Babylon, to control the [Euphrates] river, which, till then, used to overflow, and flood the whole country round about.

George Rawlinson, translator of the above lines, says in a footnote that Semiramis was the wife of Rammannirari III (812-783 B.C.) and that she may have introduced the worship of Nebo (or Nabu), the Assyrian-Babylonian god of wisdom and writing, into the great northern Assyrian city of Nineveh, near modern-day Mosul in Iraq. He pointedly adds: “Herodotus gives none of the wild tales attached to the mythical Semiramis.”

Historians today believe Semiramis (or Shammuramat) was the wife and queen of Assyrian King Shamsi-Adad IV, who ruled from 824-811 B.C. Semiramis is said to have ruled on her own as regent for four years from the death of her husband until her son Adad-nirari III came of age. Scholars question whether Semiramis was formally named regent during this period, but there is no doubt she was an influential force in the Neo-Assyrian Empire of the day.

Diodorus Siculus and other historians who related the legends surrounding Semiramis apparently drew much of their information from the accounts of Ctesias of Cnidus.

Here is one description of the legends, which notes that Semiramis was believed to be the daughter of a fish-goddess and that she eventually became the wife of a mythical Assyrian king named Ninus:

According to the legend as related by Diodorus, Semiramis was of noble parents, the daughter of the fish-goddess Derketo of Ascalon in Syria and a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by doves until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd.
 Afterwards she married Onnes or Menones, one of the generals of Ninus. Ninus was so struck by her bravery at the capture of Bactra that he married her, forcing Onnes to commit suicide.
 She and Ninus had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including the Bactrians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis then masqueraded as her son and tricked her late husband's army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. After Ninus's death she reigned as queen regnant, conquering much of Asia.
 Not only was she able to reign effectively, she also added Ethiopia to the empire. She restored ancient Babylon and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. She is also credited with inventing the chastity belt. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus credits her as the first person to castrate a male youth into eunuch-hood: "Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age" (Lib. XIV).

Edwin Murphy, translator of Diodorus Siculus, says of Semiramis:

It is probable that Semiramis was originally a Semi-Divine Syrian Empress, (part goddess part-human), perhaps the same who was linked to the [deity] worshipped at Ascalon under the name of Astarte, or the Oriental Aphrodite, associated with the Babylonia Ishtar, from the Sumerian Innana, the Persian Anaitis, and the Armenian Saris to whom the dove was sacred. Hence the stories of her voluptuousness which were current even in the time of Augustus. The historical figure behind this legendary queen is to be identified with, and almost certain, the real Queen "Sammura-mat", the palace wife of Shamsi-Adad V, king of Assyria, and mother of King Adad-Nirari III; she lived towards the end of the ninth century (regent to 810-805 B.C.), and is known to us from ancient Assyrian inscriptions. Numerous operas, plays, and novels are still current that celebrate the fame of this greatest of queens "Semiramis"... who never really lived.

Murphy explores even further the legend that Semiramis was the daughter of a fish-goddess (mermaid?), a concept also discussed by Lucian in his De Dea Syria:

Diodorus has preserved the traces of some authentic Semitic religious lore. Ascalon was the site of a famous temple to the goddess Atargatis, or Adargatis, of whose name Derceto is a variant. Atargatis herself was a combination of two deities: Athtar (contracted to Atar, an Aramaic form of Phoenician Astarte, Babylonian Ishtar, Old Testament Astoreth); and Athe, a Palmyrene divinity. The Talmudic and Armenian rendition, Tar'atha, shows this duality quite well. The worship of Atargatis was a goddess of increase and fertility, sometimes identified by Greek writers with Hellenic Aphrodite. She was linked with the ideas of the life-giving power of water and the fertility of fish, and associated, at least in Palestine, with the male deity Dagon, who was also represented as part fish, reminiscent of Oannes, the enigmatic amphibious culture-bringer of the Chaldaeans.
 Many Syrians reverence fish and observed taboos on eating them. Lucian, in the second century A.D., described the practice at Hieropolis in northern Syria, the other great center of Derceto worship: "Others think that Semiramis ... founded this site, not for Hera, but for her own mother ... Derceto. There was a likeness of Derceto in Phoenicia, a strange sight! It is a woman for half of her length, but from the thighs to the tip of the feet a fish's tail stretches out. The Derceto in Hieropolis, however, is entirely a woman... They consider fish sacred and never touch one... There is also a lake not far from the sanctuary, in which sacred fish of all kinds are raised" (De Dea Syria 14,15). A fragment of Mnaseas adds: "Whenever they pray to the goddess, they offer fishes made of silver and gold; each day the priests offer her real fish, delicately cooked, on a table". Many classical authors mention the Syrians' abstention from fish, and connect this in various ways with Atargatis, whom some rationalized simply as a cruel queen of ancient Syria who instituted this practice.

Interestingly, Murphy finds a possible connection between Onnes, husband of Semiramis, and Oannes, the part-man part-fish creature who according to ancient legend emerged from the Persian/Arabian Gulf  and brought knowledge and culture to ancient Mesopotamia:

It is possible that Onnes represents, in a disguised and attenuated form, Oannes, the semi-human fish-like being who, according to the Babylonian History of Berosus, brought culture to ancient Mesopotamia. Oannes was Berosus' name for the Babylonian god Ea (equivalent to Sumerian En-ki). His widespread cult was adopted by the Assyrians, among others, who erected a temple to him at Nineveh. Ea's special domain was water and the deep, and this plus his icthyomorphic appearance and his worship at Nineveh may reflect a flimsy connection with the Semiramis legend through the fish-goddess Derceto, her mother. But the point should not be pressed too far, the evidence is only inferential. The slight resemblance between the name Derceto and that of Damkina, Ea's consort, may be coincidental. But it is curious that Hydaspes, mentioned below as a son of Onnes, bears the same name as a river in India: for Ea was of the deep or abyss, the source of all streams.

Thus, as we often find, legends and myths about historical figures frequently have more importance than the so-called factual data. We find Semiramis has connections to the great goddess of the Middle East and to the mysterious knowledge-bringer of early Mesopotamia. As a mythic and metaphoric figure, she has survived to the present day, has been featured in numerous plays and works of literature, including Dante’s Inferno and the Snopes trilogy of William Faulkner.