Semiramis

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The name Semiramis , coined by ancient Greek historians , refers to an ancient oriental heroine or queen . The Semiramis of the Greek sources should only have the name in common with the Assyrian queen Šammuramat .

Greek sources

Herodotus

According to Herodotus (Historien I, 184) she was one of the two queens who ruled all of Asia - the other was Nitokris five generations after her. After Herodotus, the gates of Babylon were named after Semiramis, Ninos and Bêlos .

Ktesias

The main source about Semiramis was the "Persian story" ( Persika ) of Ktesias of Knidos , who lived as a doctor at the Persian court for a long time. The work itself has not survived; only the extracts from Photios and loans from later authors, especially from Diodorus of Sicily, have survived.

In Diodor ( Bibliothḗkē historikḗ 2, 4-20) Semiramis is described as the daughter of the goddess Derketo of Askalon . The envious goddess Aphrodite lets Derketo fall in wild love with a beautiful Syrian youth who comes to her pond to sacrifice. After the birth of a daughter, Derketo falls into severe postnatal depression , kills the child's father, abandons the daughter in a stony and barren place and throws herself into the pond, where she transforms into a being whose lower half is a fish. Therefore the fish is sacred to the Syrians and they do not eat it. Doves, the sacred animals of Aphrodite (and Anat ), covered the semi-divine child with their wings to warm it and brought it milk and later cheese in the crop. Shepherds, amazed that pigeons steal their cheese, follow the birds and find the beautiful child. They bring it to Simmas, the childless shepherd of the king, who gives the child the name Semiramis because of the pigeons and raises it. The Syrians therefore revere the doves as divine.

When Semiramis was ready to marry, Menon, the governor of Syria, noticed her while he was inspecting the royal herds. He married her and brought her to Ninos, where she gave birth to Hyapates and Hydaspes. Semiramis was not only beautiful beyond measure, but also very clever, and her husband followed her advice in all things. When Menon took part in the siege of Baktriana , which dragged on for a long time because the city was extremely well fortified, he longed for his wife and summoned her to him. Semiramis obeyed and traveled to Bactria in clothing that “did not allow a distinction to be made whether the person wearing them was a man or a woman”, that protected her skin from the sun as well as her, “like the clothes of youth” left freedom of movement. This clothing was later adopted by the Medes and Persians .

Arriving before Baktriana, she realized that the city was only fortified in the easily accessible places, gathered experienced mountaineers around her and penetrated the castle via a steep gorge, whereupon the inhabitants surrendered. The aging King Ninos fell in love with her and offered her husband his daughter's hand when he ceded his wife. When Menon refused, he threatened to have him blinded, whereupon the latter hanged himself and made Ninos the widow his queen. Shortly after she gave him a son, Ninias, he died. Semiramis buried him on the acropolis of the city of Ninos in a burial mound that was 1.6 km high and 1.8 km wide and is still visible today, despite the destruction of the city by the Medes (probably a reinterpretation of the Tell of Niniveh ). Thereafter, Semiramis built Babylon to surpass her husband's fame . Diodorus describes in detail the walls of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the world , and the structure of the city, which Ktesias, on which Diodorus claims to be based, probably knew from his own experience.

After the construction of the city was completed, the queen moved against the Medes. She crossed the Bagistan Mountains on the piled saddles of the pack animals of her army. In media she founded the city of Chauon in the midst of magnificent gardens. Here she took the loveliest of the soldiers as lovers who disappeared when she was tired of them. She built a road to Ekbatana , where she built another palace. On campaigns she subjugated Persia, all of Asia, Egypt, parts of Libya and - with artificial elephants - also waged wars in India. For her night's camp she had artificial elevations built up, known as the "works of the Semiramis". Following an oracle from Zeus Amon , she abdicated when her son Ninias tried to have her killed by a eunuch and flew away as a dove, which is why the Assyrians worshiped the doves as divine.

Strabo

Ninus hands over his crown to Semiramis Guido Reni , 1625/26

Strabo (Geographika 16, 2) knows Semiramis as the wife of Ninos . She followed him in government and founded Babylon . She also built numerous hills "which are known today as Semiramis Hills", fortresses, aqueducts, water reservoirs, canals, roads, bridges and stepped accesses to the mountains. Ninos and Semiramis ruled before Sardanapal and Arbakes .

Other ancient sources

Athenaeus describes the life of a lady-in-waiting named Semiramis, who appropriated the rule in Babylon through intrigues, but who ruled justly. Athenagoras of Athens ( Legatio pro Christianis ) describes Semiramus, the daughter of Derketo, as "a horny and blood-stained woman" who is equated with Dea Syria . Quintus Curtius Rufus (Alexander story V 1.24) emphasizes that Semiramis founded Babylon and not Belos , as is usually claimed. According to Libanios of Antioch (314 to after 394), Semiramis built a temple for the goddess Artemis in Meroe near Antioch . Taṣyürek wants to identify the rock reliefs of Karabur in Hatay with this temple.

Assyrian sources

The name " Šammuramat " is known from the Assyrian- Babylonian king lists. Šammuramat (810–782 BC) was the wife of Shamschi -Adad V (823-810). Whether she is for her underage son Adad-nīrārī III. (791-782) ruled, it remains to be seen - this assumption is based on an inscription on the stele of Saba'a, in the from the 5th year of Adad-nirari III. the talk is, but that does not necessarily mean the 5th year of life, it can also be the 5th year of reign.

Jewish tradition

In the rabbinical tradition, Semiramis is the wife of Nimrod and got her name because she was born in thunder. She is one of the four women who ruled the world, along with Jezebel and Atalja in Israel and Vashti in Persia. According to Jewish legends, she was the wife of Nebuchadnezzar (605-562).

Post-ancient tradition

According to Trier historiography, Semiramis is said to have stalked her stepson Trebeta , so that he fled to Europe. There he is said to have founded the city of Trier on the Moselle .

interpretation

The thesis that Semiramis is identical with Ištar goes back to François Lenormant . George Rawlinson and following him, Gilmore and Smith (1887) want to connect Semiramis with the Assyrian Queen Šammuramat . Sayce tries to trace the name Semiramis back to a Lydian source and assumes that an originally Syrian myth from Hierapolis was transferred to Babylon in Persian times. Nagel tries, not very convincingly, to trace Semiramis back to Persian and Scythian sources and sees one of their role models in Atossa , the daughter of Ariaspes .

Weinfeld derives the name Semiramis from smm rmm or šamīm ramīm , High Heaven ( Excelsis ) and sees them as an aspect of Atiratu ( Ashera ), merged with the historical figures of Zakutu , the Aramaic mother of Assurhaddon and Šammuramat, the mother of Adad-nīrārī III . It points to similarities with the story of the prophet Jonah , written in Persian times , whose name means dove that is devoured by a fish and works in Nineveh .

Afterlife

middle Ages

The early Christian Armenian historiography as described in the Agathangelos (560s), in the work of Sebeos ("History of the Emperor Herakleios ", second half of the 7th century) and in the "History of Armenia" (8th or 9th century) ascribed to Moses von Choren . Century), in the legend of the Armenian king Ara and Semiramis, connects an Urartean ruler with the Assyrian queen. Ara is represented as the son of the first Urartian king Aramu (ruled around 858-844), even if Lutipri (ruled 844-834) and then Sarduri I (around 834-822) may be considered the direct successor . In fact, the Assyrian Semiramis was a contemporary of the Urartian king Menua (ruled around 810-785) and Ara bears features of the Anatolian god Attis and the Persian hero Arasch .

After the death of the beloved King Ara, Semiramis left the Ararat plain in northern Armenia and went south into the mountains until she reached a salt lake. There on the east bank, at the foot of a mountain, she founded a large city with strong walls, magnificent buildings and wide streets. Thousands of workers designed the wonderful work, which included a royal palace on the mountain, consisting of several chambers carved into the rock, as well as vineyards and orchards in the area. In other places in Armenia, Semiramis was immortalized by pillars bearing inscriptions with characters similar to the inscriptions on the cliff face of the palace.

The name of this city is not mentioned in the Armenian sources. However, research by the orientalist Friedrich Eduard Schulz showed that the historical descriptions could only refer to the Urartian capital Tušpa in today's urban area of Van . Schulz first described the rock chambers and cuneiform scriptures there and discovered the irrigation canal mentioned by Moses von Choren, which is now called the "Semiramis Canal" (Turkish Samiram arkı ).

Giovanni Boccaccio treats Semiramis in his treatise De mulieribus claris (1361-1362). Ninos and Semiramis appear in the founding legends of some European cities, such as von Trier , Gesta Treverorum (1105).

Hanging Gardens of the Semiramis

The assignment of the Hanging Gardens in Babylon , one of the Seven Wonders of the World , to Semiramis only begins in modern times.

Opera

The libretto Semiramide (also Semiramide riconosciuta , dt. The recognized Semiramis ) by Pietro Metastasio from the year 1729 should prove to be one of the most well-written in opera history. Hosts of composers have dealt with the text, including Leonardo Vinci (1729), Nicola Antonio Porpora (1729, rev. 1739), Johann Adolf Hasse (1744), Christoph Willibald Gluck (1748), Giuseppe Sarti (1762, rev. 1768 ), Tommaso Traetta (1765), Josef Mysliveček (1766), Antonio Salieri (1782), Domenico Cimarosa (1799) and Giacomo Meyerbeer (1819).

The best known today is the semiramide setting by Gioachino Rossini (1823), with the libretto by Gaetano Rossi , which goes back to Voltaire's tragedy Sémiramis (1746): Semiramis, the queen of Babylon, murdered and ruled her husband Nino with the help of Assur now in his place. After countless entanglements, she finally kills her son Arsace, who has returned from the war and received an order from the high priest to avenge his father - King Nino.

ballet

Sémiramis , choreography by Gasparo Angiolini , music by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1765).

Literary implementations

Title page: Semiramis and Ninias 1786

literature

  • Sabine Comploi: The representation of the Semiramis with Diodorus Siculus. In: Robert Rollinger , Christoph Ulf (Ed.): Gender roles and the image of women in the perspective of ancient authors. Studien-Verlag, Innsbruck et al. 2000, ISBN 3-7065-1409-5 , pp. 223-244.
  • Wilhelm Eilers : Semiramis. Origin and reverberation of an ancient oriental legend. Böhlau in commission, Vienna et al. 1973 ( Austrian Academy of Sciences. Philosophical-historical class. Meeting reports 274, 2, ISSN  0029-8832 )
  • Ulrich Moennig (ed.): The story of Alexander and Semiramis. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2004, ISBN 3-11-017530-4 ( Supplementa Byzantina 7).
  • Wolfram Nagel : Ninus and Semiramis in legend and history. Iranian states and nomads on horseback before Darius. Spiess, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-88435-062-5 ( Berlin Contributions to Pre- and Early History NF 2).
  • Giovanni Pettinato : Semiramis. Mistress of Assyria and Babylon. Biography. Artemis-Verlag, Zurich et al. 1988, ISBN 3-7608-0748-8 .
  • Wolfgang Schramm: Was Semiramis Assyrian Regent? In: Historia. Ancient History Journal . 21, 4, 1972, pp. 513-521.
  • Annette Simonis: Semiramis. In: Peter von Möllendorff , Annette Simonis, Linda Simonis (ed.): Historical figures of antiquity. Reception in literature, art and music (= Der Neue Pauly . Supplements. Volume 8). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-476-02468-8 , Sp. 879-892.
  • Moshe Weinfeld: Semiramis: Her name and her origin. In: Mordechai Cogan, Israel Eph'al (ed.): Ah, Assyria ... = Hoy 'Assur. Studies in Assyrian history and ancient Near Eastern historiography presented to Hayim Tadmor. Magnes Press, Jerusalem 1991, pp. 99-103 ( Scripta Hierosolymitana 33, ISSN  0080-8369 ).
  • Alison L. Beringer: The Sight of Semiramis: Medieval and Early Modern Narratives of the Babylonian Queen . Arizona State University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-86698-542-0 .

Web links

Commons : Semiramis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ O. Aytuğ Taşyürek: Some new Assyrian rock-reliefs in Turkey. In: Anatolian Studies 25, 1975. pp. 169-180
  2. Schramm 1972, 518
  3. ^ Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews , IV, 287; VI, 390, 426.
  4. ^ Robert H. Hewson: "The Primary History of Armenia": An Examination of the Validity of an Immemorially Transmitted Historical Tradition. In: History in Africa , Vol. 2, 1975, pp. 91-100, here p. 94
  5. ^ Ralf-Bernhard Wartke: Urartu - The realm on the Ararat. (Cultural History of the Ancient World, Volume 59) Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1993, pp. 16-19
  6. ^ Text by Moses von Choren in the translation by Max Lauer, 1869, quoted in: Mirjo Salvini: History and Culture of the Urartians. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1995, p. 124f
  7. On the content and genesis of the piece in the Hans Magnus Enzensberger project