Semiramis

(flourished late ninth century b.c.)

   A noted Assyrian queen who was the wife of King Shamshi-Adad V (reigned ca. 823 - 811 b.c.) and mother of Adad-nirari III (ca. 810 - 783 b.c.). Semiramis (or Sammu-ramat) appears to have been very influential in the Assyrian royal court. She erected some of her own monuments in the city of Ashur and went with her husband on some of his campaigns, which was highly unusual for an Assyrian queen. Later, when Shamshi-Adad passed away, Semiramis served as regent for her son for a period of five years, during which time she seems to have virtually ruled the empire.

   Perhaps because it was so unusual in this era for a woman to hold such power, a number of legends grew up about Semi-ramis, some of them plausible but others clearly outlandish. In one tall tale, for example, she created a vast empire that stretched to the borders of India and then turned into a dove when she died. Another story said that she had a different lover every night and killed each the next morning. One of these lovers was supposedly the Sun, who, after Semiramis had slain him, was restored to life by the goddess Ishtar. When he visited Babylon in the fifth century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus heard other stories about the enterprising queen, including claims that she had completed some large-scale engineering projects. He writes that she "was responsible for certain remarkable emban kments in the plain outside the city, built to control the river, which until then used to flood the whole countryside." (Histories 1.185) Fascination for Semiramis remained strong over the ages. In modern times she became the heroine of a number of poems and novels as well as the 1823 opera Semi-ramide by Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868).

   See also: Adad-nirari III; Babylon; Shamshi-Adad V