troduced as coeval with Nineve: though, if the least
credit may be given to [920]Herodotus, it was built many ages after by
Deioces the Mede. The city Nineve itself is by Ctesias placed upon the
[921]Euphrates; though every other writer agrees, that it lay far to the
east, and was situated upon the Tigris. This shews how little credit is to
be paid to Ctesias. The whole account of the fleet of ships built in
Bactria, and carried upon camels to the Indus, is a childish forgery. How
can we suppose, that there were no woods to construct such vessels, but in
the most inland regions of Asia? The story of the fictitious elephants,
made out of the hides of black oxen, which put to flight the real
elephants, is another silly fable. Megasthenes, who wrote of India, would
not allow that Semiramis was ever in those [922]parts. Arrian seems to
speak of it as a groundless [923]surmise. Her building of Babylon was by
[924]Berosus treated as a fable. Herennius Philo maintained, that it was
built by a son of Belus the wise, two thousand years before her [925]birth.
Suidas says, that she called Nineve [926]Babylon: so uncertain is every
circumstance about this Heroine. She is supposed to have sent to Cyprus,
and Phenicia, for artists to construct and manage the ships abovementioned;
as if there had been people in those parts famous for navigation before the
foundation of Nineve. They sometimes give to Semiramis herself the merit of
building the [927]first ship; and likewise the invention of weaving cotton:
and another invention more extraordinary, which was that of emasculating
[928]men, that they might be guardians, and overseers in her service. Yet,
it is said of her, that she took a man to her bed every night, whom she put
to death in the morning. How can it be imagined, if she was a woman of such
unbridled [929]lust, that she would admit such spies upon her actions? We
may as well suppose, that a felon would forge his own gyves, and construct
his own prison. Claudian thinks, that she did it to conceal her own sex, by
having a set of beardless people about her.

[930]Seu prima Semiramis astu
Assyriis mentita virum, ne vocis acutae
Mollities, levesque genae se prodere possent,
Hos sibi junxisset socios: seu Parthica ferro
Luxuries nasci vetuit lanuginis umbram;
Servatosque diu puerili flore coegit
Arte retardatam Veneri servire juventam.

In respect to Semiramis I do not see how this expedient could avail. S