a considerable
time: the siege proved indeed of very great length. It had been declared
by an ancient oracle, that Nineveh could never be taken, unless the river
became an enemy to the city. These words buoyed up Sardanapalus, because
he looked upon the thing as impossible. But when he saw that the Tigris,
by a violent inundation, had thrown down twenty stadia(1009) of the city
wall, and by that means opened a passage to the enemy, he understood the
meaning of the oracle, and thought himself lost.(M164) He resolved,
however, to die in such a manner, as, according to his opinion, should
cover the infamy of his scandalous and effeminate life. He ordered a pile
of wood to be made in his palace, and setting fire to it, burnt himself,
his eunuchs, his women, and his treasures. Athenaeus makes these treasures
amount to a thousand myriads of talents of gold,(1010) and ten times as
many talents of silver, which, without reckoning any thing else, is a sum
that exceeds all credibility. A myriad contains ten thousand; and one
single myriad of talents of silver is worth thirty millions of French
money, or about one million four hundred thousand pounds sterling. A man
is lost, if he attempts to sum up the whole value; which induces me to
believe, that Athenaeus must have very much exaggerated in his computation;
however, we may be assured, from his account, that the treasures were
immensely great.

Plutarch, in his second treatise,(1011) dedicated to the praise of
Alexander the Great, wherein he examines in what the true greatness of
princes consists, after having shown that it can arise from nothing but
their own personal merit, confirms it by two very different examples,
taken from the history of the Assyrians, in which we are now engaged.
Semiramis and Sardanapalus (says he) both governed the same kingdom; both
had the same people, the same extent of country, the same revenues, the
same forces and number of troops; but they had not the same dispositions,
nor the same views. Semiramis, raising herself above her sex, built
magnificent cities, equipped fleets, armed legions, subdued neighbouring
nations, penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, and carried her victorious
arms to the extremities of Asia, spreading consternation and terror
everywhere. Whereas Sardanapalus, as if he had entirely renounced his sex,
spent all his time in the heart of his palace, perpetually surrounded with
a company of women, whose dress and even manners he