and, possibly to ward off
and neutralize the distracting influence of Shakespeare and other
barbarian dramatists, he "turned over" the tragedies of Seneca
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 173). It is hardly necessary to remind the modern
reader that the Sardanapalus of history is an unverified if not an
unverifiable personage. Diodorus the Sicilian, who was contemporary with
Cicero, derived his knowledge of Assyrian history from the _Persica_ of
Ctesias of Cnidos, who was private physician at the court of Artaxerxes
Mnemon (B.C. 405-359), and is said to have had access to, and to have
consulted, the "Persian authorities" ([Greek: diphthe/rai Basilikai\]).

The character which Ctesias depicted or invented, an effeminate
debauchee, sunk in luxury and sloth, who at the last was driven to take
up arms, and, after a prolonged but ineffectual resistance, avoided
capture by suicide, cannot be identified. Asurbanipal
(A[)s]ur-b[=a]ni-apli), the son of Esarhaddon and grandson of
Sennacherib, who ascended the throne B.C. 668, and reigned for about
forty years, was, as the cuneiform records and the friezes of his palace
testify, a bold hunter and a mighty warrior. He vanquished Tark[=u]
(Tirhakah) of Ethiopia, and his successor, Urdaman[=e]. Ba'al King of
Tyre, Yakinl[=u] King of the island-city of Arvad, Sand[)a]sarm[=u] of
Cilicia, Teumman of Elam, and other potentates, suffered defeat at his
hands. "The land of Elam," writes the king or his "Historiographer
Royal," "through its extent I covered as when a mighty storm approaches;
I cut off the head of Teumman, their king... Beyond number I slew his
warriors; alive in my hands I took his fighting men; with their corpses,
as with thorns and thistles, I filled the vicinity of Susa; their blood
I caused to flow in the Eulaeus, and I stained its waters like wool."
Clearly the Sardanapalus who painted his face and carded purple wool in
the _penetralia_ of his seraglio does not bear even a traditional
resemblance to A[)s]ur-b[=a]ni-apli the Conqueror.

All that can be affirmed with any certainty is that within twenty years
of the death of Asurbanipal, the Assyrian Empire passed into the hands
of the Medes;[1] but there is nothing to show whether the period of
decay had already set in before the close of his reign, or under which
of his two successors, [)A]sur-etil-il[=a]ni or Sin-[)s]ar-i[)s]kun,
the final catastrophe (B.C. 606) took place (_Encyclopedia Biblica_,
art. "Assyria," art. "[)A]sur-ba