but truth requires the
historian to obliterate from the pages of the past this well-known
image, and to substitute in its place a very dull and prosaic figure--a
Semiramis no longer decked with the prismatic hues of fancy, but clothed
instead in the sober garments of fact. The Nebo idols are dedicated, by
the Assyrian officer who had them executed, "to his lord Vul-lush and
his lady _Sammuramit_" from whence it would appear to be certain, in the
first place, that that monarch was married to a princess who bore this
world-renowned name, and, secondly, that she held a position superior to
that which is usually allowed in the East to a queen-consort. An
inveterate Oriental prejudice requires the rigid seclusion of women; and
the Assyrian monuments, thoroughly in accord with the predominant tone
of Eastern manners, throw a veil in general over all that concerns the
weaker sex, neither representing to us the forms of the Assyrian women
in the sculptures, nor so much as mentioning their existence in the
inscriptions. Very rarely is there an exception to this all but
universal reticence. In the present instance, and in about two others,
the silence usually kept is broken; and a native woman comes upon the
scene to tantalize us by her momentary apparition. The glimpse that we
here obtain does not reveal much. Beyond the fact that the principal
queen of Vul-lush III., was named Semiramis, and the further fact,
implied in her being mentioned at all, that she had a recognized
position of authority in the country, we can only conclude,
conjecturally, from the exact parallelism of the phrases used, that she
bore sway conjointly with her husband, either over the whole or over a
part of his dominions. Such a view explains, to some extent, the
wonderful tale of the Ninian Semiramis, which was foisted into history
by Ctesias; for it shows that he had a slight basis of fact to go upon.
It also harmonizes, or may be made to harmonize, with the story of
Semiramis as told by Herodotus, who says that she was a Babylonian
queen, and reigned five generations before Nitocris, or about B.C. 755.
For it is quite possible that the Sammuramit married to Vul-lush III.,
was a Babylonian princess, the last descendant of a long line of kings,
whom the Assyrian monarch wedded to confirm through her his title to the
southern provinces; in which case a portion of his subjects would regard
her as their legitimate sovereign, and only recognize his authority a