Semiramis appointed regent, employed the first pe riod of her administration in adding to the splendour of her capital. Lakes were dug, palaces were built, tem ples were consecrated, and walls were raised; and the city seemed to owe its magnificence to her alone. When she had finished these monuments of her power and grandeur, and visited the provinces of her empire, she formed the design of signalizing her reign by martial achievements. For this purpose she pushed her con quests over a great part of Ethiopia ; and, not satisfied with that success, she collected all the forces of her empire at Bactria, and, at the head of a mighty army, directed her march to India. As the strength of Sta brobates, king of India, consisted chiefly in the number of his elephants, she endeavoured to supply the want of them by camels, artfully dressed to resemble them in form and magnitude, and, confiding in her stratagem and power, she invaded the territories of her enemies. Her success at first equalled her expectations; her fleet triumphed over that of her enemies, in an obstinate and bloody battle upon the Indus. Her army gained equal glory, by taking the cities and islands of that river, ma king 100,000 captives, and driving before her the army of Stabrobates. His flight, however, was more the ef fect of policy than of fear. He thus decoyed Semiramis over the river, and led her into the heart of his king dom. No sooner was the ground proper for his designs, than Stabrobates commanded his army to stop, and im mediately attacked the front of his enemies. His ca valry, however, at first were thrown into disorder by the unexpected appearance of the counterfeit elephants, which were placed in the front of the Assyrians, and, communicating their fears to the rest of the army, a general rout would have been the consequence, had not Stabrobates, with singular intrepidity, burst upon the left wing of his enemies, where Semiramis commanded in person, and, after wounding her with his own hand, forced her to fly, and to lament the destruction of her mighty a: my. Returning home in disgrace, a conspiracy was formed against her by her own son; but, when she was upon the point of falling a sacrifice, either to his ambition or justice, she discovered the plot, and proved that she was not unworthy of the throne, by forgiving her son, and resigning into his hands, after a reign of forty years, that sceptre which he coveted.
Ninyas inherited the dominions, but not the martial virtues of his parents. Averse to war, either from dis position or policy, he wasted his time in indolence and pleasure, and shutting himself up in his palace with eunuchs and concubines, he was equally negligent of his people's happiness and his own fame. But convin ced that effeminate pleasures could only be enjoyed in peace, and that peace could only be secured by a readi ness for war, he raised an army from all the provinces of his empire, which being trained under proper officers, continued at Nineveh and the adjacent country during a year, at the expiration of which they returned home, and their place was supplied by a similar conscription. As he lived without glory, it is probable he died with out being lamented ; but his example seems to have had a powerful influence over his successors, who, for thirty generations, slumbered in luxury, and did not leave be hind them the remembrance of one action to transmit their names to posterity.
At the end of this inglorious period, which continued at least 1200 years, Sardanapalus assumed the govern ment; but not to vindicate the honour of his country, nor confirm the basis of his throne. When we are told that he laid aside the dress appropriated to his sex, we may easily believe that he did not retain one virtuous or manly principle. Imitating the voice and manners of the most abandoned of women, he surk into the lowest depth of debauchery, and offered every outrage to rea son and nature. The moment a king descends from the dignity of his character, he is ready to be tumbled from the dignity of his throne. Arbaces, a man brave, just, and prudent, was governor of Media, and, indignant that a powerful kingdom should be subject to the will of such a monster as Sardanapalus, formed the design of free ing his country from inglorious servitude. Belesis, like wise, viceroy of Babylon, whose counsels, from his ex ercising the office of priest and astrologer, were support ed by the authority of heaven, perceiving a spirit of am bition in Arbaces, confirmed his resolution, and assured him, that, by the appointment of the gods, he was to ascend the throne. In this manner a conspiracy was
formed and the standard of rebellion was raised. Sar danapalus, roused by danger, called forth the latent energies of his mind, and, drawing together his forces, he triumphed over the conspirators in three pitched battles. Belesis, brave, sanguine, and persevering, found his influence scarcely sufficient to confirm the waver ing mind of Arbaces. His exhortations were, however, once more listened to, and the augmentation which the rebel army received, in a few days, of the whole power of the Bactrians, realised the hopes which he had raised. Twice was the army of Sardanapalus routed : He, with the remainder, was besieged in Nineveh ; and, at the end of two years, the Tigris, by throwing down twenty stadia (2 1- miles) of the wall, fulfilled an ancient prophe cy, that the city should never be taken till the river be came its enemy. This event extinguished the last hope which Sardanapalus had formed ; retiring into the heart of his palace, where he had collected his treasures, his eunuchs, and his concubines, he set fire to the splendid pile, and was consumed in its ruins. The conspirators levelled the city with the ground, and subverted the Assyrian empire, which had subsisted, according to Ctesias, 1400 years.
Such are the outlines of the Assyrian history, as hand ed down by several ancient writers, and received by some of the modern. We have, however, ventured to express our suspicions of its truth, and we did so for the following reasons: 1. Though many historians, Dio dorus Siculus, Justin, Castor, Syncellus, Eusebius, Ste. have endeavoured to give respectability to this narra tion, by receiving it as true, yet as it is universally al lowed, that all their information was derived from the original historian, Ctesias of Cuidus, the whole must stand or fall with that writer. But Aristotle, who lived a very few years after him, asserts, that he was altogeth er unworthy of credit. The fragments of Assyrian his tory which Herodotus gives us are incompatible with his account ; and Dionysius of Halicarnassus affirms, that the Assyrian antiquities are involved in fable. 2. Cte sias must appear unworthy of credit, from the nature of the events which he relates. His history of India is uni versally allowed to be a fiction, as it is filled with actions and events which never could take place. But his As syrian history is disgraced by the same improbabilities. Who can believe that Ninus, soon after the flood, could lead to battle millions of men ; that Semiramis, at the age of twenty, could perform the exploits which he as cribes to her ; could employ two millions of men in build ing cities, and procure three hundred thousand skins of black oxen to dress her camels in the form of elephants? 3. The boundaries which he assigns to the Assyrian em pire are incompatible with the extent of other nations at that period. It appears from the writings of Moses, that Chedarlaomar, king of Elam, a country which lay to the south-east of Shinar, was a prince indepcndant of As syria, at a time when, according to Ctcsias, his country must have composed a part of that empire. The pos sessions of the Israelites, and the neighbouring nations, in the times of Joshua, and the Judges likewise, can never he reconciled with his account of that empire ; and, at the period of the Trojan war, Priani's dominions must have been subject to Assyria ; a circumstance which the silence of Homer renders altogether impro bable. 4. His history is also inconsistent with the his tory of the Assyrians recorded in scripture. The scrip ture not only represents David extending his conquests over a great part of the country on the side of the Eu phrates, and Benhadad and Hazael governing Syria as an independent state, but Pul is the first king of As syria which the inspired writer mentions, from the time when that country was planted by Ashur ; and that he was in reality the founder of that empire, is proved by Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms. 5. In the long list of Assyrian kings which Ctesias gives, not above two or three have the least affinity with the names of the Assyrians mentioned in scripture. The whole is almost composed of Greek, Persian, and Egyp tian names ; which, though very common in the coun tries to which they belonged, were altogether unknown in Assyria.