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H. undoubtedly confused the kings of Babylon and Assyria (cf. 178. 1 n.). For his Ἀσσύριοι λόγοι cf. App. II, § 6. Σεμίραμις. For this queen cf. inscriptions of ‘Kalach’ (B. M. G. p. 31) now in B. M. She was a Babylonian princess, the wife of the Assyrian Rammânnirari III (812-783 B.C.), and seems to have introduced the worship of Nebo into Nineveh; hence H. no doubt heard of her name at the Nebo temple. Her real date almost corresponds to the ‘five generations’ of H., i.e. 167 years before Nebuchadnezzar's accession, 605 B.C. (v. i.) = 772. It is noticeable that H. gives none of the wild Greek fables as to the mythical Semiramis (cf. Diod. ii. 5 seq., following Ctesias), which make her a sort of Assyrian Catherine II, distinguished equally in war and for sensuality. No doubt in these stories is reflected the double character of the goddess Ishtar (cf. 105. 2 n.). Berosus censures the Greeks (F. H. G. ii. 507) for saying that she founded Nineveh. For Semiramis cf. Lehmann in Klio, i. 256 seq. The χώματα and the accompanying canals were a well-known feature of Babylonia from the time of Hammurabi (cf. App. II, § 1) onwards; they were needed at once to control the floods of the river (Strabo, 740 seq., a very interesting passage), and for the irrigation which was essential to the life of the country; it was the filling up of these canals which has turned one of the most thickly populated regions of the Old World into the waste of to-day. Their defensive use (cf. 185. 1 n.) was only secondary. The remains of thirty or forty canals are still passed in a day's journey (Nikel, p. 9). For Alexander's care of the canals cf. Strabo, 740-1. For canals in Babylonia generally cf. Winckler, Hist. of Bab. (tr. by Craig, 1907), pp. 135-9. No such queen as Nitocris is found either in the Babylonian inscriptions or in Berosus; H. perhaps misheard the name, and assimilated it, when he wrote, to the Egyptian name with which he was more familiar; Lehmann (u. s.) sees in it the consonants of the Persian form of Nebuchadnezzar, i.e. ‘Nabukadracara’, sounded ‘tracara’. Others, however, think that it was not the ignorance of H., but his informants' prejudice (cf. 181. 5 n.) which is responsible for the suppression of all mention of this great king; they consider that in the priestly tradition the works of Nebuchadnezzar were attributed to his wife, who was a Median princess, Amuita, the daughter of Astyages (Berosus, F. H. G. ii. 505); this marriage is probably referred to i. 74. 4 n. She is said to have suggested the famous ‘hanging gardens’, from a longing for her Median mountain home (cf. 181. 4 n.). H. confuses her with the mother of the last king, Nabonidus (‘Labynetus,’ 188. 1); this lady seems from the ‘annalistic tablet’ to have been an important person (R. P.2 v. 160). Hence in H. the works of the great Chaldaean king are given to one composite queen.
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