we ought to read Exaortes in Diodorus; but that the name of the king in Ctesias was Zoroaster is in my opinion very doubtful. The sources of Ctesias were stories related by Persians or Medes from the epic of West Iran. That this should put Zoroaster at the time of Ninus, and make him king of the Bactrians, in order to allow him to be overthrown by the Assyrians, is very improbable. Whether Ctesias ascribed to Semiramis the building of Egbatana is also very doubtful; that he mentioned her stay in Media, and ascribed to her the building of the road over the Zagrus and the planting of gardens, follows from the quotation of Stephanus given above. Ctesias has not ascribed to her the hanging gardens at Babylon. Diodorus makes them the work of a later Syrian king, whom Ctesias would certainly have called king of Assyria. Ctesias too can hardly have ascribed to her the obelisk at Babylon (Diod. 2, 11); so at least the addition of Diodorus, "that it belonged to the seven wonders," seems to me to prove.
17
"Catasterism." c. 38; Hygin. "Astronom." 2, 41. In Diodorus Aphrodite, enraged by a maiden, Derceto, imbues her with a fierce passion for a youth. In shame she slays the youth, exposes the child, throws herself into the lake of Ascalon, and is changed into a fish. For this reason the image of the goddess Derceto at Ascalon has the face of a woman and the body of a fish (2, 4).
18
Diod. 2, 17,
19
Georg. Syncell. p. 119, ed. Bonn.
20
Diod. 1, 56.
21
"De Iside," c. 24.
22
Diod. 2, 4,
23
Herod. 1, 7.
24
Lucian, "De Syria dea," c. 33, 14, 38. The name Semiramoth is found 1 Chronicles xv. 18, 20; xvi. 5; 2, xvii. 8.
25
Ctesias in Strabo, p. 785.
26
Agathias, 2, 24.
27
Diod. 2, 21; Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 56; 2, p. 11, ed. Schöne; Syncellus, "Chron." 1, 313, 314, ed. Bonn; Brandis, "Rer. Assyr. tempor. emend." p. 13
28
Euseb. "Chron." 1, p. 26, ed. Schöne.
29
1, 184, 187.
30
Vol. i. 512.
31
Ménant, "Annal." p. 18.
32
G. Smith, "Discov." p. 249.
33
The date of Tiglath Adar is fixed by the statement of Sennacherib that he lost his seal to the Babylonians 600 years before Sennacherib took Babylon,
34
Vol. i. p. 262.
35
This series, Pudiel, Bel-nirar and Bin-nirar, is established by tiles of Kileh-Shergat, and the fact that it joins on to Assur-u-ballit, by the tablet of Bin-nirar discovered by G. Smith, in which he calls himself great grandson of Assur-u-ballit, grandson of Bel-nirar, and son of Pudiel; G. Smith, "Discov." p. 244.
36
G. Smith, "Discov." pp. 244, 245.
37
E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 20; "Records of the Past," 7, 17.
38
Ménant, "Annal." p. 73.
39
G. Smith,
40
G. Smith,
41
G. Smith,
42
So the passage runs according to a communication from E. Schrader. On the reading Adarpalbitkur as against the readings Ninpalazira and Adarpalassar, see E. Schrader, "A. B. Keilinschriften," s. 152. On what Ménant ("Annal." p. 29) grounds the assumption that Belkudurussur was the immediate successor of Tiglath Adar I cannot say; it would not be chronologically impossible, but the synchronistic tablet merely informs us that Adarpalbitkur was the successor of Belkudurussur; G. Rawlinson, "Mon." 2, 49. Still less am I able to find any foundation for the statement that Binpaliddin of Babylon, the opponent of Belkudurussur and Adarpalbitkur, was a vassal-king set up by Assyria. The date of Tiglath Pilesar I. is fixed by the Bavian inscription, which tells us that Sennacherib at his second capture of Babylon brought back out of that city the images of the gods lost by Tiglath Pilesar 418 years previously (Bav. 43-50), at the period between 1130 and 1100 B.C. If he began to reign 1130, then the five kings before him (the series from Adarpalbitkur to Tiglath Pilesar is fixed by the cylinder of the latter), allowing 20 years to each reign, bring us to 1230 B.C. for the beginning of Belkudurussur. To go back further seems the more doubtful, as Tiglath Pilesar put Assur-dayan, the third prince of this series, only 60 years before his own time.
43
Sayce, "Records of the Past," 3, 31; Ménant,
44
Communication from E. Schrader.
45
Cf. G. Smith,
46
Vol. i. p. 263; Ménant,
47
Ménant, "Annal." pp. 47, 48.
48
Column, 1, 62,
49
Column, 5, 44.
50
Column, 6, 39.
51
Ménant,
52
Vol. i. p. 519; E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 16.
53
Ménant,
54
Vol. i. p. 263; Bavian Inscrip. 48-50; Ménant, "Annal." pp. 52, 236. Inscription on the black basalt-stone in Oppert et Ménant, "Documents juridiques," p. 98. Is the name of the witness (col. 2, 27), Sar-babil-assur-issu (p. 115), correctly explained by "The king of Babel has conquered Asshur"?
55
Col. 1, 62.
56
Ammian. Marcell. 18, 9.
57
Araziki cannot be taken for Aradus, the name of which city on the obelisk and in the inscriptions of Assurnasirpal, Shalmanesar, and elsewhere is Arvadu.
58
Sayce, "Records," 3, 33; Ménant, "Annal." p. 53; "Babylone," pp. 129, 130.
59
According to G. Smith ("Discov." p. 91, 252) this Samsi-Bin II. restored the temple of Istar at Nineveh which Samsi-Bin I. had built (above, p. 3).
60
Inscription of Kurkh, "Records of the Past," 3, 93; Ménant, "Annal." p. 55.
61
Ménant, "Annal." p. 63.
62
E. Schrader, "Keilinschriften und A. T." s. 7.
63
Robinson, "Palestine," 3, 710.
64
Tac. "Hist." 5, 6.
65
Rénan, "Mission de Phénicie," p. 836.
66
Vol. i. pp. 344, 345.
67
Vol. i. p. 151.
68
Vol. i. p. 153.
69
Vol. i. p. 344.
70
The legend runs, "From the Sidonians, Mother of Kamb, Ippo, Kith(?), Sor," Movers, "Phœniz."
