Semiramis

[[File:Pierre Bellet - Semiramida.jpg|thumb|right|166px|Semiramis prepares to lay down the law.]]{{folklore}}
'''Semiramis''' (/səˈmɪrəmɪs/) was a [[god]]dess/legendary [[Monarchy|queen]]/historical queen (scholars still aren't sure which) of Assyria who somehow acquired the reputation of being exceptionally beautiful and exceptionally lustful, as well as a kick-ass warrior.<ref group=note>And all this was years before ''Xena''.</ref>  As a result, she got into a shedload of operas and plays, including operas bearing the title ''Semiramide'' by Cimarosa, Meyerbeer, and Rossini.  In cinema, she frequently appears in {{wpl|sword-and-sandal}} films, and has been played by Rhonda Fleming and Yvonne Furneaux.  By all reports, she was fun to be with.  

==The legend==
Legends state that she was daughter of the Assyrian [[mermaid]]-like goddess {{wpl|Derceto||,}} a.k.a. Atargatis, and a mortal.  She was fed by doves as an infant.  Later, she was married to Ones, a general of the Assyrian king Ninus. The king wanted her as his queen, being impressed by her bravery in combat.  But the general refused to give her to the king, so the king made an offer the former could not refuse. Ones went batshit crazy and ended hanging himself, leaving Semiramis free to marry the king.  After Ninus was killed by an arrow, Semiramis became queen and ruled alone for 42 years. She expanded her empire from [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]] to [[India]], where she was repelled after having been wounded.<ref>Diodorus Siculus, [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/2A*.html#4 ''The Library of History''], book 2</ref>

Other legends consider her the inventor of the [[chastity belt]] and the first woman to castrate men. They generally regarded her as basically a spoiled 
[[Prostitution|whore]]
 brat who, scorned after the Armenian king Ara refused to marry her, marched to battle against [[Armenia]] just to kill him in battle. She then tried to [[Resurrection|raise Ara from the dead]] <ref group=note>Not as a [[zombie]]</ref> by [[Prayer|praying]] to the [[gods]], and of course she failed.  So she disguises one of her lovers as said king telling she was successful, so the war would end.

She appears in the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' in the second circle of [[Hell]], reserved for the lustful.  Dante writes:

{{cquote|To sensual vices she was so abandoned,<br>That lustful she made licit in her law,<br>To remove the blame to which she had been led.<br><br>She is Semiramis, of whom we read<br>That she succeeded Ninus, and was his spouse;<br>
She held the land which now the Sultan rules.|||Dante, ''Divine Comedy'', canto V}}

On the other hand, Swinburne seemed to have liked her:

{{cquote|SEMIRAMIS.<br>
I am the queen Semiramis.<br>The whole world and the sea that is<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;In fashion like a chrysopras,<br>The noise of all men labouring,<br>The priest’s mouth tired through thanksgiving,<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;  The sound of love in the blood’s pause,<br>The strength of love in the blood’s beat,<br>All these were cast beneath my feet<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; And all found lesser than I was.|||Algernon Charles Swinburne, [http://www.telelib.com/authors/S/SwinburneAlgernonCharles/verse/p1/queenbersabe.html The Masque of Queen Bersabe]}}

== The real history ==
[[File:Map of Assyria.png|thumb|left|320px|The actual domain of Shamurramat was nothing to sneeze at.]]
In all likelihood, the origin of Semiramis' legend is the Asyrian queen {{wpl|Shammuramat||,}}<ref name="britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |title= Sammu-ramat (queen of Assyria) |url= http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/520556/Sammu-ramat |accessdate= 2017-12-06}}</ref> who governed the Assyrian empire as regent from 811 to 806 BCE. The myths came later as it was a novelty to have a large empire ruled by a woman who waged successful wars against those who started them ([[Greece|Greeks]] and Indo-Iranians)<ref>Georges Roux — Ancient Iraq</ref> — she, of course, was not the daughter of a [[goddess]], nor did she carry her conquests as far as her mythical equivalent.

The reason she was attributed such grandiose feats may well have been the lack of knowledge many ancient cultures had about the Mesopotamians.<ref group=note> Remember, even critical monarchs like Eannatum, Sargon, and Hammurabi were almost completely forgotten for thousands of years.</ref> Whenever somebody saw some impressive ruins, or heard some local tale about a culturally Akkadian warlord (be they Assyrian or Babylonian), she just got the credit because she was the only monarch of that type anybody remembered. Similar hypotheses have been put forward for Ninus, (who is perhaps a warped form of Tukulti-Ninurta) Nebuchadnezzar II (who takes on several traits from Nabonidus in the Hebrew Bible), and Sardanapalus (who has the garbled name of Ashurbanipal, the death of Shamash-shum-ukin, and a life style that is very much a cliché Greco-Roman take on "oriental depravity").

==The woo==
{{wpl|Alexander Hislop||,}} a 19<sup>th</sup> century [[Protestantism|Protestant]] [[Scottish]] minister, claimed in his book ''[[Easter#Alexander_Hislop's_The_Two_Babylons|The Two Babylons]]'' that Semiramis was a real ancient [[Mesopotamia]]n person who invented both [[polytheism]] and goddess veneration<ref group=note>Yeah, there are no polytheistic religions and/or other goddesses, mother or not, in other parts of the world far away from Babylon.</ref> and was the queen consort of [[Nimrod]] (even though the two lived centuries apart, assuming Semi ever existed at all), the one who supposedly built the [[Bible|biblical]] [[Tower of Babel]].<ref>{{cite web |first=Alexander |last=Hislop |url=http://philologos.org/__eb-ttb/default.htm |title=The Two Babylons |publisher=Philologos.org |accessdate=2017-12-06}}</ref> According to Hislop, they founded the "Babylonian Mystery Cult" (even though mystery cults were specifically a Greek thing), she ordered that her own fine person should be venerated as the Queen of Heaven, and that her child was the nature male deity {{wpl|Tammuz (mythology)|Tammuz.}} All mother-child deity or divine pairings of history down to the [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|Mary]]-child [[Jesus]] are just the Semiramis-Tammuz duo refurbished, so by this logic [[Catholicism]] is just [[Paganism|paganism]] in disguise. As far a we are aware, Hislop has yet to receive his rightfully-earned posthumous Olympic Gold Medal in mental gymnastics.

Even if scholars have rejected his ideas as just [[Bullshit|manure]] — to begin with, no reference at all to Semiramis or any other consort of Nimrod exists in the [[Bible]], nor is Semiramis called "mother of harlots" in those texts where she is mentioned<ref name="books.google.com">Grabbe, Lester L. [https://books.google.com/books?id=K2hIY_E_ngYC&pg=PA28 Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written?] p. 28, 1997, Continuum International Publishing Group</ref> — obtained by mixing by myths from many cultures,<ref>Ralph Woodrow "''THE TWO BABYLONS'': A Case Study in Poor Methodology", in ''Christian Research Journal'' volume 22, number 2 (2000) of the  (Article DC187)</ref> the [[woo]] lives on in places as [[Jack Chick]] tracts — who puts Nimrod as her son, no less batshit insane people as [[David Icke]], who conflates her with the [[Reptilians]],<ref>David Icke, ''The Biggest Secret, 52-54''</ref> and among [[fundies]] who often throw in the mix the [[Babylon#The Whore of Babylon|Whore of Babylon]] and the Biblical queen [[Jezebel]] to justify why women cannot rule alone and/or without fearing [[YHWH|Yahweh]], be as queens, majors, or whatever.<ref group=note>Then again that is a preacher who's obsessed with [[Illuminati]]/[[New World Order|NWO]] nonsense, the [[End Times]], claims that far-left parties practice Occultism and [[Satanism]], and the coming of the [[Antichrist]]. [[Bullshit]] is a gateway for more bullshit, it seems.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Nimrod]]

==External links==
*{{wpa|Semiramis}}
*[https://www.ancient.eu/Semiramis/ Semiramis] at the Ancient History Encyclopedia

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Pseudohistory]]

Categories: Pseudohistory