Semiramis (legend)

The Assyrian queen who, in Greek writers' accounts, built Babylon and conquered the East; she may be based on the queen mother Shammuramat.

Life

Nursed by doves

Ancient Greek writers recorded that Semiramis was the daughter of a Syrian goddess, was nursed by doves, and after marrying the Assyrian king Ninus took power, built the Walls of Babylon, and led expeditions to Egypt and India.

Walls of Babylon

These stories are steeped in myth. Scholars believe the model for her was Shammuramat, queen of the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad V: after her husband died c. 811 BCE, she held an exceptionally high position in the early years of her young son Adad-nirari III's reign, and inscriptions unusually list her name alongside the king's.

Dante's Inferno

In later Europe she became a symbol of power, beauty and lust, and Dante placed her in the second circle of Hell.

Legacy

Semiramis is one of the most famous legendary queens of the ancient world, and Rossini and others composed operas about her.

Did you know? In Assyrian inscriptions, Sammu-ramat is one of the very few royal women honored with a stele of her own.

Key dates

• 811 BCEHusband dies; she rises to prominence (Shammuramat)