Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. For the ancient
Greeks Semiramis was a legendary Assyrian queen. Many legends have
accumulated around her bold personality. Various efforts have been made
to identify her with real persons. She is sometimes identified with the
real Shammuramat (in Greek, Semiramis), the Assyrian wife of
Shamshi-Adad V (ruled 811 BC-808 BC), King of Assyria. The legends
narrated by Diodorus Siculus, Justin and others from Ctesias of Cnidus
make a picture of her and her relationship to King Ninus. The name of
Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia, the
origin of which was forgotten or unknown. Ultimately every stupendous
work of antiquity by the Euphrates or in Iran seems to have been
ascribed to her, even the Behistun Inscription of Darius. Herodotus
ascribes to her the artificial banks that confined the Euphrates and
knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon. The Hanging Gardens of
Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are also known as
the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis.
