SEMIRAMIS CAME BEFORE ALEXANDER

Islam Comes to India 12

Before Alexander, Assyrian queen Semiramis had attacked India.She travelled with 400,000 troops to conquer India and returned with only 20000 troops. 

Semiramis was the mythological Lydian-Babylonian wife of Onnes and Ninus, succeeding the latter to the throne of Assyria, as in the fables of Movses Khorenatsi.

The legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus, who drew from the works of Ctesias of Cnidus, describe her and her relationships to Onnes and King Ninus, a mythical king of Assyria not attested in the far older and more comprehensive Assyrian King List.Armenians and the Assyrians of Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, and northwest Iran still use the Shamiram as a given name for female children.

The real and historical Shammuramat (the original Akkadian and Aramaic form of the name) was the Assyrian wife of Shamshi-Adad V (ruled 824 BC–811 BC), ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and its regent for five years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age and took the reins of power.She ruled at a time of political uncertainty, which is one of the possible explanations for why Assyrians may have accepted her rule (as normally a woman as ruler would have been unthinkable). It has been speculated that ruling successfully as a woman may have made the Assyrians regard her with particular reverence, and that the achievements of her reign (including stabilizing and strengthening the empire after a destructive civil war) were retold over the generations until she was turned into a mythical figure.

The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia and Anatolia, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown. Various places in Upper Mesopotamia and throughout Mesopotamia as a whole, Media, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Caucasus bore the name of Semiramis, but slightly changed, even in the Middle Ages, and an old name of the Armenian city of Van was Shamiramagerd (in Armenian it means created by Semiramis). Nearly every stupendous work of antiquity by the Euphrates or in Iran seems to have ultimately 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. She conquered much of Middle East and the Levant. She was mortally wounded after fighting an Indian king and the Assyrian army was mostly destroyed.

Semiramis painting

She ruled at a time of political uncertainty, which is one of the possible explanations for why Assyrians may have accepted her rule (as normally a woman as ruler would have been unthinkable). 

She not only ruled Asia effectively but also added Libya and Aethiopia to the empire. She then went to war with king Stabrobates (Sthabarpati) of India, having her artisans build an army of false elephants by putting manipulated skins of dark-skinned buffaloes over her camels to deceive the Indians into thinking she had acquired real elephants. This ploy succeeded initially, but then she was wounded in the counterattack and her army mainly annihilated, forcing the surviving remnants to re-ford the Indus and retreat to the west. 

The historical Queen Shammuramat (824-811 BC) ruled Assyria briefly while waiting for her son to come of age. She is also called Semiramis or Shamiram.

The Puranas mention a King Supratika of the Indian Ikshvaku dynasty who ruled nine generations before King Prasenajit (who reigned circa 600 BC). This King Supratika,some argue, is the ruler most likely to have clashed with Semiramis, as her contemporary. 

The story of Semiramis, the Assyrian Queen and the Indian King Stabrobates by a Greek ‘historian,’ Ctesias (in Diodorus Siculus) is of interest. 

A long period of peace ensued, till she resolved to subjugate the Indians on hearing that they were the most numerous of all nations, and possessed the largest and most beautiful country in the world. For two years preparations were made throughout her whole kingdom ; in the third year she collected in Bactria 3,000,000 foot soldiers, 500,000 horsemen, and 100,000 chariots. Beside these, 100,000 camels were covered with the sewn skins of black oxen, and each was mounted by one warrior ; these animals were intended to pass for elephants with the Indians. For crossing the Indus 2000 ships were built, then taken to pieces again, and the various parts packed on camels.

Stabrobates, the king of the Indians, awaited the Assyrians on the bank of the Indus. He also had prepared for the war with all his power, and gathered together even a larger force from the whole of India. When Semiramis approached he sent messengers to meet her with the complaint that she was making war upon him though he had done her no wrong ; and in his letter he reproached her licentious life, and calling the gods to witness, threatened to crucify her if victorious. Semiramis read the letter, laughed, and said that the Indians would find out her virtue by her actions. The fleet of the Indians lay ready for battle on the Indus.

 Semiramis caused her ships to be put together, manned them with her bravest warriors, and, after a long and stubborn contest, the victory fell to her share. A thousand ships of the Indians were sunk and many prisoners taken. Then she also took the islands and cities on the river, and out of these she collected more than 100,000 prisoners. 

But the king of the Indians, pretending flight, led his army back from the Indus; in reality he wished to induce the enemy to cross the Indus. As matters succeeded according to her wishes, Semiramis caused a large and broad bridge to be thrown skilfully over the Indus, and on this her whole army passed over. Leaving 60,000 men to protect the bridge, she pursued the Indians with the rest of her army, and sent on in front the camels clothed as elephants. At first the Indians did not understand whence Semiramis could have procured so many elephants and were alarmed. But the deception could not last. Soldiers of Semiramis, who were found careless on the watch, deserted to the enemy to escape punishment, and betrayed the secret. 

Stabrobates proclaimed it at once to his whole army, caused a halt to be made, and offered battle to the Assyrians. When the armies approached each other the kind of the Indians ordered his horsemen and chariots to make the attack. Semiramis sent against them her pretended elephants. When the cavalry of the Indians came up their horses started back at the strange smell, part of them dislodged their riders, others refused to obey the rein. Taking advantage of this moment, Semiramis, herself on horseback, pressed forward with a chosen band of men upon the Indians, and turned them to flight. Stabrobates was still unshaken; he led out his elephants, and behind them his infantry. Himself on the right wing, mounted on the best elephant, he chanced to come opposite Semiramis. He made a resolute attack upon the queen, and was followed by the rest of the elephants. The soldiers of Semiramis resisted only a short time. The elephants caused an immense slaughter ; the Assyrians left their ranks, they fled, and the king pressed forward against Semiramis ; his arrow wounded her arm, and as she turned away his javelin struck her on the back. She hastened away, while her people were crushed and trodden down by their own numbers ; and at last, as the Indians pressed upon them, were forced from the bridge into the river. As soon as Semiramis saw the greater part of her army on the nearer bank, she caused the cables to be cut which held the bridge ; the force of the stream tore the beams asunder, and many Assyrians who were on the bridge were plunged in the river. The other Assyrians were now in safety, the wounds of Semiramis were not dangerous, and the king of the Indians was warned by signs from heaven and their interpretation by the seers not to cross the river. After exchanging prisoners Semiramis returned to Bactra. She had lost two-thirds of her army. 

Ctesias in Diodorus Siculus mentions Semiramis commissioned an inscription at Bagistan – later known as The Behistun /Besitoon /Bisitoon Inscription – a rock-face carving. But what we see today at Behistun is a message by Darius – a tri-lingual message which helped in decipherment of Elamite, Akkadian and Old Persian scripts.

Semiramis staring at corpse of Ara

Mired in legend and prejudice, Semiramis is discredited in modern Western history – especially starting from 1853-1857. Her very existence denied, accused of incest, Semiramis has been tarred and condemned to the rubbish heap of modern history – and the Bible. As far back as 1798, the Asiatick Researches By Asiatic Society (Calcutta, India), were able to trace references to the Semiramis campaign in the Indian Puranas also. And …
“In the case of Semiramis, confusion may have been caused by the fact that her husband and her son were both named Ninus; but to classical and medieval readers it seemed quite plausible that a powerful woman ruler (and a barbarian to boot) would be tyrannical and transgressive in her lust and that her violent delights would have a violent end. “(from Incest and the Medieval Imagination By Elizabeth Archibald). 

Semiramis was generally viewed positively before the rise of Christianity, although negative portrayals did exist. In the Divine Comedy, Dante sees Semiramis among the souls of the lustful in the Second Circle of Hell. The book The Two Babylons (1853), by the Christian minister Alexander Hislop, was particularly influential in characterizing of Semiramis as associated with the Whore of Babylon despite a lack of supporting evidence in the BibleSemiramis appears in many plays and operas, such as Voltaire’s tragedy Semiramis. In Eugène Ionesco’s play The Chairs, the Old Woman is referred to as Semiramis.

Some 300 years, after the reign of Semiramis, the Assyrian Empire passed into Persian hands – and then into the hands of Alexander. Early historians of Semiramis and Alexander mixed fables using details gleaned from Alexander’s expedition.