There are in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres[998] two learned dissertations upon the Assyrian empire, and particularly on the reign and actions of Semiramis.
What Justin[999] says of Semiramis, namely, that after her husband's decease, not daring either to commit the government to her son, who was then too young, or openly to take it upon herself, she governed under the name and habit of Ninyas, and that, after having reigned in that manner above forty years, falling passionately in love with her own son, she endeavoured to induce him to comply with her criminal desires, and was slain by him: all this, I say, is so void of all appearance of truth, that to go about to confute it would be but losing time. It must however be owned, that almost all the authors who have spoken of Semiramis, give us but a disadvantageous idea of her chastity.
I do not know but that the glorious reign of this queen might partly induce Plato to maintain, in his Commonwealth,[1000] that women as well as men ought to be admitted into the management of public affairs, the conducting of armies, and the government of states; and, by necessary consequence, ought to be trained up in the same exercises as men, as well for the forming of the body as the mind. Nor does he so much as except those exercises, wherein it was customary to fight stark naked, alleging[1001] that the virtue of the sex would be a sufficient covering for them.
It is just matter of surprise to find a philosopher so judicious in other respects, openly combating the most common and most natural maxims of modesty and decency, virtues which are the principal ornament of the female sex, and insisting so strongly upon a principle, sufficiently confuted by the constant practice of all ages, and of almost all nations in the world.
Aristotle, wiser in this than his master Plato, without doing the least injustice to the real merit and essential qualities of the sex, has with great judgment marked[1002] out the different ends to which man and woman are ordained, from the different qualities of body and mind, wherewith they are endowed by the Author of nature, who has given the one strength of body and [pg 330] intrepidity of mind to enable him to undergo the greatest hardships, and face the most imminent dangers; whilst the other, on the contrary, is of a weak and delicate constitution, accompanied with a natural softness and modest timidity, which render her more fit for a sedentary life, and dispose her to keep within the precincts of the house, and to employ herself in the concerns of prudent and industrious economy.
Xenophon is of the same opinion with Aristotle;[1003] and in order to set off the occupation of the wife, who confines herself within her house, agreeably compares her to the mother-bee, commonly called the queen-bee, who alone governs and has the superintendence of the whole hive, who distributes all their employments, encourages their industry, presides over the building of their little cells, takes care of the nourishment and subsistence of her numerous family; regulates the quantity of honey appointed for that purpose, and at fixed and proper seasons sends abroad the new swarms in colonies, to ease and disburthen the hive of its superfluous inhabitants. He remarks, with Aristotle, the difference of constitution and inclinations, designedly made by the Author of nature between man and woman, to point out to each of them their proper and peculiar offices and functions.
This allotment, far from degrading or lessening the woman, is really for her advantage and honour, in confiding to her a kind of domestic empire and government, administered only by gentleness, reason, equity, and good nature; and in giving her frequent occasions of concealing the most valuable and excellent qualities under the inestimable veil of modesty and submission. For it must ingenuously be owned, that at all times, and in all conditions, there have been women, who by a real and solid merit have distinguished themselves above their sex; as there have been innumerable instances of men, who by their defects have dishonoured theirs. But these are only particular cases, which form no rule, and which ought not to prevail against an establishment founded in nature, and prescribed by the Creator himself.
Ninyas.
Ninyas.[1004] This prince was in no respect like those from whom he received his birth, and to whose throne he [pg 331] succeeded. Wholly intent upon his pleasures, he kept himself shut up in his palace, and seldom showed himself to his people. To keep them in their duty, he had always at Nineveh a certain number of regular troops, furnished every year from the several provinces of his empire, at the expiration of which term they were succeeded by the like number of other troops on the same conditions; the king putting a commander at the head of them, on whose fidelity he could depend. He made use of this method, that the officers might not have time to gain the affections of the soldiers, and so form any conspiracies against him.
His successors for thirty generations followed his example and even surpassed him in indolence. Their history is absolutely unknown, there remaining no footsteps of it.