Chapter VII. Sardanapalus and Hercules.
§ 1. The Burning of Sardanapalus.
Tarsus said to have been founded by the Assyrian king Sardanapalus, who burned himself on a pyre. Deaths of Babylonian and Assyrian kings on the pyre.
The theory that kings or princes were formerly burned to death at Tarsus in the character of gods is singularly confirmed by another and wholly independent line of argument. For, according to one account, the city of Tarsus was founded not by Sandan but by Sardanapalus, the famous Assyrian monarch whose death on a great pyre was one of the most famous incidents in Oriental legend. Near the sea, within a day's march of Tarsus, might be seen in antiquity the ruins of a great ancient city named Anchiale, and outside its walls stood a monument called the monument of Sardanapalus, on which was carved in stone the figure of the monarch. He was represented snapping the fingers of his right hand, and the gesture was explained by an accompanying inscription, engraved in Assyrian characters, to the following effect:—“Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day. Eat, drink, and play, for everything else is not worth that,” by which was implied that all other human affairs were not worth a snap of the fingers.[499] The gesture may have been misinterpreted [pg 173] and the inscription mistranslated,[500] but there is no reason to doubt the existence of such a monument, though we may conjecture that it was of Hittite rather than Assyrian origin; for, not to speak of the traces of Hittite art and religion which we have found at Tarsus, a group of Hittite monuments has been discovered at Marash, in the upper valley of the Pyramus.[501] The Assyrians may have ruled over Cilicia for a time, but Hittite influence was probably much deeper and more lasting.[502] The story that Tarsus was founded by Sardanapalus may well be apocryphal,[503] but there must have been some reason for his association with the city. On the present hypothesis that reason is to be found in the traditional manner of his death. To avoid falling into the hands of the rebels, who laid siege to Nineveh, he built a huge pyre in his palace, heaped it up with gold and silver and purple raiment, and then burnt himself, his wife, his concubines, and his eunuchs in the fire.[504] The story is false of the historical Sardanapalus, that is, of the great Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, but it is true of his brother Shamashshumukin. Being appointed king of Babylon by Ashurbanipal, he revolted against his suzerain and benefactor, and was besieged by him in his capital. The siege was long and the resistance desperate, for the Babylonians knew that they had no mercy to expect from the ruthless Assyrians. But they were decimated by famine and pestilence, and when the city could hold out no more, King Shamashshumukin, determined not to fall alive into the hands of his offended brother, shut himself up in his [pg 174] palace, and there burned himself to death, along with his wives, his children, his slaves, and his treasures, at the very moment when the conquerors were breaking in the gates.[505] Not many years afterwards the same tragedy was repeated at Nineveh itself by Saracus or Sinsharishkun, the last king of Assyria. Besieged by the rebel Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, and by Cyaxares, king of the Medes, he burned himself in his palace. That was the end of Nineveh and of the Assyrian empire.[506] Thus Greek history preserved the memory of the catastrophe, but transferred it from the real victims to the far more famous Ashurbanipal, whose figure in after ages loomed vast and dim against the setting sun of Assyrian glory.
§ 2. The Burning of Croesus.
Story that Cyrus intended to burn Croesus alive. It is unlikely that the Persians would thus have polluted the sacred element of fire.