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"In all that is known of a.s.syria, the most ancient empire of the earth, every extant fragment, moral or material, bears evidence of a s.e.x to which that land of wonders owes the immortality of its grandeur. The name of Semiramis has preserved (what Sardanapalus could not destroy, nor Cyrus bury under the ruins of Babylon,) the memory of the greatest combination of wealth, power, art, and magnificence, which the world had till then witnessed, or has since conceived. For the greatest capitals of the most powerful and refined of modern states, supposed to have reached the acme of civilization, have but one epithet to mark their supereminence; and Rome and London (in boast, or in reproach,) have each been called the Babylon of their own proudest times.
"Babylon, with its hundred gates and towers, was founded by a woman of low origin and dest.i.tute youth, who attained to supreme power by her genius alone; and though all that has been ascribed to her may not be strictly true, though Diodorous Siculus in his enthusiasm may have exaggerated, and Ctesias may have too vividly colored his brilliant delineations of her greatness, yet that such a woman lived and reigned in a.s.syria, that she founded its capital, and influenced her age by her works and her talents, that she built cities, raised aqueducts, constructed roads, commanded great armies in person, and, both as conqueror and legislator, was among the earliest agents of Asiatic civilization, there remains no room for historic doubt.
"Her pa.s.sage over the Indus, her conquests on its sh.o.r.es, the brilliant triumphs she obtained abroad, the astute wisdom with which she met conspiracy at home, and the bold confidence she expressed in the decisions of posterity, are stubborn facts. These obtained for her the sympathy of the greatest character and conqueror of a nearer antiquity; but Alexander, taking Semiramis for his model, vainly tried to restore her gorgeous city, on her own plans, and with her own views.
"Posterity has n.o.bly ratified the appeal of Semiramis to its verdict. At the end of three thousand years, her life and character have been taken as the inspiration of its genius, and the spell of its attraction. Semiramis, however, has paid the penalty of her s.e.x's superiority, and has been the mark of calumnious pedantry through succeeding ages."
*Since the above was in type, Mlle. Nilsson has several times sung "Way down upon the Swanee River" at her concerts.
