Myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916) (14782090935)

Identifier: mythslegendsofba00spenuoft (find matches)
Title: Myths and legends of Babylonia & Assyria
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Spence, Lewis, 1874-1955
Subjects: Assyro-Babylonian religion Mythology, Assyro-Babylonian Legends Cults
Publisher: London : Harrap
Contributing Library: Kelly - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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especially those of Heracles-Melcarth and Queen Dido. At Tarsus an annualfestival was held and a pyre erected upon which thelocal Heracles or Baal was burned in effigy. Thisannual commemoration of the death of the god infire probably had its origin in the older rite in whichan actual man or sacred animal was burned as repre-senting the deity. The Golden Bough ^ containsan instructive passage concerning the myth ofSardanapalus. Sir James Frazer writes : Thereseems to be no doubt that the name Sardanapalusis only the Greek way of representing Ashurbanapal,the name of the greatest and nearly the last Kingof Assyria. But the records of the real monarchwhich have come to light within recent years givelittle support to the fables that attached to his namein classical tradition. For they prove that, far frombeing the effeminate weakling he seemed to theGreeks of a later age, he was a warlike and enlightened * Vol. iii, p. 167. Second Edition. (By kind permission ofMessrs Macmillan and Co.)32
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The Death^oi Sardanapalus^L. Chalon Copyrighl, Biauii and Cot 32 SARDANAPALUS THE SPLENDID monarch, who carried the arms of Assyria to distantlands and fostered at home the growth of scienceand letters. Still, though the historical reality ofKing Ashurbanapal is as well attested as that ofAlexander or Charlemagne, it would be no wonderif myths gathered, like clouds, around the great figurethat loomed large in the stormy sunset of Assyrianglory. Now the two features that stand out mostprominently in the legends of Sardanapalus are hisextravagant debauchery and his violent death inthe flames of a great pyre, on which he burned him-self and his concubines to save them from fallinginto the hands of his victorious enemies. It issaid that the womanish king, with painted face andarrayed in female attire, passed his days in theseclusion of the harem, spinning purple wool amonghis concubines and wallowing in sensual delights ;and that in the epitaph which he caused to be carvedon his tomb he r