Wikipedia
Semiramis ( Assyrian;ܫܲܡܝܼܪܵܡ Shamiram, ; , Shamiram) was the legendary wife of King Ninus, succeeding him to the throne of Assyria.
The legends narrated by Diodorus Siculus, Justin, and others from Ctesias of Cnidus describe her and her relationship to King Ninus, himself a mythical king of Assyria, not attested in the Assyrian King List.
The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia and Asia Minor, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown. 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. However, Diodorus stresses that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built long after Semiramis.
Various places in Assyria and throughout Mesopotamia as a whole, Media, Persia, the Levant, Asia Minor, Arabia, 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).
A real and historical Shammuramat (the Akkadian and Aramaic form of the name) was the Assyrian wife of Shamshi-Adad V (ruled 824 BC–811 BC), king of Assyria and ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and its regent for five years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age.
The indigenous Assyrians of Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey, and northwest Iran still use Semiramis as a name for female children.
Semiramis (opera) may refer to:
- Sémiramis, an opera by Destouches
- Sémiramis, an opera by Catel
- Semiramide, an opera by Rossini
Semiramis is an Italian teen-ager progressive rock band who produced one LP in 1973, Dedicato a Frazz.
Semiramis is the legendary queen of King Ninus who succeeded him to the throne of Assyria.
Semiramis may also refer to:
- 584 Semiramis, a minor planet
- Semiramis (band), an Italian progressive rock group
Sémiramis is an opera by the French composer André Cardinal Destouches, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) on 4 December 1718. It takes the form of a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts. The libretto is by Pierre-Charles Roy.
Sémiramis is an opera by the composer Charles-Simon Catel. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The French-language libretto by Philippe Desriaux is based on the 1748 tragedy of the same name by Voltaire, which concerns the legendary Queen Semiramis of Babylon. Sémiramis, Catel's first opera, premiered at the Paris Opéra on 4 May 1802. It enjoyed only limited success and suffered many attacks from critics. The composer had to wait until 1810 before the Paris Opéra gave him another opportunity with a new opera, Les bayadères, which was a triumph.