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Semiramis in Behistun (1)

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06 Visual arts and architecture



05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore


Keywords
Behistun
Semiramis
Period
1st century BCE
Roman Empire
Channel
Helleno-Roman philosophers and scholars


Text
Bagistanus = Behistun.

Diodorus Siculus 2.13.1-2:
After Semiramis had made an end of her building operations she set forth in the direction of Media with a great force. And when she had arrived at the mountain known as Bagistanus, she encamped near it and laid out a park, which had a circumference of twelve stades and, being situated in the plain, contained a great spring by means of which her plantings could be irrigated. The Bagistanus mountain is sacred to Zeus and on the side facing the park has sheer cliffs which rise to a height of seventeen stades. The lowest part of these she smoothed off and engraved thereon a likeness of herself with a hundred spearmen at her side. And she also put this inscription on the cliff in Syrian letters: “Semiramis, with the pack-saddles of the beasts of burden in her army, built up a mound from the plain and thereby climbed this precipice, even to its very ridge.”


Source (list of abbreviations)
Diodorus Siculus 2.13.1-2

Bibliography

Oldfather 1960, I 390-393Oldfather, C. H. Diodorus of Sicily. 12 Vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann 1960.

Amar Annus


URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000344.php


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