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40 Things About The Outlandish Math Cult Leader, and Other Unusual Facts From the Ancient World

Khalid Elhassan May 22, 2020 33 min

Democritus and Protagoras - Odysseus and Nausicaa (Ulysses and Nausicaa) — 'Pythagoras and the Fishermen', by Salvatore Rosa. Wikimedia

30. The Legend of Semiramis Was Based on a Real Person

A shepherd finds baby Semiramis being fed by doves. Wikimedia

Semiramis in Greco-Roman mythology was the daughter of a goddess and a mortal. She was fed by doves after her divine mother abandoned her as an infant, so she could drown herself. Semiramis grew into a wise and formidable woman, who married a general, advising him into great victories, before switching husbands and marrying the king. As queen and queen regnant, she personally led troops into battle and conquered much of Asia, as well as Ethiopia and Libya.

Domestically, Semiramis was supposed to have restored the declining ancient Babylon to its former glory, built the city’s famous Hanging Gardens, and protected it with impregnable defensive walls. While that Semiramis never existed, her legend was based on the life of an actual Assyrian queen named Sammu-Ramat, who lived in the ninth century BC.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.