No account of the women of Assyria would seem complete without reference to the legend of Semiramis and her wonderful exploits. And as is the case with much of the history of the dawn of nations, we are indebted to the Greeks for preserving for us the story of this superlative queen. Ctesias, Diodorus, Herodotus, Strabo, and others tell her story or mention her achievements. This remarkable woman was said to be the daughter of Derceto, the goddess of reproductive nature and of a youthful mortal with whom she had fallen in love. The babe was exposed by its mother, but was found and cared for by a shepherd named Simmas. Having developed into a very beautiful damsel, she won the hand of Oannes, Governor of Syria. In the war against Bactria she so distinguished herself for bravery, disguising herself as a soldier and scaling the wall of the besieged capital, that the King Ninus, founder of the city of Nineveh, took her to be his own queen. Soon Ninus died and Semiramis became sole ruler of the realm. Unbounded ambition, coupled with surpassing genius, caused her to undertake the labor of eclipsing the glory of all her predecessors. She built cities, threw up defences, conquered kings, and extended her territory in every direction. She made the city of Babylon one of her capitals, fortifying it with gigantic walls of sun-dried brick, cemented with asphalt. She built wonderful bridges supported by huge pillars of stone. Diodorus Siculus, quoting Ctesias, thus describes her work upon the walls of the city of Babylon: "When the first part of the work was completed, Semiramis fixed on the place where the Euphrates was narrowest, and threw across it a bridge five stadia long. She contrived to build in the bed of the stream pillars twelve feet apart, the stones of which were joined with strong iron clamps, fixed into the mortises with melted lead. The side of these pillars toward the run of the stream was built at an angle, so as to divide the water and cause it to run smoothly past and lessen the pressure against the massive pillars. On these pillars were laid beams of cedar and cypress, with large trunks of palm trees, so as to form a platform thirty feet wide. The queen then built at great cost, on either bank of the river, a quay with a wall as broad as that of the city and one hundred and sixty stadia long, that is, nearly twenty miles. In front of each end of the bridge, she built a castle flanked by towers, and surrounded by triple walls. Before the bricks used in these buildings were baked, she modelled on them, figures of animals of every kind, colored to represent living nature. Semiramis then constructed another prodigious work: she had a huge basin, or square reservoir, dug in some low ground. When it was finished the river was directed into it, and she at once commenced building in the dry bed of the river, a covered way leading from one castle to the other. This work was completed in seven days, and the river was then allowed to