(M131) Semiramis herself, the legendary queen of Assyria, is said to have burnt herself on a pyre out of grief at the death of a favourite horse.(519) Since there are strong grounds for regarding the queen in her mythical aspect as a form of Ishtar or Astarte,(520) the legend that Semiramis died for love in the flames furnishes a remarkable parallel to the traditionary death of the love-lorn Dido, who herself appears to be simply an Avatar of the same great Asiatic goddess.(521) When we compare these stories of the burning of Semiramis and Dido with each other and with the historical cases of the burning of Oriental monarchs, we may perhaps conclude that there was a time when queens as well as kings were expected under certain circumstances, perhaps on the death of their consort, to perish in the fire. The conclusion can hardly be deemed extravagant when we remember that the practice of burning widows to death survived in India under English rule down to a time within living memory.(522) (M132) At Jerusalem itself a reminiscence of the practice of burning kings, alive or dead, appears to have lingered as late as the time of Isaiah, who says: “For Tophet is prepared of old; yea, for the king it is made ready; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.”(523) We know that “great burnings” were regularly made for dead kings of Judah,(524) and it can hardly be accidental that the place assigned by Isaiah to the king’s pyre is the very spot in the Valley of Hinnom where the first-born children were actually burned by their parents in honour of Moloch “the King.” The exact site of the Valley of Hinnom is disputed, but all are agreed in identifying it with one of the ravines which encircle or intersect Jerusalem; and according to some eminent authorities it was the one called by Josephus the Tyropoeon.(525) If this last identification is correct, the valley where the children were burned on a pyre lay immediately beneath the royal palace and the temple. Perhaps the young victims died for God and the king.(526)