The metropolis of the Assyrians was known to the Greeks as Ninus; in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings it is called Ninua. From this the name of Ninus, the founder of the empire, as well as Ninyas, is obviously taken. In Herodotus[23] and the chronographers Ninus is the son of Belus, _i.e._ of Bel, the sky-god already known to us (I. 265). The monuments of Assyria show us that the Assyrians worshipped a female deity, which was at once the war-goddess and goddess of sexual love--Istar-Bilit. Istar was not merely the goddess of battles--bringing death and destruction, though also conferring victory; she was at the same time the goddess of sensual love. We have already learned to know her double nature. In turn she sends life, pleasure, and death. If Istar of Arbela was the goddess of battle, Istar of Nineveh was the goddess of love (I. 270). As the goddess of love, doves were sacred to her. In the temples of Syria there were statues of this goddess with a golden dove on the head; she was even invoked there under the name of Semiramis, a word which may mean High name, Name of the Height.[24] Thus the Medo-Persian minstrels have changed the form and legend of a goddess who was worshipped in Assyria, whose rites were vigorously cultivated in Syria, into a heroine, the founder of the Assyrian empire; just as in the Greek and German epos divine beings have undergone a similar change. This heroine is the daughter of a maiden who slays the youth whom she has made happy with her love, who gave her her daughter, _i.e._ she is the daughter of the goddess herself. Like her mother, the goddess, the daughter, Semiramis, inspires men with irresistible love, and thus makes them her slaves. At the same time, as a war-goddess, she surpasses all men in martial courage, and brings death to all who have surrendered to her. The origin of the goddess thus transformed into a heroine is unknown and supernatural; her characteristics are marvellous powers of victory and charms of love. The neighbourhood of Ascalon, where we found the oldest and most famous temples of the Syrian goddess of love (I. 360), was the scene of the origin of the miraculous child. The doves of the Syrian goddess nourish and protect her in the desert. She grows up in Syria, where the worship of the goddess of sexual love was widely spread. Whether Simmas, her foster-father, has arisen out of Samas, the sun-god of the Semites, and Onnes, the first husband of Semiramis, out of Anu, the god of Babel and Asshur, cannot indeed be decided. But in her relation to Onnes, whom her charm makes her slave, to whom she brings uninterrupted success, till in despair at her loss he takes his life, the Medo-Persian minstrels describe the glamour of love and the sensual pleasure, as well as the destruction which proceeds from her, in the liveliest and most forcible manner. Even after the Indian campaign she indulges her passions, and then puts those to death to whom she grants her favours.