nations of Asia are in consequence compelled to acknowledge that Arbaces is worthy to rule them. It is a poetical conception which contrasts the simple character and force of the Median servant with the effeminate splendour of the sovereign of Assyria, and which places beside the former, to aid and support him, the astrology and cunning of the Babylonians. But by this contrast the Medo-Persian Epos obtained another advantage; the completion of the whole poem. A masculine woman, Semiramis, had founded the kingdom; an effeminate man brings it to ruin. Herodotus does not know the name of Sardanapalus. But the name was known to the Greeks; before Ctesias wrote it had passed into a by-word--"more luxurious than Sardanapalus."[525] The effeminate traits are marked with extraordinary depth in the narrative of Ctesias; he not only wears woman's clothes, and does woman's work, but he imitates the voice of a woman, and pursues the pleasures of the male and female. Hence we must conclude that as the Median minstrels have used the myth and the form of Istar, a goddess of the Semites, in their delineation of Semiramis; so in their delineation of Sardanapalus, the opposite of Semiramis, they have used the myth of the Semitic god, who exchanges his nature with the female goddess placed beside him, who wears the woman's robe, and spins purple wool, just as his worshippers on certain festivals wore women's garments (I. 372). But if the god placed by the side of Istar assumed the nature of the woman, as Istar assumed the nature of the man, the masculine nature was not wholly lost to him. Thus the minstrels could represent Sardanapalus as taking up arms at the approach of the danger, and fighting bravely. It is no doubt due to this interchange of the masculine and feminine nature that Hellanicus and Callisthenes maintained that there were two princes of the name of Sardanapalus; the one was noble and active; the other sought his happiness in debauchery.[526] Even in the description of the death of Sardanapalus incidents in the worship of the Syrian goddess seem to have given the type to the Median minstrels. At the great festivals vast pyres were built to the sun-god of the Syrians; a number of precious goods were heaped upon them, which were set on fire together with an image of the god placed upon the pyre, who was supposed to renew his youth in the conflagration.[527] Lucian's statement that a statue of Sardanapalus stood beside that of Semiramis in the temple at Hierapolis can only support the conclusion that traits of the god united with Istar, and of his worship, were employed in the description of Sardanapalus.