A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Sardanapallus is also a prominent figure in classical tradition. One can observe the development of his legend from its first attestation in the fifth century BCE all throughout Antiquity. Whereas Herodotus simply noted the king’s wealth, Aristophanes seems to have been the first to ascribe to him a somewhat peacockish behavior (Birds 1021). As we have seen, Ctesias portrayed the king as an effeminate ruler addicted to self‐indulgence. It seems that the fourth century BCE was a crucial period concerning the formation of essential parts of the Sardanapallus legend. It was from this time onwards that stories began to circulate that quoted an alleged epitaph of Sardanapallus and described his tomb, which was localized either in Ninus or, astonishingly, in Cilicia. A comprehensive survey of this tradition is given by Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists (around 200 CE). The entire chapter XII 528e–530c is devoted to Sardanapallus, quoting many sources. One of them is Ctesias’s Persian History (F.1n, F.1pα, F.1q; see Stronk 2010: 258–61, 266–7), where, inter alia, the Assyrian king is described as being “bejeweled like a woman, combing purple wool in the company of his concubines and sitting among them with knees uplifted, his eyebrows blackened, wearing a woman’s dress and having his beard shaved close and his face rubbed with pumice (he was even whiter than milk, and his eyelids were painted)” (Gulick, Loeb). Then some other fragments are adduced, commenting on the tomb of Sardanapallus and its epitaph (XII 529d–530c):

  Hence Sardanapallus, he who was the most prosperous man in the world, he who prized enjoyment throughout his whole life, shows also in death, by his attitude on his tomb as he snaps his fingers, that human affairs are worth nothing but mockery, not being worth the snap of a finger which he is represented as making twice in the choral procession … At any rate it is plain that Sardanapallus was not wholly inactive, as is proved by the fact that on his tomb is the inscription: “Sardanapallus the son of Anacyndaraxes built Anchialê and Tarsus in a single day, yet now he is dead.” Amyntas says in the third book of his Stages that in Nineveh is a high mound which Cyrus demolished in raising counter‐walls against the city during the siege; and that this mound is said to be the work of Sardanapallus, who had been king in Nineveh; surmounting it was a stone column, on which was an inscription in Chaldean letters, which Choerilus translated and put into verse; it is this: “I became king, and whilst I looked upon the sun’s light I drank, I ate, I loved, for that I knew the time to be short which mortals live, and moreover hath many changes and mishaps, and others will have joy of the goods I leave behind. Wherefore I have let no day go by whilst I pursued this my way.” Cleitarchus, however, in the fourth book of his History of Alexander says that Sardanapallus died of old age after he was deposed from the throne in Syria. Aristobulus says: “In Anchialê, which Sardanapallus built, Alexander pitched his camp when he was marching inland against the Persians. And not far distant was the tomb of Sardanapallus, on which stood a stone figure with the fingers of the right hand brought closely together, as if snapping them. On it was inscribed, in Assyrian letters: ‘Sardanapallus, son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchialê and Tarsus in a single day. Eat, drink, and play; for other things are not worth that’ – meaning, he seems to say, the snap of a finger.”

  (Gulick, Loeb)

  Recently, it has been demonstrated that the triad “eat, drink, play” (with its hetero‐ and homosexual connotations; Burkert 2009: 50–5) is part of a Greek discourse about the correct conduct of life that started at the turn from the fifth to the fourth century BCE (Bernhardt 2009). In this discourse, the idea of a life of enjoyment and pleasure was opposed to the conception of temperance and self‐control. Greek and Latin epitaphs, similar to that of Sardanapallus, exhibit the popularity of a Sardanapallus‐like lifestyle within classical civilization. Thus, Sardanapallus’s behavior does not have an “oriental” backbone (as supposed by Burkert 2009: 511–12) but rather is part of a discussion within the classical world disguised in an oriental cloak (Bernhardt 2009: 16–24; but cf. Frahm 2003b: 44* for a reference to “eating, drinking, and merrymaking” in one of Assurbanipal’s inscriptions).

  As Athenaeus and many other classical sources exhibit, the figure of Sardanapallus could be used in various ways (see the survey of the sources by Weißbach 1920; Bernhardt 2009; Burkert 2009; cf. also Frahm 2003b). In a proverbial manner, Juvenal refers to the feathered cushions of Sardanapallus (pluma Sardanapali: Sat. X 362); Polybius blames the Bithynian king Prusias II by comparing him to Sardanapallus; Cassius Dio exploits the image of the Assyrian ruler in order to criticize the emperor Elagabalus; and Augustine condemns Sardanapallus for his hedonism (Bernhardt 2003: 240–1, Bernhardt 2009, 2–3). The plurality of the tradition is striking. There was no consensus about where and how the Assyrian ruler died, although his death on a pyre in the city of Ninus became the most popular story. It is not entirely clear why his tomb was located in Cilicia, but it seems very probable that the description of the statue on the monument that is said to have snapped with its fingers was modeled on Neo‐Assyrian reliefs, in which Assyrian rulers were depicted with an extending and pointing finger (ubāna tarāṣu in Akkadian) as a gesture of reference to the gods (Lanfranchi 2003: 83). Due to this gesture, a Neo‐Assyrian monument is much more likely to be the archetype for this statue (Lanfranchi 2003) than a Neo‐Hittite one (Burkert 2009: 509). From the inscriptions of Sennacherib, we learn that he erected an inscribed monument in Cilicia (Luckenbill 1924, 61–2). It may be that the popularity of the story of Sardanapallus’s alleged tomb in Cilicia prompted Berossus to correct this tradition by referring to Sennacherib’s campaign in that very region (Lanfranchi 2003: 86). But, clearly, Berossus was not very successful in this respect.

  Not all classical authors, however, blamed Sardanapallus for his dissipation and effeminacy. The king’s behavior could also be taken as an excellent example of savoir‐vivre. In this spirit, the owner of the Roman villa of Cato Uticensis at Frascati had a statue of Dionysus, a marble copy of a Greek bronze statue of the fourth century BCE, inscribed with the name of Sardanapallus, thus identifying the god and the king (Megow 1997; Bernhardt 2009: 21–2 with plate 4). The statue originates from Claudian times (mid‐first century CE) and is housed in the Vatican (Sala della Biga, Inv. 2363). Already in Hellenistic times, truphe, i.e. daintiness or delicacy, a main characteristics of “Orientals” in general and of Sardanapallus specifically, could be reinterpreted in a positive manner, demonstrating abundance and effulgence, and connected to the cult of Dionysus (Bernhardt 2003: 246).

  There is a further aspect of the Sardanapallus legend that should be noted: classical tradition was also aware that the Assyrian king was able to fight when it was necessary and that he knew to die in a heroic manner. This element of the tradition was very much the focus in the Romantic era of the nineteenth century CE, when Lord Byron wrote his play “Sardanapalus” (1821) and Eugène Delacroix painted his “La mort de Sardanapale” (1827). Through these lenses, the Assyrian king, rather than being an archetypal tyrant, seemed to live up to certain Epicurean ideals: he did not shed the blood of his people, did not oppress them with taxes, and did not touch their private lives (Bernhardt 2009: 5–11; see also Frahm 2003b).

  But this is another story. In classical tradition, Sardanapallus generally became the prototype of an ethically degenerate monarch whose downfall was tied to that of the city of Ninus. The image of the beardless Sardanapallus had nothing to do with any Assyrian king, just as the city of Ninus is much more an archetypical representation of an empire’s capital than a reflection of the historical city of Nineveh. Aside from Ninus, there were only two other cities in classical tradition whose fall created such a literary reverberation: Troy and Sybaris (Bernhardt 2009: 22). Thus the city and its last ruler were rather symbols in a classical discourse than reflections of any kind of historical reality. They served as examples in the contemplation of downfall and demise, fugacity and transience, and the everlasting question how to live one’s life. All of this was encapsulated in Sardanapallus’s pseudo‐epitaph, which the Sto
ic Chrysippus quoted the following way (Athenaeus, Deipnosophists VIII 336a, Glick, Loeb):4

  Keep in mind that you are mortal, and make yourself happy

  By enjoying feasts; nothing is any use to you once you are dead.

  For I am dust, even though I was king of great Ninus.

  What is mine is what I ate, and the malicious fun I had, and the pleasure

  I got in bed, whereas my enormous, well‐known wealth has perished.

  This is wise advice for living, and I will never

  Forget it; let anyone who wishes acquire endless gold.

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