Sardanapalus
Encyclopedia
Ctesias
Ctesias of Cnidus was a Greek physician and historian from Cnidus in Caria. Ctesias, who lived in the 5th century BC, was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon, whom he accompanied in 401 BC on his expedition against his brother Cyrus the Younger....
of Cnidus, the last king of Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
. Ctesias' Persica is lost, but we know of its contents by later compilations and from the work of Diodorus (II.27). In this account Sardanapalus, supposed to have lived in the 7th Century BC, is portrayed as a decadent figure who spends his life in self indulgence and dies in an orgy of destruction.
His legendary decadence later became a theme in literature and art, especially in the Romantic era.
The name is probably a corruption of Aššurbanipal
Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal |Ashur]] is creator of an heir"; 685 BC – c. 627 BC), also spelled Assurbanipal or Ashshurbanipal, was an Assyrian king, the son of Esarhaddon and the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
, but Sardanapalus as described by Diodorus bears little relationship with what is known of that king.
Story
Diodorus says that Sardanapalus exceeded all previous rulers in sloth and luxury. He spent his whole life in self-indulgence. He dressed in women's clothes and wore make-up. He had many concubines, female and male. He wrote his own epitaph, which stated that physical gratification is the only purpose of life. His lifestyle caused dissatisfaction within the Assyrian empire, allowing a conspiracy against him to develop led by "ArbacesArbaces
Arbaces, according to Ctesias, one of the generals of Sardanapalus, king of Assyria and founder of the Median empire about 830 BC. From the inscriptions of Sargon II of Assyria we know one Arbaku of Arnashia as one of forty-five chiefs of Median districts who paid tribute to Sargon in 713 BC...
". An alliance of Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
, Persians and Babylonians challenged the Assyrians. Sardanapalus stirred himself to action and routed the rebels several times in battle, but failed to crush them. Believing he had defeated the rebels, Sardanapalus returned to his decadent lifestyle, ordering sacrifices and celebrations. But the rebels were reinforced by new troops from Bactria
Bactria
Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...
. Sardanapalus's troops were surprised during their partying, and were routed.
Sardanapalus returned to Nineveh
Nineveh
Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....
to defend his capital, while his army was placed under the command of his brother-in-law, who was soon defeated and killed. Having sent his family to safety, Sardanapalus prepared to hold Nineveh. He managed to withstand a long siege, but eventually heavy rains caused the Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
to overflow, leading to the collapse of one of the defensive walls. To avoid falling into the hand of his enemies, Sardanapalus had a huge funeral pyre created for himself on which were piled "all his gold, silver and royal apparel". He had his eunuchs and concubines boxed-in inside the pyre, burning himself and them to death.
The Greek writer Choerilus of Iasus
Choerilus of Iasus
Choerilus of Iasus was an epic poet of Iasus in Caria, who lived in the 4th century BC. He accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns as court-poet. He is well known from the passages in Horace according to which he received a piece of gold for every good verse he wrote in celebration of the...
composed an epitaph on Sardanapalus, said to have been translated from the Chaldean.
Historicity
The story of Sardanapalus seems to be related to events in the last years of the Assyrian empire, involving conflict between the AssyriaAssyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n king Aššurbanipal
Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal |Ashur]] is creator of an heir"; 685 BC – c. 627 BC), also spelled Assurbanipal or Ashshurbanipal, was an Assyrian king, the son of Esarhaddon and the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
and his brother Šamaš-sum-ukkin, who controlled Babylon during his brother's reign. While Sardanapalus has been identified with Aššurbanipal, his death in the flames of his palace is closer to that of Šamaš-sum-ukkin. It was Šamaš-sum-ukkin in Babylon who was besieged, not Aššurbanipal in Nineveh. After the former's defeat in 648 BC, an inscription of Aššurbanipal's records, "they threw down Šamaš-sum-ukkin, enemy brother who attacked me, into the raging conflagration".
The actual Fall of Nineveh occurred in 612 BC. It was besieged, conquered, and sacked by allied forces of Medes, Scythians, Babylonians and Susianians. Aššurbanipal's son Sinsharishkun
Sinsharishkun
Sinsharishkun , who seems to have been the Saràkos of Berossus, was one of the last kings of the Assyrian empire.-Early years:...
was then ruling as king of Assyria. He was probably killed in the sack, though records are fragmentary.
Alleged tomb
On the eve of the battle of IssusBattle of Issus
The Battle of Issus occurred in southern Anatolia, in November 333 BC. The invading troops, led by the young Alexander of Macedonia, defeated the army personally led by Darius III of Achaemenid Persia in the second great battle for primacy in Asia...
(333BCE), Alexander's biographers say, Alexander the Great was shown what the locals purported to be the tomb of Sardanapalus at Anchialus in Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
, with a relief carving of the king clapping his hands over his head and an inscription that the locals translated for him as "Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, built Anchialus and Tarsus
Tarsus, Mersin
Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...
in a single day; stranger, eat, drink and make love, as other human things are not worth this" (signifying the clap of the hands).
In art and literature
The death of Sardanapalus was the subject of a Romantic PeriodRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
painting by the 19th-century French painter Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school...
, The Death of Sardanapalus
Death of Sardanapalus
Death of Sardanapalus is an oil painting on canvas, dated 1827 by Eugène Delacroix. Its dimensions are 392 x 496 cm or 12′ 1" x 16′ 3". It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris....
, which was itself based on the 1821 play Sardanapalus by Byron, which in turn was based on Diodorus.
E. H. Coleridge, in his notes on the works of Byron, states, "It is hardly necessary to remind the modern reader that the Sardanapalus of history is an unverified if not an unverifiable personage.... The character which Ctesias depicted or invented, an effeminate debauchee, sunk in luxury and sloth, who at the last was driven to take up arms, and, after a prolonged but ineffectual resistance, avoided capture by suicide, cannot be identified."
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
, the 19th-century French Romantic composer, wrote a very early cantata on the subject of the Death of Sardanapalus. It was his fourth and finally successful attempt in the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
competition, run by the Paris Conservatoire. Only a fragment of the score survives.