Sardanapalus (also spelled Sardanapallus) was, according to the Greek writer Ctesias of Cnidus, the last king of Assyria. Ctesias' Persica is lost, but we know of its contents by later compilations and from the work of Diodorus (II.27). Sardanapalus has often been identified with the Assyrian king Aššurbanipal,[1] but his death in the flames of his palace recall the fate of Aššurbanipal's brother Šamaš-sum-ukkin.[citation needed] The Greek writer Choerilus of Iasus composed an epitaph on Sardanapalus, said to have been translated from the Chaldean (quoted in Athenaeus, viii. p. 336).
The death of Sardanapalus was the subject of a Romantic Period painting by the 19th century French painter Eugène Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus, 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, 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 competition, run by the Paris Conservatoire. Only a fragment of the score survives.
See also
- Dionysus Sardanapalus, a sculpture of Dionysus erroneously named after the king
References
- ^ Marcus Junianus Justinus. "Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus" (HTML). http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/justin/english/trans1.html. "His successors too, following his example, gave answers to their people through their ministers. The Assyrians, who were afterwards called Syrians, held their empire thirteen hundred years. The last king that reigned over them was Sardanapalus, a man more effeminate than a woman."
External links
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