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By Ma'n Abul Husn

Queen Samiramis - a name often incorporated with beauty, mystique, and plain brutality. So who was this Queen Samiramis? Well to set the record, it is uncertain where Samiramis came from. Some say she was of Persian decent, others say she was Caledonian. Regardless, what we know for sure is that whoever her original parents were, they were either killed or have abandoned her in Mesopotamia roughly between 2200 and 2070 B.C. She was found as an infant by a Shepard who roamed that land. He handed over the young baby to his tribe's chief who adopted the girl and named her "Samiramis"- which means "the doves' beloved one."
She grew into a gorgeous young lady with a superb shape. She was so breathtaking that anyone who saw her couldn't help but fall for her divine eyes. Her eyes were big and brown, hidden behind a net of thick long eyelashes. Some people thought that only a goddess could be this beautiful.
Her stunning beauty caught the eye of King Ninus' advisor, known as Onnes, who happened to see her one day while he was traveling and immediately fell in love with her. He then took her back with him to the royal palace in Nineveh and married her. After their marriage, Onnes discovered Samiramis' unique intelligence and wisdom, and used her advice in making many critical decisions in the years to come. That continued until one day King Ninus saw Samiramis and he in turn fell immediately for her charm. He gave Onnes two options - either to die or give him Samiramis in exchange for the king's daughter. Onnes felt that he is doomed to die either way, physically or emotionally, so he took his own life.
This did not deter King Ninus who married Samiramis and they went on to rule the huge empire together. They had a son named Ninyas. Samiramis tried very hard to gain the love and respect of her son, however all her attempts seemed to have failed. Ninyas was known to be stone cold towards his mother. He supposedly treated his dancers and mistresses better than her treated her. Nobody knows for sure why he took this knife-edged attitude towards his own mother; however it may have been mere jealousy of her being in power and not him.
Years passed and King Ninus died after ruling the empire for over 50 years. Samiramis became the exclusive ruler of one of the most powerful empires the world has ever known. The thrown was given to her because her son was still too young to be a King. Samiramis had no easy task at hand. She had to rule a great land and even greater people, who were not ready to accept a woman ruler yet. It would be her next objective to prove to them that a woman can handle the chores of ruling a great empire just as well as a man could, if not even better. This objective was the only option for her survival in power. Samiramis had to work and think at least twice as hard to prove her ability as a ruler.
With such a great task at hand, she started by making her empire more solid, stable and powerful. She started off by building a series of dams at the rivers of Mesopotamia in order to keep agriculture flourishing, to prevent her people from going hungry. She also built a new capital, Babylon, which was and still is, known as one of the greatest pieces of architectural art that ever existed.
It's rumored that the city of Babylon had walls that spanned over 60 kilometers of land and were as high as one hundred meters. The city was defended by some 250 guard towers all around it. The Euphrates River passed through the center of the city, controlled by man made banks and channels that formed a very complex system of water for the time. The channels were all in all about 30 km's long. The river had to be diverted to facilitate the construction of the city and its water was directed to a bypass channel and a dam that were both built for that purpose, and then removed after the construction of Babylon was completed.
The two halves of the city were then connected by a bridge that spanned 900 meters across the Euphrates River. Given the technology of her days, the construction of such a bridge alone would seem impossible. Scientists are still struggling to figure out how this was accomplished.
She also ordered the construction of the famous Babylon hanging gardens, which are one of the world's seven wonders. That place had gardens, art galleries, and museum, filled with the finest and loveliest arts and creations of the time, plus of course the gardens which were meant to resemble heaven on earth. She used a work force of two million men to get all this construction done, a number unheard of in ancient or even modern history of construction!
She then proceeded to build a great army. She wanted to conquer the world and had that in mind while building her army. She managed to pull together the greatest military force of ancient times. Her army, under her leadership, went on to conquer Egypt, Ethiopia, Persia, and even managed to go half way through India before having to retreat due to an injury Samiramis received during combat.
During her invasion of India, she used a war tactic that was one to remember. The Indians used trained elephants for battle. They were brought up to be angry and vicious. Nobody was able to fight against these elephants, as they would literally crush horses and soldiers with their fury. People thought the elephants were simply undefeatable. However, Samiramis with her great intelligence discovered a way to defeat the elephants. She got her soldiers to cover their horses with bull skins, with the horns included. Elephants are scared of horned animals. Once the elephants saw the "bulls" they ran away and essentially became useless. She kept fighting them until she was injured and then came back home.
As she conquered more and more land and established more power for herself, Samiramis' ego was starting to fill up substantially. She has proven that a woman can do much more than her preceding male rulers ever managed to achieve, all while being constantly questioned by her people. They simply did not trust a female ruler until she came along and proved to them what a woman can do. So powerful had Samiramis became, that she even claimed her own divinity! She had the power and will, built whole cities and civilizations and conquered whole empires. She could drown any village to death while drying another one to oblivion with the point of her finger. She could make the desert green and the green into desert.
Stories about her divinity/humanity were regularly exchanged in cultures to come. So confusing it has become that in certain cultures she is thought of purely as a goddess, some say she's human while some other claim she was half divine and half human! That would be like the female equal to Hercules. Whether she was good or bad, you'll have to be the judge on that.
There are tales of her being both. She was rumored to be a great and loving leader that gained her people's trust by making their life better as she provided them with all they could possibly ask for, and gave them a powerful army to protect them, but she was also thought to have been a cruel blood soaked vicious dictator who gained respect with the use of brutal force. There are records that support both sides of the balance. We'll choose to believe that she was good, unless she had to uncover her fangs and bite, which was by no means a nice way to go.
Whatever it was, some people actually did worship her and believe in her as a goddess and a ruler. Numerous temples were built for her, and the number of her worshippers increased substantially as time went by. It is even believed by some that the hanging gardens of Babylon were nothing but a big temple for Samiramis. A sentence was engraved in her tombstone that said: "I have tamed the great rivers and made them run according to my wishes, using their waters to irrigate green lands that were uninhabited deserts before". A statement full of pride indeed!
As Samiramis came back from her Indian war, a surprise awaited her at home. Her son, Ninyas, had taken over the thrown and declared his kingship over all of what used to be her own empire. At this point of time Samiramis was about 62 years old. She had ruled for about 40 years. Her fate is uncertain. Some theories say she killed herself, some say she was jailed for the rest of her life by her son, while others suggest she just disappeared mysteriously. She was the queen that came from the unknown and returned to an unknown place, after having ruled what was arguably the ancient world's greatest civilization.