Byzantine Readings of Ancient Historians by Kaldellis Anthony

Author:Kaldellis, Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-317-51783-2
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

SCHOLIAST 5

In the later thirteenth or, more likely, early fourteenth century, a reader of the ms. wrote a poem in it about the murderous unions of Queen Semiramis.43

5.1 ad Dion. 2.13.4 (f. 89r) Semiramis, queen of Babylon, did not want to contract a regular marriage out of fear of being supplanted. She would sleep with the best looking of her soldiers, then do away with them.

Reader, flee from such marriages as with Semiramis,

for they bring death to those who partake of them.

May women and marriage be gone from our lives,

if they bring death to those who partake of them.

O Semiramis, if marriage was to your liking,

why then kill off the best looking grooms?

But if they caused you grief, then forswear marriage

and take pity on the handsome sight of young men.

Note: This same passage had been commented upon by Choniates: see scholion 3.4 above.

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