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[edit] Biography according to Diodorus Siculus

According to legend, Semiramis was the daughter of the fish-goddess Derketo of Ascalon in Syria and a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by doves until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd. Afterwards she married Onnes or Menones, one of the generals of Ninus. Ninus was so struck by her bravery at the capture of Bactra that he married her, forcing Onnes to commit suicide. After Ninus's death she reigned as Queen in her own right, and conquered much of Asia.

Giovanni Boccaccio's version is similar in his second biography On Famous Women. Semiramis was of noble parents and married Ninus. They had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including Bactrians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis masqueraded herself as being her son and tricked her late husband's army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. Not only was she able to reign effectively, she also added Ethiopia to the empire. She restored ancient Babylon and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. In the end however, her son killed her. She is also created with inventing the chastity belt.^[1]

The Jewish historian Josephus relates Ninus to the Biblical hunter-king Nimrod. It is said that even though Nimrod was her son she married him when he grew to be a strong hunter.^{[citation needed]}

The name of Semiramis came to be applied to various monuments in Western Asia, the origin of which was forgotten or unknown (see Strabo xvi. I. 2). Ultimately every stupendous work of antiquity by the Euphrates or in Iran seems to have been ascribed to her even the Behistun Inscription of Darius (Diod. Sic. ii. 3). Of this we already have evidence in Herodotus, who ascribes to her the banks that confined the Euphrates (i. 184) and knows her name as borne by a gate of Babylon (iii. 155). Various places in Media bore the name of Semiramis, but slightly changed, even in the Middle Ages, and the old name of Van Province was Shamiramagerd

Armenian tradition portrays her as a homewrecker and a harlot, as her reputation proceeds her. These facts are partly to be explained by observing that, according to the legends, in her birth as well as in her disappearance from earth, Semiramis appears as a goddess, the daughter of the fish-goddess Atargatis, and herself connected with the doves of Ishtar or Astartë. The same association of the fish and dove is found at Hierapolis Bambyce (Mabbog), the great temple at which, according to one legend, was founded by Semiramis (Lucian, De dea Syria, 14), where her statue was shown with a golden dove on her head (33, 39).