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). 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, but Sardanapalus as described by Diodorus bears little relationship with what is known of that king.
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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 "Arbaces". An alliance of 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. Sardanapalus's troops were surprised during their partying, and were routed.
Sardanapalus returned to Nineveh 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 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.[1]
The Greek writer Choerilus of Iasus composed an epitaph on Sardanapalus, said to have been translated from the Chaldean.[2]
The story of Sardanapalus seems to be related to events in the last years of the Assyrian empire, involving conflict between the Assyrian king Aššurbanipal and his brother Šamaš-sum-ukkin, who controlled Babylon during his brother's reign. While Sardanapalus has been identified with Aššurbanipal,[3] 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".[4]
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 was then ruling as king of Assyria. He was probably killed in the sack, though records are fragmentary.
On the eve of the battle of Issus (333BCE), Alexander's biographers say, Alexander the Great was shown what the locals purported to be the tomb of Sardanapalus at Anchialus in Cilicia, 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 in a single day; stranger, eat, drink and make love, as other human things are not worth this" (signifying the clap of the hands).[5]
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.