802 On Scriptural and profane Accounts 
and public works; her attempt on India how- 
ever proved unsuccessful, and she returned 
thence with the loss of herarmy. Her death 
was not less marvellous than her birth, and 
her crown descended to her son Ninyas, who 
began that course of effeminate sloth and 
luxury, which his successors followed for 30 
or 36 generations, all of which past away, 
without affording a single fact for history, . 
till the time of Sardanapallus, whose vices 
roused the indignation of Belesys the Baby- 
lonian and Arbaces the Mede, who rebelled, 
besieged him in Nineveh and drove him to 
the desperate expedient of burning himself, 
his haram and his treasures, to avoid falling 
into their hands; and with him ended the 
Assyrian monarchy according to Ctesias. 
It is difficult to know where to begin in 
exposing the absurdities of this history. The 
alleged conquests of Ninus are at variance 
not only with the authentic accounts of those 
nations over which he is said to have made 
them, but with all probability. He comes 
forward at once from the darkness of anti- 
quity, the king of Assyria, which was in so 
low a condition that neither Nineveh nor Ba- 
bylon was yet founded, and applies himself 
forthwith to the conquest of the world. It 
is not thus that empires start at once from an 
