842 On Scriptural and profane Accounts 
which shows him to have been reputed a voluptuary. See 
St. Croix Hist. d’Alex. 2d. ed. 247.854. If Sardanapallus 
were really the last sovereign of Nineveh, and such a so- 
vereign as is represented, it is difficult to conceive how he 
should have founded Tarsus, or have had a tomb there. 
Tarsus was a city of very high antiquity, and could not 
have been founded by Sardanapallus 800 years before Christ. 
Besides, till his last struggle for his crown he spent his days 
in spinning in his seraglio. Shall we say, that when driven 
out from Nineveh he fled into Cilicia, and founded Tarsus ? 
Besides the objection to the date, surely this is not the na- 
tural employment of fugitive princes; to build Tarsus and 
Anchiale in a day was a feat, which required the resources 
of the Assyrian monarchy in its splendour, rather than of 
the exiled Sardanapallus. I believe that we must seek in 
the mythological character of Sardanapallus, for a solution 
of that which presents insurmountable historical difficulties. 
Though the king Sardanapallus could not be buried both at 
Tarsus and Nineveh, bean effeminate voluptuary and found 
two large cities in a day, burn himself at Nineveh, and fly 
into Cilicia, the divinity Sardanapallus might be worshipped 
at both, and be converted, by asimilar change of mythologi- 
cal into historical characters, into the founder of Tarsus 
and the last monarch of Nineveh. We have already seen 
how common it was for tutelary deities to be made founders 
of cities and leaders of colonies. The Greeks claimed the 
honour of the foundation of Tarsus for their own Perseus, 
The manner in which Ammianus Marcellinus (14.8) speaks 
of it is very remarkable. Hanc condidisse memoratur Per- 
seus, Jovis filius & Danaes, vel certe ex Ethiopia profec- 
tus Sandan quidam nomine vir opulentus & nobilis. Now 
as Perseus and Sardanapallus were respectively alleged to 
be the founders of this city, it is evident that the Sardan 
of the common story (phale is said to mean noble in Chal- 
dee) is the Sandan of Ammianus Marcellinus, Ethiopia 
