399 



SEMIRAMIS. 



SENAN. 



400 



manflions on which he was employed, are the Casa Hangilli, that of 

 Count Guido Erizzo, and the Palazzo Manin, which last, however (a 

 work of Sansovino's), he only restored and altered in the interior. Ho 

 also rebuilt the Palazzo Pisani at Padua. The public work to which 

 he owes his chief reputation is the celebrated Teatro della Fenico, 

 erected in 1790-91, his design for which was selected from among 

 those sent in by twenty-nine other architects. Another structure of 

 the same class designed by him was the theatre at Trieste, but in the 

 execution of the work very great liberties were takon. A third theatre 

 planned by him was never executed, but when he was some years 

 afterwards at Florence, he found that parts of his design had been 

 adopted for a theatre then lately erected there. To the above may be 

 added tho facade of the Casa Vigo d'Arzeri, and a Casino at Padua ; 

 the Casa Vela at Verona ; the facade of the church Spirito Santo at 

 Udine ; the fagade of San Maurizio at Venice, begun by Zogari, and 

 left unfinished by Selva, after whose death it was completed with 

 some modifications by Diedo. The same fate attended his last and 

 most favourite work, the small church Del Gesu, which was finished 

 after his death by Diedo (author of many of the architectural descrip- 

 tions in Cicognara's ' Fabbriche piu cospicue di Veuezia,') and Giuseppe 

 Borsato. Selva died rather unexpectedly, at the beginning of 1819, 

 and therefore could not have erected, as Nagler says he did, Canova's 

 church at Possagno, the first stone of which was not laid till July llth 

 in that year. Selva was also a writer upon subjects of his art ; he as 

 well as Diedo contributed to Cicognara's work above-mentioned ; and 

 also translated Perrault's treatise on the orders, and Chambers's 'Civil 

 Architecture.' 



SEMl'RAMIS, a queen of Assyria, who, according to some, reigned 

 about B.C. 20 00, or, according to others, aboutB.c. 1250, while the account 

 of Herodotus i. 184, still further confuses the chronology. Her whole 

 history, as it has come down to us, is however a mere mass of fables. 

 She is said to have been the daughter of tho goddess Derceto, and of 

 extraordinary beauty and wisdom. (Diod., ii, 4.) She became the 

 wife of Onnes, who served in the army of Ninus, first king of Assyria, 

 and followed her husband in the expedition of the king against Bactra. 

 Semiramis showed the king how he might gain possession of the town. 

 He followed her advice, and was victorious, and, being no less charmed 

 with her beauty than with her judgment, he made her his wife, where- 

 upon her former husband, in despair, put an end to his life. (Diod., ii. 

 6^) After a reign of fifty-two years, Ninus died, or, according to 

 others, he was murdered by his own wife Semiramis (Aelian, ' Var. 

 Hist.,' vii. 1.), and left a son Ninyas. According to some writers 

 Semiramis took possession of the throne by the right of succession ; 

 according to others, she assumed the dress and appearance of her son 

 Ninyas, and deceived her subjects, in this disguise, until she had 

 accomplished such wonderful deeds that she thought it superfluous to 

 conceal herself. She is said to have built Babylon and to have adorned 

 it with the most extraordinary spendour, and all this in a very short 

 time. She also built several other towns on the Euphrates and Tigris, 

 to promote commerce among her subjects. (Diod., ii. 7-11 ) On the 

 main road of her dominions she erected an obelisk, 130 feet high, and 

 laid out a magnificent park near Mount Bagistanum, in Media, and at 

 the foot of the mountain she caused to be cut on the face of the rock 

 her own figure and those of a hundred of her attendants, with Assy- 

 rian inscriptions. She is moreover said to have formed a large lake 

 to receive the overflowing of the Euphrates, to have laid out several 

 other parks near the town of Chauon, to have embellished Ecbatana, 

 to have provided that town with water from Mount Orontes, and to 

 have cut a high road through Mount Zarcseum. All these things were 

 done at her command, while she was traversing her own dominions 

 with a numerous army. She left monuments of her greatness and 

 power in every place that she visited. (Diod., ii. 14 ; Zonar., ' Lex.,' ii 

 1637.) From Persia she turned to the west, and conquered the greater 

 part of Libya and ^Ethiopia. She also made war against an Indian 

 king, Stabrobates, with a great army and a fleet on the river Indus 

 (Diod., ii. 16, &c.) Semiramis was at first successful, and numerous 

 towns submitted to her, but at last she was wounded by the king, anc 

 entirely defeated in battle. According to some traditions she escapee 

 to her own country, with scarcely the third part of her army; accord 

 ing to others, she fell in the battle : and a third tradition states that 

 soon after her return she was murdered by her own son Ninyas. Some 

 also believed that she had suddenly disappeared from the earth, anc 

 returned to heaven. (Diod., ii. 20.) As we have said the accounts 

 given of her must be regarded as mere myths ; but her name occurs 

 among the cuneiform inscriptions which have been recovered anc 

 placed in tho British Museum, and which are being deciphered by Sir 

 Henry Rawlinson for publication by the trustees of the British 

 Museum. [SARDANAPALUS.] 



SK.MLEK, JOHANN SALOMO, one of tho most influential German 

 writers on theology, was born at Saalfeld, now a dependency of Saxe 

 Meiningen, on December 18, 1725. His father was archdeacon o 

 Saalfeld, and he was early initiated into tho doctrine of the Pietists 

 whose opinions were predominant at the court of the then reigning 

 Duke of Saalfeld. Soon after his removal to the University of Halle 

 to which he was sent in 1742, he abandoned the doctrinal views ii 

 which he had been brought up, but retained much of their devotiona 

 feeling. By a defence of somo passages in Scripture which hac 

 been controverted by Whiston he made himself a reputation, and in 



749 waa called to Coburg as professor. In 1750 he became editor of 

 he ' Coburg Zeitung,' his writing in which procured him the com- 

 mission to prepare a state-paper on the contests of the Duke of 

 "Wurtemberg with his vassals. In the same year he was made pro- 

 essor of history and poetry at Altdorf, and in 1751 professor of 

 heology at Halle, where his lectures were numerously attended, 

 xciting attention by their acuteness, their philological penetration, 

 and the vast amount of reading they displayed ; but he was deficient 

 n systematic order and in style. In 1757 he was made director of 

 he theological seminary. He was one of the earliest adherents and 

 supporters of what is styled in Germany Rationalism. The Rationalists 

 combated the Deists, but they treated the Scriptures as any other 

 ecular book ; most of them denied their divine origin, explained 

 away the miracles and prophecies, but considered the doctrines 

 as true, and capable of being proved by reason. They advocated 

 the Protestant principle of the right of private judgment, and their 

 critical investigations of the genuine texts of Scripture were frequently 

 valuable. Semler's tenets and his merits may be seen in his remarks 

 on Wetstein's ' Prolegomena,' which he republished ; as also in his 

 Abhandlung von der Untersuchuug dea Kanons,' in 1771, in 4 vols. ; 

 and in his ' Apparatus ad liberalem Veteris Testament! Interpreta- 

 ;ionem,' published in 1773. He attacked with much zeal Basedow, 

 who had advocated some of the theories of Rousseau, and Bahrdt, who 

 professed deism. In 1777 he was induced to consent to the application 

 of a part of the funds of the theological seminary to the establishment 

 of a philanthropic institution, of which also he had the direction ; but 

 was dismissed from both in 1779 by the minister Zedlitz, who had 

 prevailed on him to sanction the new establishment. In 1778 his 

 idoption of the Prussian edict respecting the national religion exposed 

 iiim to the reproach of inconsistency, and occasioned attacks on his 

 moral character that embittered the latter years of his life. He died 

 on March 14, 1794. Among other works published by him we may 

 mention 'De Demoniacis,' 1760; ' Umstiindliche Uutcrsuchung der 

 diitnouisehen Laute,' 1762; ' Versuch einer biblischen Dainonologie,' 

 1776;- ' Selecta Capita Historic Ecclesiasticse,' 3 vols., 1767-69; the 

 uncompleted ' Commentationes historical de antiquo Christianorum 

 " tatu,' 2 vols., 1771-72 ; ' Versuch Christlicher Jahrbuoher, oder 

 ausfiihrliche Tabellen iiber die Kirchengeschichte bis aufs Jahr 1500,' 

 2 vols., 1783-86; and ' Observations novae, quibus hUtoria Christian- 

 orum usque ad Constantinum magnum illustratus,' 1784. He also 

 wrote an account of himself under the title of ' Semlers Lebens- 

 beschreibung von ihm selbst verfasst,' published in 2 vols. in 

 1781-82. 



SENAC, JEAN, was born at Lombez in 1693, and obtained the 

 diploma of Doctor of Medicine at Rheims. He was appointed first 

 physician to the king in 1752, and was a member of the Royal Academy 

 of Sciences of Paris. He died in 1770. The present reputation of 

 Senac is due to his great work on the structure of the heart, its action, 

 and its diseases, which was first published at Paris in 1749 in two 

 quarto volumes, and was afterwards re-editetl by Portal, and translated 

 into English and other languages. At the time of its publication this 

 work was justly regarded as the best anatomical monograph ever written 

 in France; and although recent investigations have detected in it 

 numerous errors, and have deprived it of much of its intrinsic value, 

 it will always remain an admirable monument of the learning and the 

 industry of its author. The other writings of Senac are unimportant ; 

 a complete list of them may be found in Haller's 'Bibliotheca 

 Anatomica,' t. ii., p. 159. 



SENA'N, a Sabian physician, astronomer, and mathematician, whose 

 names, as given at full length by Ibn Abi Osaibia (' Oioun al-Amba" fi 

 Tabacdt al-AtebbaY ' Fontes Relationum de Classibus Medicoruin,' cap. 

 10, sec. 4), are ABOU SAID SENAN BEN THIBET BEN COIIRAH. He waa 

 born at Harran in Mesopotamia, and his father, his brother, and his 

 son were among the most celebrated physicians of their time. [Tn.urET.] 

 He was physician-in-ordinary to Moctader and Cither, tho eighteenth 

 and nineteenth of the Abba?side kalifs of Baghdad, who reigned from 

 A.H. 295 to A.H. 322 (A.D. 908-934). By the former of these princes he 

 was advanced to the dignity of the ' llais alai "l-Atebba" ' (' chief of the 

 physicians,' or ' archiater '). He was also appointed public examiner, 

 A.H. 319 (A.D. 931) ; and the kalif, in consequence of an ignorant 

 practitioner's having killed one of his patients, ordered that no one 

 for the future should ba allowed to practise as a physician until he 

 had been licensed to do so by Sendn : the number of persons in Baghdad 

 who underwent this examination is said to have amounted to 830. 

 ('Arab. Philosoph. Biblioth.,' apud Casiri, 'Biblioth. Arabico-IIisp. 

 Escur.,' torn, i., pp. 437-439). The anonymous author of this work 

 relates, as Gibbon says, " a pleasant tale of an ignorant but harmless 

 practitioner," who presented himself before Sendu for a licence to 

 practise; which anecdote is told also with additional circumstances by 

 Abul-Faraj, 'Chron. Syr.,' p. 187; and 'Hist. Dynast.,' p. 197. The 

 kalif Cdher showed his favour to him by wishing him to embrace 

 Isliitn. This he refused for some time, but was at last terrified by 

 threats into compliance. As however the kalif still continued to behave 

 with great severity towards him, and at the same time transferred his 

 favour to another physician, Isa Ben Yusuf, he fled to Khorasan : he 

 afterwards returned to Baghdad, and died A.H. 331 (A.D. 942). The 

 titles of several of his works are preserved in Casiri (loco cit.), relating 

 chiefly to astronomy and geometry. Like his father Thabet, he appears 



