Now it is at least remarkable that, so far as we have any real evidence, the Assyrian kings appear as monogamists.

In the inscription on the god Nebo, the artist dedicates his statue to his "lord Vol-lush ( ?) and his _lady_, Sammuramit." In the solitary sculptured representation of the private life of the king, he is seen in the company of one female only.

Even in the very narrative of Ctesias, Ninus has but one wife, Semiramis; and Sardanapalus, notwithstanding his many concubines, has but five children, three sons and two daughters.

It is not intended to press these arguments to an extreme, or to assume, on the strength of them, that the Assyrian monarchs were really faithful to one woman.

They may have had--nay, it is probable that they had--a certain number of concubines; but there is really not the least ground for believing that they carried concubinage to an excess, or over-stepped in this respect the practice of the best Eastern sovereigns.