Nitocris
(Νιτῶκρις).
1. A queen of Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus, who ascribes to her many important works at Babylon and its vicinity. According to his account she changed the course of the river above Babylon, built up with bricks the sides of the river at the city, and also threw a bridge across the river. He also relates that she was buried above one of the city gates, and that her tomb was opened by Dareius. (Hdt. 1.185_189.) Who this Nitocris was has occasioned great dispute among modern writers, and is as uncertain as almost all other points connected with the early history of the East. Since Herodotus (1.185) speaks of her as queen, shortly after the capture of Ninus or Nineveh by the Medes, which is placed in B. C. 606, it is supposed by most modern writers that she was the wife of Nebuchadnezzar, who began to reign in B. C. 604, and the mother or grandmother of Labynetus or Belshazzar, the last king of Babylon. See Clinton, F. H. vol. i. p. 278, note f, who brings forward some other arguments in support of this opinion.
2. A queen of Egypt. Herodotus relates that she was a native Egyptian, and the only female of the 330 Egyptian monarchs whose names were read to the historian by the priests from a papyrus manuscript. He further tells us that she was elected to the sovereignty in place of her brother, whom the Egyptians had killed, and that she devised the following scheme in order to take revenge upon the murderers of her brother. She built a very long chamber under ground, and when it was finished invited to a banquet in it those of the Egyptians who had had a principal share in the murder. While they were engaged in the banquet she let in upon them the waters of the Nile by means of a large concealed pipe and drowned them all, and then, in order to escape punishment, threw herself into a chamber full of ashes. (Hdt. 2.100.)
This Nitocris appears to have been one of the most celebrated personages in Egyptian legends. Even in the times of the Roman emperors we find her name mentioned as one of the old heroines of the East, as we see from the way in which she is spoken of by Dio Cassius, and the emperor Julian, both of whom class her with Semiramis (D. C. 62.6; Julian. Orat. pp. 126. 127). Julius Africanus, and Eusebius (apud Syncell. pp. 58, 59), who borrow their account from Manetho, describe her as the most high-minded and most beautiful woman of her age, with a fair complexion, adding that she built the third pyramid. By this we are to understand, as Bunsen has shown, that she finished the third pyramid, which had been commenced by Mycerinus; and the same fact is intimated by the curious tale of Herodotus (2.134), which states that the erection of the pyramid was attributed by many to the Greek courtezan, Rhodopis, who must, in all probability, be regarded as the same person as Nitocris. [Rhodopis.]
Bunsen makes Nitocris the last sovereign of the sixth dynasty, and states that she reigned for six years in place of her murdered husband (not her brother, as Herodotus states), whose name was Menthuoôphis. The latter is supposed to be the son or grandson of the Moeris of the Greeks and Romans. The tale related by Herodotus of Nitocris constructing a subterraneous chamber for the punishment of the murderers of her brother is supposed by Bunsen, with Much probability, to have reference to her erection of the third pyramid, though the waters of the Nile could not have been let into it, as the water of the river does not rise high enough for the purpose. (Bunsen, Aegyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, vol. ii. pp. 236-242.)
(Νίτωκρις). (1) A queen of Babylon, generally supposed to have been the wife of Nebuchodonosor or Nebuchadnezzar (B.C. 604-562), and grandmother, consequently, to Labynetus or Nabonedus, who is called in Daniel Belshatzar or Beltzasar. Wesseling, however, and others make her the queen of Evilmerodach, son of Nebuchadnezzar. Herodotus informs us that Nitocris, in order to render her territories more secure from the Medes, altered the course of the Euphrates, and made it so very winding that it came, in its course, three times to Ardericca. She also faced the banks of the Euphrates, where it passed through Babylon, with burned bricks, and connected the two divisions of the city by a bridge of stone (Herod.i. 186). The historian likewise informs us that she prepared a sepulchre for herself over the most frequented gate of the city, with an inscription to this effect: that if any of her successors should find himself in want of money, he should open this sepulchre and take as much as he might think fit; but that, if he were not reduced to real want, he ought to forbear; otherwise he would have cause to repent. This monument remained untouched till the reign of Darius, who, judging it unreasonable that the gate should remain useless to the inhabitants (for no man would pass under a dead body), and that an inviting treasure, moreover, should be rendered unserviceable, broke open the sepulchre; but, instead of money, he found only the remains of Nitocris, and the following inscription: “Hadst thou not been insatiably covetous, and greedy after the most sordid gain, thou wouldst not have violated the sepulchres of the dead” (Herod.i. 187). Plutarch tells the same story of Semiramis.
(2) Also called Nitaquest, a queen of Egypt, who succeeded her brother. The Egyptians, having dethroned and put to death the latter, set her over them. She took a singular revenge, however, for the death of her brother; for, having constructed a large subterranean apartment, and having invited to an entertainment in it those individuals who had been most concerned in her brother's murder, she let in the river by a secret passage and drowned them all. She then destroyed herself (Herod.ii. 100).
- her revenge for her brother's death: Hdt. 2.100
- her treatment of the Euphrates: Hdt. 1.185