Sardanapalus
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Sardanapalus. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
The last king of Assyria , celebrated for his luxury and indolence. His effeminacy induced his subjects to conspire against him with success, on which he set fire to his palace and perished in the flames, B. C. 820. Lord Byron has made his history the subject of a tragedy, in which he introduces as the heroine Myrrha, a Greek slave, who sets fire to a pile of inflammable materials which had been raised, and perished with Sardanapalus, exclaiming as she applies the torch: "Lo! I've lit the lamp which lights us to the stars." The play of Sardanapalus is still occasionally produced on the stage. Sardinia (Sardi: Sardinia). A large island in the Mediterranean. Sardis or Sardes (Sardiani: Sart, Ru.). One of د 256 IOOO CLASSICAL CHARACTERS the most ancient and famous cities of Asia Minor, and the capital of the great Lydian monarchy. Saturninus, L. Appuleius. The celebrated demagogue, who was quaestor B. C. 104, and tribune of the plebs for the first time in 102. He proposed several popular measures, such as a Lex Frumentaria, and a law for founding new colonies in Sicily, Achaia, and Macedonia.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of several princes of Assyria, the most celebrated of whom was the last sovereign of the first Assyrian empire. His reign dates from 836 to 817 B. C., when he was dethroned by Arbaces and Belesis, at the head of a revolt of the Medes, Persians, and Babylonians. In the last extremity, Sardanapalus, who had withstood a siege for three years in Nineveh, placed himself, his treasures, his wives, and his eunuchs on a funeral pile, which he fired with his own hand. He had ceased to exist when the city was taken, and that event was followed by the dismemberment of the Assyrian empire. The above is a Greek legend (dates uncertain) of the reign of Asshur-banipal. See ASSYRIA.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The 1900 volume treats Sardanapalus as a real "last king of Assyria" who burned in his palace in 820 B.C.; Collier's in 1921 already added the caution that this is "a Greek legend (dates uncertain) of the reign of Asshur-banipal." That caution has hardened into consensus: the tale comes from Ctesias by way of later Greek writers, and the historical Ashurbanipal (reigned 668–627 B.C.) was a campaigning, literate ruler whose cuneiform library at Nineveh, dug out in the 1850s, is now a foundation of Assyriology. Nineveh in fact fell in 612 B.C., and the last Assyrian king was Ashur-uballit II, who held out at Harran until about 609. Scholars often trace the funeral-pyre motif not to Ashurbanipal at all but to his brother Shamash-shumu-ukin, who died when Babylon burned in 648 B.C.
Written for this edition, 2026.