Editing Ninus (section)

==In culture==
The story of Ninus and Semiramis is narrated in a 1st-century AD [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] romance called the ''Ninus Romance'', the ''Novel of Ninus and Semiramis'', or the ''Ninus Fragments''.<ref>''Daphnis and Chloe. Love Romances and Poetical Fragments. Fragments of the Ninus Romance'', Loeb Classical Library {{ISBN|0-674-99076-5}}</ref>  A scene from it is perhaps depicted in mosaics from [[Antioch on the Orontes]].<ref>Doro Levi, "The Novel of Ninus and Semiramis" ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' '''87''':5, Papers on Archaeology, Ecology, Ethnology, History, Paleontology, Physics, and Physiology (May 5, 1944), pp. 420-428</ref>

In his 7th-century compendium, the ''[[Etymologiae]]'', [[Isidore of Seville]] claimed that idolatry was the invention of Ninus, who had a gold statue made of his father Belus, which he worshipped. This claim was highly influential throughout the medieval period into the Early Modern.<ref>[[Michael Camille]], ''The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art'', Cambridge, 1991: 50-51.</ref><ref>The [[Euhemerism|euhemeristic]] tradition according to which pagan [[idolatry]] began with the veneration of a statue erected by Ninus to his father Belus was accepted by [[Thomas Aquinas]] in his discussion of idolatry, ''[[Summa Theologica|Summa]]'', II, II, Q. 94, art. 1-4.</ref>

Two major works from late-16th-century England refer to Ninus in passing. William Shakespeare's ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' has the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as a play-within-a-play. The actors constantly mispronounce the location "Ninus' Tomb" as "Ninny's Tomb," though they are corrected initially, and in vain, by "director" [[Peter Quince]]. At the same time, Edmund Spencer's epic poem ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' refers to Ninus’ pride in Canto V, verse XLVIII:
:And after him old Ninus farre did pas
:In princely pompe, of all the world obayd
:There also was that mightie Monarch layd
:Low under all, yet above all in pride

In 1846 London, the Italian opera ''[[Nabucco]]'' by Giuseppe Verdi and Temistocle Solera was rewritten as ''Nino'' due to [[Lord Chamberlain's Office|British censorship]]; to avoid depicting Biblical scenes, the enslaved Hebrews under Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar were changed to enslaved Babylonians under Serbian Emperor Ninus.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Roberta Montemorra |last=Marvin|title=The Censorship of Verdi's Operas in Victorian London|journal=Music & Letters|volume=82|issue=4|pages=591–592|date=November 2001|doi=10.1093/ml/82.4.582 |jstor=3526278 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3526278|accessdate=2023-11-27|url-access=subscription}}</ref>