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Semiramis 1 caused a great tomb to be prepared for herself, and on it this inscription : ‘Whatsoever king finds himself in need of money may break into this monument and take as much as he wishes.’ Darius accordingly broke into it, but found no money; he did, however, come upon another inscription reading as follows : ‘If you were not a wicked man with an insatiate greed for money, you would not be disturbing the places where the dead are laid.’
1 Herodotus, i. 187, says that Nitocris built the tomb above the gates of Babylon. Stobaeus, x. 53, copies Plutarch word for word.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. 3.
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