by Eckart Frahm
Littauer, M. and Crouwel, J. 1979. Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in the Ancient Near East, Leiden: Brill.
Liverani, M. 1995. “The Medes at Esarhaddon’s Court,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 47, 57–62.
Luckenbill, D.D. 1927. Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. II, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Mattila, R. 2000. The King’s Magnates: A Study of the Highest Officials of the Neo‐Assyrian Empire, SAAS 11, Helsinki: The Neo‐Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Moorey, P. and Roger, S. 1986. “The Emergence of the Light, Horse‐drawn Chariot in the Near East c. 2000–1500,” World Archaeology 18, 196–215.
Nissinen, M. 1998. References to Prophecy in Neo‐Assyrian Sources, SAAS 7, Helsinki: The Neo‐Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Oates, D. and Oates, J. 2001. Nimrud: An Assyrian Imperial City Revealed, London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq.
Oded, B. 1979. Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo‐Assyrian Empire, Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Parpola, S. 1997. Assyrian Prophecies, SAA 9, Helsinki: Helsinki University Press.
Postgate, J.N. 1994. “Rings, Torcs and Brecelets,” in: P. Calmeyer et al. (eds.), Beiträge zur altorientalischen Archäologie und Altertumskunde: Festschrift für B. Hrouda, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 235–45.
Radner, K. 2002. Die neuassyrischen Texte aus Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad, Berichte der Ausgrabung Tall Šēḫ Ḥamad/Dūr‐Katlimmu 6, Berlin: Reimer.
Starr, I. 1990. Queries to the Sungod. Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, SAA 4, Helsinki: The Neo‐Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Thureau‐Dangin, F. 1912. Une relation de la huitième campagne de Sargon, Paris: Geuthner.
Ussishkin, D. 1982. The Conquest of Lachish by Sennacherib, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press.
Villard, P. 2008. “Les cérémonies triomphales en Assyrie,” in: P. Abrahami and L. Battini (eds.), Les armées du Proche‐Orient ancien: IIIe‐1er mill. av. J.‐C., Oxford: Hadrian Books.
Wäfler, M. 1975. Nicht‐Assyrer neuassyrischer Darstellungen, AOAT 26, Neukirchen‐Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.
Wiggermann, F.A.M. 1998–2001. “Nergal,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie 9, 222–6.
Further Reading
For letters and administrative texts found at Mari, see in general the series Archives Royales de Mari, and Durand 1997–2000. For palace sculptures and ivories, see Chapter 24, above. Neo‐Assyrian correspondence and administrative texts with translations in the series State Archives of Assyria are now online at http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/corpus. Royal inscriptions of Assyria with translations are available in the series Royal Inscriptions of the Neo‐Assyrian Period (ed. G. Frame). For the late periods Luckenbill 1927, vol. 2 is still useful.
Dezsö 2006 and especially Dezsö 2012 give up‐to‐date and reliable accounts of weaponry and how to understand the professional terminology of the Neo‐Assyrian army. De Odorico 1995 provides a careful, detailed analysis showing how reliable or otherwise are the numbers given for troops, enemies, prisoners, booty, etc. Mattila 2000: 149–60 has an excellent section on the highest officials and the army, with the proviso that the translation “eunuch” for ša rēšē is unquestioned. Eph’al 2009 gives a clear account of Assyrian siege practices based on a wide variety of textual and sculptural sources (see also De Backer 2013). Crouch 2009 analyzes the ideology behind the actions recorded in royal inscriptions and makes careful comparisons with the actions of Judah and Israel. Villard 2008 documents the ceremonies celebrating victory.
CHAPTER 27
Thoughts on the Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Kingship
Mario Liverani
Translatio imperii
The dreams of Nebuchadnezzar II in the Book of Daniel contain the best‐known illustration of the ancient theory of translatio imperii (the “transfer of rule” or “sequence of empires”), which postulates the existence of three or four successive Near Eastern empires. Dan. 2:31–3 describes a dream featuring a statue with a golden head (Babylon?), a silver breast (Media?), a bronze belly (Persia?), and iron legs (Macedonia?) with iron/clay feet. Dan. 7:3–8 mentions a winged lion (Babylon?), a bear (Media?), a leopard (Persia?), and a wild beast with ten horns (Macedonia?) (Kratz 1991: 197–25). Earlier, during the Achaemenid period, Herodotus had suggested a three‐empire sequence, referring to the transfer of world dominion from Assyria (after 520 years of rule) to the Medes (Histories I 95), and then, after 128 years of Median rule, to the Persians (I 130). The shift from a three‐empire sequence to a four‐empire one (adding Macedonia) can be dated to shortly after Alexander’s conquest of Persia, ca. 330 BCE. A similar sequence, although with several differences in terms of the dates and the kings’ names, is later found in Ctesias and quoted by Diodorus and others (FGrHist 688 F 5 = Jacoby 1958: 449–51; Lenfant 2004: 79 and 93).
The theory of translatio imperii was not, however, purely a Biblical or classical invention but rather had its origins in much earlier Mesopotamian traditions. Its basic principles were deeply rooted in Mesopotamian thought and textual traditions. Since at least the time of the collapse of the Ur III empire (or even that of Akkad), the idea of continuity between successive empires was implicitly expressed by the Sumerian King List, which describes a unitary kingship passed from one city to another, resulting in claims such as Isin’s assertion that it was the direct descendent of Ur, or Babylon’s insistence that it was the heir of Akkad. In later (Neo‐ and Late Babylonian) periods, the idea of continuity from one king or dynasty to the next survives in the so‐called “Akkadian Prophecies” as well as the “Dynastic Prophecy” (Grayson 1975: 24–37; see Hasel 1979), which describes the succession from the Assyrian Empire to the Neo‐Babylonian Empire to the Persian Empire and, finally, to the Macedonian‐Seleucid Empires. The “Dynastic Prophecy” was clearly composed in the Seleucid period (when this succession was already an established pattern), but the Neo‐Babylonian kingdom’s claim that it was the heir of Assyria, and Cyrus’s similar declaration that the Persian Empire was the direct descendant of the Chaldean dynasty, anticipated the ideas expressed in this text.
This ancient idea of the succession of empires, preserved and memorialized in Biblical and classical sources, did not end with the collapse of the Seleucid Empire. Rather, the tradition was adjusted to include later empires. An expansion to establish the Roman Empire as the fifth empire can be dated to the period after the Roman annexation of Seleucid Syria (63 BCE) (Wiesehöfer 2003). Later, the successors of the Roman Empire were added to the sequence: in the East, the “first Rome” (Rome itself) was followed by a “second Rome” (Byzantium) and a “third Rome” (Moscow). In the West, conversely, the Frankish and German Empires were considered the heirs of the Roman Empire (Goetz 1958).
Leaving aside the later developments and turning back to the earlier traditions, it is clear that both the Book of Daniel and the classical tradition conflated Assyria (prominent in Greek tradition) with Babylonia (prominent in Jewish tradition), created a fictional Median Empire that did not exist (at least, not in terms of a territorial empire similar to the Persian one), and completely ignored Elam (the true forerunner of Persia). Such confusion, coupled with the Book of Daniel’s status as a “prophetic” text, is the reason why the identifications suggested above for the passages in the Book of Daniel are hypothetical (even though probable). The same caution should also be exercised with the later Sibylline Oracles and other classical or post‐classical sources. Nonetheless, modern scholars have traditionally adopted the erroneous classical sequence, beginning with Rawlinson’s bestseller from 1862–67, which detailed five “Oriental” empires (Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylonia, Media, and Persia) and was expanded in 1876 to span seven empires, including the post‐Achaemenid Parthian and Sasanian Empires. This remained the accepted sequence among scholars until further archaeological and textual material came to light.
With this fresh evidence in hand, scholars began to revisit the issue of translatio imperii and to postulate a b
asic sequence of Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia – accepting, as Herodotus had, that Assyria played the role of the first empire, and replacing the Median “Empire” with Babylonia. But, instead of expanding the succession of empires later in time as earlier scholars had done with Rome and Byzantium, Assyriologists were tempted to look backwards in time for a predecessor to the Assyrian Empire. A full set of kingdoms were (and still are) labeled as “empires.” The list includes not only reasonable candidates, like the Old Akkadian and the Ur III state, but also polities devoid of an imperialistic ideology, such as the Hittite kingdom, as well as the early periods of what would only later become empires, like the Old Assyrian or the Old Babylonian eras. Egyptologists used the term “empire” to denote the New Kingdom, but not the previous phases (the Old and Middle Kingdoms).
Clearly, the idea of translatio imperii was based on the concept that there was only one “empire” at a time. The practical as well as ideological implications of this reasoning will be investigated in the discussion below.
World Empires: Size vs. “Mission”
When put on a modern map, the assumed “world empires” of Assyria or Persia (not to speak of Akkad or Ur III) appear to be so small that the terms “world empire” or “universal empire” seem almost ridiculous. The label “regional empires” would be much more appropriate because their sphere of influence was limited to the Near East (or even only a part of it) and because of the possibility that other empires existed at the same time (China being an obvious candidate). We have to consider, however, that “world empire” is also an ideological notion.
First of all, calling an ancient empire “universal” need not indicate that it ruled the entire globe as we know it now, but, if anything, that it had spread throughout the oikoumene as known in its own time. In this sense, the Assyrian empire could claim to be “universal.” The Assyrian “mental map” essentially comprised Mesopotamia, the alluvium of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the mountains to the northeast, the deserts to the southwest, and the all‐encircling ocean that appeared at its upper end as the eastern Mediterranean Sea and, at its lower end, as the Persian Gulf. The conquest of the entire territory stretching from the Upper to the Lower Sea, including their main islands, Cyprus and Dilmun, was considered a reasonable accomplishment for a universal dominion (see “Sargon’s Geography,” in Liverani 1999–2001). Lands that remained outside of the empire, such as the Zagros highlands and the Arabian desert, could be easily discarded as “empty” lands, and the people who lived there classified as uncivilized, more properly belonging to the borders of the world than its constitutive parts. The real problems were important polities like Elam and Egypt. Attempts to incorporate them into the empire proved difficult but were nonetheless undertaken for ideological purposes.
The ideological underpinnings of the “universal empire” are highly significant. An empire becomes universal not (only) because of its size, but because of its “mission” to dominate the entire known world, a mission entrusted to the emperor by a god. This remains the qualifying feature when we compare empires to other polities that were perhaps not smaller in a purely material sense but were devoid of such a mission – in other terms, of such an ideology. Imperial ideology and its role in the Neo‐Assyrian Period therefore needs to be discussed here at some length.
Enlarging Assyria
The basic principle of Assyrian kingship is expressed in the recurrent statement that “(the god) Assur is king, and PN (the ruler in charge) is his delegate (iššiakku).” This statement is attested at the very beginning of Assyrian history – when Ashur was just a city‐state – in the seal inscriptions of Ṣilulu (ca. 2000 BCE) and Erišum I (ca. 1940) (Grayson 1987: 12–13 and 21) and, later, during the Middle Assyrian period – when Assyria was a regional state – in the Assyrian coronation ritual (ca. 1300 BCE; Müller 1937: 8–9). At the height of the empire, the coronation ritual of Assurbanipal preserves the same idea of the king as the god’s delegate (Livingstone 1989: 26). The idea that the king was the representative or the human agent of the god was quite widespread in the ancient Near East – the very term iššiakku derives from the title ensi used by the rulers of the Sumerian city‐states of the third millennium. But unlike some kings in earlier periods, no Assyrian ruler ever considered himself divine. Assyrian kings were merely the mortal representatives of their “national” god Assur.
The idea of divine rule is not, in itself, a sufficient prerequisite for an imperial ideology. Throughout the history of the ancient Near East, people were conscious that beside their own “city god” existed other gods in other cities. These other gods were not “lesser gods” but rather gods of equal standing, each of them responsible for the fortunes or misfortunes of their respective cities. In other terms, in a polytheistic culture, beliefs in divine rule were fully compatible with a multi‐centered political world.
For reasons that we shall explore below, the political theology of Assyria changed around the mid‐second millennium BCE. The basic mission of the Assyrian king, entrusted to him by the god Assur, was now no longer limited (as in other cities) to ensuring the well‐being of the subjects, the prosperity of the country, and the care of the temples, but also included the peculiar task of māta ruppušu, “to enlarge the country (of Assyria),” i.e. to extend Assyria’s borders, and, in practical terms, to conquer the surrounding countries and peoples. The royal title murappiš miṣri “enlarger of the territory” is first attested with Tukulti‐Ninurta I in the late 13th century (Seux 1967: 239). The principle is not exceptional; it can also be found in Egypt, especially under the 18th dynasty. In theological terms, the reasons for “enlarging the country” have to do with a different quality of the inner country versus that of the outer lands, and, ultimately, with a different appreciation of the national god versus the deities in charge of the surrounding peoples.
Only the inner country, dependent as it was on the divine mandate, was a “cosmic” country where law and order, justice, and peace were to be ensured. The outer countries were a “chaotic” part of the universe, lacking the positive qualities of the inner country because they were unaware of, or, worse, resistant to the supreme rule of the central and supreme god, Assur in the case of Assyria. The divine mandate of “enlarging the country,” “extending the border,” and transforming chaos into cosmos, was, therefore, an almost superhuman task, an act of organizing the world, a completion of creation. The conquest of the world added to the glory of Assur and the Assyrian king, but was also to the advantage of the conquered peoples, who were finally inserted – they too! – into the cosmos that was governed by divine rule. The statement in the Middle Assyrian coronation ritual, “by your right scepter enlarge your land! May Assur give you authority and obedience, justice and peace” (Müller 1937: 12–13), is quite explicit in this sense, and the titles “enlarger of the country/of the border” are as frequent in Assyrian royal titulary as they are absent in previous Mesopotamian traditions, where the ambition of a world domain “from sea to sea” was present but expressed differently.
Prerequisites of the Imperial Project
While the theological foundations of Assyrian state ideology are clear, the historical conditions that transformed Assyria into an empire are not so easily discerned. We have to distinguish between two different stages, a first one providing certain prerequisites, and a second stage bringing about the actualization of the imperial project. Until well into the second half of the second millennium BCE, we can only speak of prerequisites. They include (1) the old trade network (attested since the 20th century) stretching across quite a large area, which led previous scholars to speak of an “Old Assyrian Empire” – but the network was largely based on private initiative with limited political backing from the mother‐city; (2) the Assyrian “obsidional complex” (the idea of constantly being under siege), best expressed in a prayer of Tukulti‐Ninurta I (Foster 1993, I: 230–5) inciting Assyrians to react to the pressure from the surrounding mountaineers; it explains the belli
cose attitude of the Assyrians, but the justification of empire building as a reaction against surrounding enemies is, of course, ancient ideology, not our modern historical explanation; (3) the model provided by the tradition of the Old Akkadian Empire, already revived by Šamši‐Adad I in the 18th century – but his kingdom included the entirety of Upper Mesopotamia and was mainly based outside of Assyria.
The first opportunity to develop a policy of expansion and, hence, a kind of imperial ideology, occurred in 1360 with the collapse of the kingdom of Mittani (or: Mitanni), which encompassed all of Upper Mesopotamia, from the Zagros Mountain range to the Mediterranean Sea coast. Although the collapse of Mittani was the result of the intervention of the Hittite king Šuppiluliuma, the Assyrian king Aššur‐uballiṭ was able to profit from the opportunity as well, launching attacks that would be continued by his successors, finally expanding the western border of Assyria to the Euphrates River and transforming Ashur from a city‐state into a regional kingdom.
During the period between 1350 and 1200, Assyria became part of an international network of states that was based upon the peaceful coexistence, or, rather, the careful balancing of the political and military interests of a half‐dozen “great kings” – the rulers of Egypt, Ḫatti, Assyria (the heir of Mittani), Babylonia, Elam, and some partners of uncertain rank (Alašiya, Aḫiyawa, and Arzawa). While most of the states in this system of “peer‐polity interaction” accepted the ideas of compromise and reciprocity promoted by the partners, the late‐comer Assyria adopted a more aggressive attitude, provoking negative reactions from older members like Ḫatti and Babylonia. In this system, Egypt too had always played a peculiar role, accepting “peer interaction” in the form of gift exchange while also maintaining a certain sense of superiority. Is it possible that Assyria found the inspiration for adopting the titles and the very concept of “enlarging the border” (murappiš miṣri in the Assyrian titulary, swsḫ t3šw in the Egyptian) as a divine mandate in Egyptian royal ideology? This is merely speculation, but it seems clear that the Hittite model, too adherent to the juridical rules of reciprocity and interaction, and the model of Babylon, which had fallen into a state of crisis, would have been much less appealing to the ambitious kings of Ashur.
