Royal Rhetoric and Violence in Later Mesopotamian History

The later history of Mesopotamia is no less bloody than the early periods I have been describing. From 1200 bce onwards down to the conquest of Mesopotamia by the Persians in the sixth century bce and then the conquest of Persia by Alexander in the fourth century bce, the inhabitants of the land between the rivers knew very few years of peace.

By the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the first millennium bce, Mesopotamian forces were carrying their arms as far afield as Cyprus and Egypt; however, the message, and the core understanding of violence, had not changed substantially since the mid third millennium bce. The king as an emissary of the gods had a mandate to preserve order at home and carry out violence abroad.

Sennacherib, great king, strong king, king of Assyria, unrivaled king, pious shepherd who reveres the great gods, guardian of truth who loves justice, renders assistance, goes to the aid of the weak, and strives after good deeds, perfect man, virile warrior, foremost of all rulers, the bridle that controls the insubmissive, and the one who strikes enemies with lightning. The god Ashur, the great mountain, granted to me unrivaled sovereignty and made my weapons greater those of all who sit on royal daises.

(Sennacherib, king of Assyria, seventh century bce)^[461]

What was new in the first millennium was the scale of the divine mandate. The kings no longer ruled solely over a Mesopotamian uni­verse; now they lay claim to power over all kingdoms.

I put to the sword the population of Hirimmu, a dangerous enemy who since time immemorial had not submitted to the kings, my ancestors, and I did not leave one alive... I returned safely to Assyria with 208,000 substantial captives, 7,200 horses and mules, 11,073 donkeys, 5,230 camels, 80,050 oxen, and 800,100 sheep and goats. This is apart from the people, donkeys, camels, oxen, and sheep and goats that all of my troops had carried away and appropriated for themselves. Moreover, I put to the sword the soldiers of the enemy, a recalcitrant force who had not submitted to my yoke, and hung their corpses on poles.

(Sennacherib, king of Assyria, seventh century bce)²

In the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions we find clear parallels with the lan­guage used by the kings of Akkad and Ur a millennium and a half earlier. The world outside of Mesopotamia was a staging ground for state violence and a source of wealth. The third millennium kings had made heaps of the enemy dead and taken away captives and livestock. The imperial powers of the first millennium increased the size of this enterprise, but not the state's relation­ship with warfare. By carrying the sword beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians and Persians who succeeded them, forged empires out of violence that guaranteed their ability to support the system of patronage on which their thrones rested. These endeavours were encouraged by a long development of a rhetoric of violence that was a catalyst for royal decision making. In the ordered world of Mesopotamia, violence was restrained by royal decree, and the chaos that surrounded that land could be brought to heel through warfare sanctioned by the gods.