Since the 2nd millennium BC, both Babylonia and Assyria had fought for hegemony in Mesopotamia. Unlike Babylonia to the south, Assyria was not dependent on artificial irrigation, and perhaps because of this it had a peasant population that could easily be mobilized for military campaigns far from home. In any case, already in the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC, Assyria acquired the reputation of a bellicose and aggressive state. Around 900 BC, it embarked on a period of expansion that would make it the strongest power in the Near East and finally the first “world empire” in history. Almost every year, its kings led their armies north, south, east, or west. The defeated had to pay tribute, so that these regular expeditions secured the transport on a grand scale of all sorts of products from a wide periphery to the Assyrian heartland on either side of the Tigris. Refusal to pay tribute was treated as a rebellion and mercilessly punished by the destruction of cities and the extermination or deportation of all the inhabitants of cities. The military technology of this period—chariots; since the 9th century, cavalry; as well as various siege engines—enabled the Assyrians to carry on their campaigns over great distances. Gradually, these campaigns changed into conquering expeditions, meant to permanently hold the subjugated lands. The conquered peoples henceforth not only had to pay tribute but to provide recruits for the Assyrian army as well. The army as a result
Figure 10 A relief from Nineveh depicting Assurbanipal in his pleasure garden (7th c. BC). Under the rule of Assurbanipal, mid-7th century BC, the Assyrian Empire reached its apogee. This relief from Nineveh, now in the British Museum, shows Assurbanipal in a pleasure garden. The king is seen lying on a beautifully decorated couch under a pergola of vines. Mesopotamian kings spent lavishly on gardens and parks, and sources mention exotic plants and animals that were brought from far and wide to their capital cities. The king’s consort is seated at his feet, there are slaves with fans on either end, to the left one can see food being brought in, and at the far left there is a harp player. The king will be pleased, because he has a good view of the head of one of his enemies hanging from the top branches of the tree in front of the harpist. It was common for male members of the elite to recline on couches in the Near East; this habit had already spread in the 7th century BC by way of Asia Minor to the Greek world. Assurbanipal’s consort is in a chair: we will see this in the Greek world too: men used to recline, but women, children, and servants sat up. Photo: The Art Archive/Alamy
Changed from a yearly mobilized peasant militia into a professional standing army, raised largely from non-Assyrian peoples. Ideologically, the victories and conquests of Assyria were justified by the kings as so many offerings for the high god Assur, whose devout and humble servants these kings professed themselves to be.
Yet, in the brutal division between the oppressors and the oppressed, the Assyrian Empire carried the within it the seeds of its own eventual downfall. It always had to be on the alert for uprisings anywhere, especially in Babylonia—which, proud of its own ancient history, repeatedly rebelled—and of possible coalitions of its enemies across the borders. Under King Assurbanipal in the 7th century BC, Assyria reached the zenith of its power with the simultaneous submission of—though for a short time—Egypt, the Phrygians in Anatolia, the mountainous state of Urartu around Lake Van in present-day eastern Turkey, and Elam with its capital Susa in southwestern Iran. Probably, the effort proved too great, for by the second half of the 7th century, all these countries were again independent or in open rebellion, while a new power threatened Assyria from the east: the Medes. Ultimately, it was a coalition of the Medes and the Babylonians that in 612 BC conquered the Assyrian capital Nineveh and brought about the total demise of this state just a few years later.
World History
