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Assyrian Warfare in the Sargonid Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

H. W. F. Saggs
H. W. F. Saggs*
Affiliation:
University of London
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Extract

The primary question about Assyrian warfare in the Sargonid period, the constitution of the army, was long ago settled in its broader aspects by Manitius in two able articles of which the conclusions, as far as they go, stand largely unchallenged. Manitius showed that numerically the greater part of the grand army of Assyria was composed of levies raised from the provinces, under the control of the provincial governors, but that there was also a central standing army, which included units drawn from conquered territory, maintained by the king as a safeguard against over-ambitious satraps.As to the numbers concerned, Manitius pointed out that the forces under one governor alone comprised not less than 1500 cavalry and 20,000 archers, suggesting a potential grand army running into hundreds of thousands. This agrees with the fact that in major actions enemy casualties approaching two hundred thousand are claimed, which, even if exaggerated, do indicate the order of the number of troops engaged. Prisoners also are numbered in hundreds of thousands.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1963 , pp. 145 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1963

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References

1 Z.A. (a.F.) XXIV (1910), pp. 97-149, 185–224Google Scholar.

2 Manitius, op. cit., 111; V.R., pl. 9, 125–8.

3 Manitius, op. cit., 129.

4 I.R., pl. 43, 48.

5 O.I.P. II, p. 165, Col. I, 50–53Google Scholar.

6 Manitius, op. cit., 135ff.

7 H.A.B.L. 170, rev. 12–14.

8 H.A.B.L. 273, rev. 2–5.

9 H.A.B.L. 197, rev. 5–16; et passim.

10 H.A.B.L. 685, rev. 19–23.

11 H.A.B.L. 112, rev. 10–14, to be translated not as Waterman (R.C.A.E. I, ad loc.) but as “Since the cold is severe, shall we call a halt [lit. plant ourselves] at this point?”.

12 Borger, R., Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, p. 47Google Scholar, Episode 4, II 49–55. (My rendering differs slightly from that of Professor Borger.)

13 H.A.B.L. 269, rev. 5–11.

14 V.R., pl. 1 68–74.

15 2 Samuel xi 1.

16 I.R., pl. 43, 42. R. Borger, op. cit., p. 44, Episode 2, I 66, shows Esarhaddon undertaking a campaign in Šabaṭ, but at the same time accepting that the weather to be expected in that month would normally make campaigning undesirable.

17 Smith, Sidney, The first campaign of Sennacherib p. 34, B.M. 113203, 19Google Scholar.

18 H.A.B.L. 137, obv. 6–17.

19 T.C.L. III, pl. I, 7Google Scholar.

20 The Urarṭian army appears to have begun its campaigns in Nisan; see H.A.B.L. 492, obv. 4–13.

21 R. Borger, op. cit., pp. 43 f., Episode 2, I 60–65.

22 C.A.D., D , p . 128, takes the verb here (O.I.P. II, p. 181, Col. V, 35Google Scholar) in the sense of “to break camp”, but the succeeding lines show that the army was not yet called up, still less in camp awaiting the order to move.

23 O.I.P. II, p. 181Google Scholar, Col. V, 35–52.

24 V.R., pl. 6, 86–90.

25 T.C.L. III, pl. I, 9–10Google Scholar. A very different figure has been given for Sargon's rate of advance. Mr. Rigg, in J.A.O.S. LXII (1942), 132Google Scholar, makes the statement that “it took three days for the front of [Sargon's] column to accomplish something over thirty miles”. This statement involves two errors. Firstly, the nearest point of the Lower Zab to Calah is, according to the War Office maps, forty-four miles away, not thirty, whilst the distance along the mule track which most nearly follows the shortest line (not the route likely to have been used since it would have taken Sargon too far south) is fully fifty miles. Secondly, Sargon did not take three days to reach the Lower Zab. It was on the third day that he commended his objective to Enlil and Ninlil and then crossed the Lower Zab. No intelligent commander is likely to break camp, cross a defensive river and strike off into potentially hostile country just before nightfall, and the ceremonial oath by the gods, followed by the crossing of the Lower Zab, must have been made on the morning of the third day, so that Sargon's forces must have set up camp on the northern side of the river on the second day.

26 Borger, op. cit., p. 44, Episode 2, I 65.

27 III R., pl. 12, Slab 2, 22.

28 T.C.L. III, pl. IX, 186, pl. X, 197, pl. XIII, 274.

29 On War, [translated by Graham, J. J., new and revised edition, by Maude, F. N., 3 vols., London, 1940]Google Scholar, vol. 2, Bk. v, Ch. vi, p. 34.

30 T.C.L. III, pl. III, 52–53Google Scholar.

31 T.C.L. III, pl. I, 14 , pl. II , 25–26Google Scholar.

32 T.C.L. III, pl. II, 23–24, pl. XVI, 329–330Google Scholar; Borger, op. cit., p. 104, Gbr. II, Col. I, 37; H.A.B.L. 100, rev. 14–15.

33 O.I.P. II, pp. 179 ff.Google Scholar, Col. V, 11–16 , 37–41.

34 O.I.P. II, pp. 179 ff.Google Scholar, Col. V, 15, 33–34, 40.

35 V.R., pl. 3, 2–17.

36 T.C.L. III, pl. VII, 146.Google Scholar

37 T.C.L. III, pl. IX, 175–6Google Scholar.

38 Herrscher im alten Orient, pp. 83 f.

39 Lie, A. G.The inscriptions of Sargon II King of Assyria, Part I: The Annals, p. 14, 83Google Scholar.

40 H.A.B.L. 292, rev. 2–11.

41 ND.2435.

42 See also H.A.B.L. 571, in which Sargon promises to treat Babylon with leniency upon its surrender after the usurping reign of Marduk-apil-iddin.

43 Borger, op. cit., pp. 52 f., Episode 13, A, III 71–83.

44 T.C.L. III, pl. VII, 129–130.Google Scholar

45 T.C.L. III, pl. II, 25Google Scholar.

46 Smith, S., The first campaign of Sennacherib, p. 34, B.M. 113203, 20Google Scholar.

47 Gadd, C. J., The Stones of Assyria, pl. 16Google Scholar.

48 T.C.L. III, pl. VI, III.

49 Op. cit., vol. 2, Bk. vi, Ch. xvi, pp. 245–6.

50 T.C.L. III, pl. IV, 80–pl. V, 85Google Scholar.

51 T.C.L. III, pl. V, 86Google Scholar.

52 T.C.L. III, pl. VI, 112–124Google Scholar.

53 T.C.L. III, pl. VI, 132–3Google Scholar.

54 Salonen, A., Hippologica Accadica, p. 158, n. 2Google Scholar. This point has been refuted by Gadd, C. J., B.S.O.A.S., 1958, p. 182Google Scholar. See also B.M. 124926 (British Museum, Assyrian Basement), which shows a running battle between archers mounted on camels and horses.

55 T.C.L. III, pl. VII, 139Google Scholar.

56 T.C.L. III, pl. VII, 137–9Google Scholar.

57 T.C.L. III, pl. VII, 138Google Scholar.

58 T.C.L. III, pl. VIII, 170–pl. IX, 173Google Scholar. The final phrase, šupṭur ṣimittu, would usually be taken to refer to chariot teams, but the passage is specifically speak about pitḫallū (cavalry horses), for which reason I take ṣimittu here to mean “harness” in general and not “chariot-yoke”.

59 T.C.L. III, pl. VII, 141Google Scholar.

60 Op. cit., vol. 2, Bk. vi, Ch. xvi, p. 255.

61 T.C.L. III, pl. XI, 214Google Scholar, restored from K.A.H. II, no. 141.

62 Some of the most respected amongst my colleagues, whilst conceding all the Assyriological facts I have adduced, strongly deny my conclusion. There are two principal arguments which I have encountered in opposition to my view. The first is the straight-forward denial that in the perpetration of atrocities any other national group (the Mongols and Nazis being excepted by some) has ever equalled or approached the Assyrians in the extent or the brutality of its activities. I am unable to accept that this accords with the facts. In the writings of Layard and his contemporaries one can find from nineteenth century Persia, Turkey and Egypt parallels, some of them on a considerable scale, for almost every atrocity the Assyrians ever thought of. As one instance we find the Wazir of the Shah building the bodies of three hundred living rebels into a fortress wall, their heads protruding to ensure them the longest possible agony before death (Sir Layard, A. H., Early adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, 1894, p. 117Google Scholar). Among twentieth century people at war, the perpetration of atrocities has by no means been limited to Nazis, and a little research amongst combatants will reveal plentiful instances from the forces of most nations, great and small: specific examples that I have noted include the murder of prisoners, torture to secure information, cannibalism, rape of women, the massacre of all the women and children of an enemy village, and mutilation of the genitals of enemy dead; whilst castration of a prisoner, blinding and burning to death could be added, though the perpetrators in the last three cases were not technically soldiers. Admittedly, in most (though not all) of these cases the numbers involved were small, but it is perhaps neither cynical nor irrelevant to point out that in the circumstances of modern warfare opportunities for such behaviour are remarkably limited.

The other argument, whilst accepting that all peoples have in the heat of war been guilty of atrocities, suggests that the frankness with which the Assyrians recorded such activities convicts them of having taken actual overt pleasure, as other peoples did not and do not, in the contemplation of human suffering. This is an argument which could only be adequately discussed by a psychologist, but I would point out that in modern society there is an apparently insatiable demand for accounts or pictures of human suffering (whether real or fictitious). For references to American publications, with sales of scores of millions a month, containing pictorial representations of atrocities far worse than anything recorded by the Assyrians, see F. Wertham, The seduction of the innocent, passim. Also relevant is perhaps the prominence (presumably reflecting popular demand) given in newspapers to such tragedies as children being burnt to death. The popularity of films and television programmes involving the most brutal violence also suggests that modern man enjoys the representation of human suffering no less than did the Assyrians.