Gojko Barjamovic wrote:
After the collapse of the Ur III state, its former imperial provinces reverted to the political landscape of city-states and tribal groups tied into networks of changing political alliances that they had been prior to the imperial conquest. This included the city-state of Assur, located on the northern fringes of the empire at an important crossing of the Tigris River. The city established a prolific long-distance trade in raw metal and luxury textiles. Wealth flowed into a society controlled by an elite of investors and financiers, and a ruling dynasty acted as religious figureheads and chairmen of a bicameral parliament [!] controlled by wealthy traders. After almost two centuries during which the city maintained its parliamentary constitution [!] and neutrality as a port of trade, Assur was conquered in 1808 BCE by the warlord Šamšī-Adad I and incorporated into his short-lived empire. A few centuries later Assur fell to the Syrian-based empire of Mitanni … Mitanni became caught up in a war of succession and Assur reclaimed its independence to begin a process of rapid territorial expansion and transformation to a “Land of Assur”.
The resulting state in some sense represents the second culmination of the imperial drive in Mesopotamia by expanding its borders beyond the standards set by the Akkadian kings a millennium before. Assyria ruled as an empire for over three-quarters of a millennium and was able to act on a wider scale than any state before it. It became a prototype for transnational imperialism, royal ideology, and court culture, establishing a model that would reach beyond its own history and the geographical area in which it had evolved. Through alternating periods of expansion and contraction it extended its hegemony to the edge of the urban world. Its rulers refined policies of territoriality and authority, adapting to past experience and existing challenges.
During the early phase of empire, ca. 1360–1080 BCE, that is commonly known as the Middle-Assyrian period, the empire rose to power with provinces extending across northern Iraq and Syria. The era is characterized by a dismantling of the city-state and the consolidation of an expansive territorial empire. It is unclear exactly how the process of political centralization occurred. The popular assembly in Assur apparently continued to rule in local matters for another millennium, but on a larger scale the city-state had to be dissolved for the empire to function. There are indications that trade continued to play an important role in political life, and that the important families, which came to constitute the landed gentry of the empire, were to some extent descendants of the commercial elite that had started the trade centuries earlier.
The later or “Neo-Assyrian” phase of the state, ca. 883–609 BCE, traditionally refers to a second era of rapid expansion, which culminated in the formation of a universal empire that brought together the Near East from Egypt to Iran under a single ruler. Internal restructuring transfigured Assyria from a system of isolated administrative focal points toward a state of territorial integration. In between were years of weakness and partial collapse, but dates are conventional and mainly refer to deteriorating conditions of elite political structures and the complex urban economy. A distinctive state and identity existed throughout the 15 centuries of recorded Assyrian history, ca. 2100—600 BCE, and the modern chronological partition into “Middle” and “Neo-Assyrian” conceals what was internally perceived as a historical continuum. At least since 1350 BCE Assyria was an empire ruled by a single dynasty that held the city of Assur as its religious and ideological center …
… Particular to the first centuries of the Assyrian Empire was a tendency to restructure or demolish local political institutions in newly conquered areas and insert a local ruling class of ethnic Assyrians. With the growth of the universal state in the ninth century BCE this practice was abandoned and the Assyrian imperial elite became inclusive, multicultural, and multiethnic. Assyrianized nobility from subordinate states could work their way into the imperial elite by openly emphasizing their commitment to the ruler. This process was tied to a gradual transfer of power from a hereditary landed aristocracy to a nobility whose position was personal, based on royal appointment, and dependent upon individual loyalty.
First Empire:
From the ascension of Aššur-uballiṭ I (1353–1318 BCE), Assyria underwent the first phase of rapid growth, both through military conquest and diplomatic overture. During its initial stages the empire formed a loose network of control, based on territorial provinces and client states. The role of the monarch changed so that the king, in addition to his priestly duties, took on the role of supreme judge (a role formerly reserved for the Assembly) and the position as military commander of a powerful army. The core provinces consisted of a region around the city of Assur itself and the ancient urban centers of Nineveh, Kirkuk, and Arbela. Conquered states were kept as clients or were turned into imperial provinces headed by governors. From early on, the western territories held a special status under the administration of an imperial viceroy. During the early phase of expansion, territories were divided into “provinces” (pāḫutu) and “fortresses” (ḫalṣu) with the fortresses joined to the provinces at a later stage. After a century of territorial expansion, the imperial territory remained relatively constant ca. 1250–1080 BCE.
Religious and militaristic ideology placed the king in the center of the universe and presented Assyria as a land enclosed by a ring of evil. Social justice was a royal domain, and it was the sovereign’s prime duty to subjugate internal malevolence and eliminate outside threats to civilization. A number of characteristic elements in Assyrian imperialism were instituted already during the fourteenth to twelfth centuries BCE, including the systematic deportation of populations to concentrate labor resources and weaken local identity. Other elements include the creation of a provincial and transport infrastructure based on military fortresses and administrative centers, and the creation of standing garrisons that could operate in addition to larger hosts levied through drafts.
Assur-uballiṭ I was the first Assyrian ruler to assume the traditional Mesopotamian royal title of “king” (šarru), and his royal epithets underline his priestly duties, his functions as shepherd of the people, builder, and supreme judge.
Governors bore the overall responsibility for local economy and public safety in the provinces. A fundamental task was to oversee the cultivation of crown land, the storage and distribution of products, and the upkeep of military and strategic infrastructure. Duties included the supervision of local labor forces and the coordination of their duties to the state in return for payment in kind. Governors were also required to deliver regular offerings (ginā’u) to the central temple in Assur, and acted as imperial representatives in the diplomatic relation to other states. They would maintain foreign contacts, implement imperial policy in the borderlands, and ensure the safety and security of envoys passing through their territory. On a local level, the heads of town administration (ḫazi’ānu) would represent local elites and be given hereditary positions, even if they were formally approved and appointed by the ruler. Their agricultural and judicial duties were similar to those of the provincial governors within the single settlement.
The mechanisms of taxation in the early empire are not well understood but appear to have been based on trade and the access to land. New areas were put under cultivation, with the royal family itself becoming the largest landowner. Plots of crown land were allocated to individual users in exchange for military and civil services (ilku). The state would also recruit people based on privately owned land that came without an ilku-obligation, but how this was practiced is less clear. The only direct taxes payable by individuals were levied on imported goods—sometimes as much as 25 percent of the final price. Finally, there was a variety of income flowing directly to the ruler and his family; key terms include “tribute” (madattu) that was paid also by the client states, “audience gifts” (nāmurtu) presented at court, and “booty” (hubtu/šallatu) collected during military campaigns. An important dynamic existed between royal and temple administrations in regard to the storage and accumulation of agricultural surplus.
Other than permanent garrisons, the early empire had no standing army. Instead, the state maintained detailed registers of personnel—sometimes counting more than 2,000 individuals—who could be mobilized quickly on a short-term basis for defensive operations, military campaigns, and civil projects. The military leaders constituted the highest officials of the royal administration, and included the “vizier” (sukkallu), the “commander-in-chief” (tartennu), and the “herald” (nāgiru). During the late empire these men came to form a group known collectively as “the magnates”, who may have been part of a royal council.
Rebirth:
The period of general instability that struck the Near East in the twelfth century BCE caused states to collapse and populations to move. Assyria lost control of most of its western possessions, and territories that had formerly been under imperial Hittite, Assyrian, Kassite, and Egyptian control coalesced into a system of city-states, tribal holdings, and small territorial federations in Babylonia, Syria, the Levant, and southern Turkey. From the early ninth century BCE the process of Assyrian conquest regained speed under Assurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE) and his son Shalmaneser III (859–824 BCE)—initially as a restoration of lost provinces, and later as a regular territorial expansion. Conquered lands were submitted to provincial or client rule, and the royal capital moved from Assur to Kalhu and was transformed into a political and administrative center of the new state.
Imperial growth went along with the formation of a distinctive state ideology and an institutionalized court protocol tied to the dramatic setting created at the new royal seat. Formal etiquette and a rigid social hierarchy were combined with strict rules of physical access and an appropriation of space on both an ideological and physical level to sustain an image of a universal empire with the Assyrian king at its central axis. The city walls of Kalhu enclosed an area of some 380 hectares, and elaborate canal systems were constructed to provide water for its burgeoning population. Settlers were brought from across the empire, both to provide the manpower needed to maintain the new center of government, and to strengthen the position of the king at the expense of the traditional urban elites of the Assyrian heartland. The highest administrative and military offices were now given mainly to eunuchs, who had their ties to family and outside loyalties severed by castration.
Individual merits, devotion, and loyalty became more important than pedigree for the privileges bestowed upon each officer. The highest positions came with extensive territorial provinces, and evidently the chief executors of the empire were absent from the royal court for parts of the year to manage their households in the provinces, to lead armies in military campaigns, and to perform political or ritual obligations on behalf of king and empire. Yet, most, if not all, of the magnates maintained extensive households in the capital, where presence at court was presumably of vital importance and perhaps even required for upholding their social position.
After the reign of Shalmaneser III followed a period of weakness in royal authority as provincial governors gained an extensive measure of sovereignty and de facto turned their territories into client states. The Urartean Empire at the same time expanded in the direction of Assyria and threatened its interests in the Anatolian and Iranian Highlands. The fact that the imperial provincial administration maintained territorial status quo during this period of royal weakness, but did not embark upon further expansion, suggests that a strong centralized power was fundamental for Assyrian imperial growth, and was tied to central authority and its ability to coordinate resources. As political power became concentrated within a narrow circle of people, it could in principle be shared between them; but as the empire grew, and the estates of the provincial governors became increasingly distant from the capital, authority shifted to the periphery and began threatening state integrity. This development was effectively curtailed by the absolutist reforms of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BCE), who reorganized the provincial system to reduce the power of the governors, restructured the imperial army and its supportive infrastructure, and revived an aggressive and expansive Assyrian foreign policy against Urartu, Egypt, and the tribal groups of Babylonia. By the end of his reign, Assyria had severely restrained opposition in the west, had secured authority in large parts of Syria, and had gained control over most of the city-states in Babylonia.
The following four reigns of Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Assurbanipal mark the apex of Assyrian power and a closing “golden age” of the empire. Wars and civil uprisings continued on the margins of the realm, which grew steadily as Assyria eliminated its enemies through conquest and diplomacy. In the core regions, peace was lasting, and some provinces in Syria and northern Iraq saw economic prosperity with little or no conflict for two centuries.
By the time of Assurbanipal (668–627 BCE) a devastating civil war broke out between the king and his brother, who held the crown of Babylon and had allied himself with Elam. The conflict lasted five years, draining Assyrian resources and permanently alienating several of the Babylonian communities. A retaliatory attack on Elam effectively laid waste Assyria’s eastern neighbor, but opened up its flank to the emerging Median state in Iran. After the death of Assurbanipal the empire descended into internal and external strife, and between 614 and 609 BCE it succumbed to a military alliance of Babylonians and Medes.
Economy:
The Assyrian heartland was formed by a rich agricultural zone that was less dependent upon artificial irrigation than the cities of the south. A number of big settlements lay along the Zagros foothills, the rivers descending from the mountains, and the Tigris River. In addition to staple crops, the area supported vineyards, orchards, and open grasslands suited for animal husbandry. Stretching west was the open steppe settled by smaller towns and groups of itinerant herdsmen. A “signature landscape” still recognizable in the archaeological record came to characterize the countryside of the imperial heartland as its agricultural potential was developed to support the burgeoning population of the royal and provincial capitals. Imperial officials planned grand new cities and imposed a regular landscape of towns and villages sustained by elaborate hydraulic projects and a commercial and defensive infrastructure of fortifications, bridges, and roads.
At first, the expansion of the empire stimulated local economy by concentrating wealth and manpower and submitting it to centralized control. More permanent effects were achieved through a continuous readjustment of production, labor, and infrastructure. Methods applied were in essence time-tested approaches, such as the reorganization of the agricultural sector and the use of organized labor to open up new lands, but Assyria took such endeavors to a different scale. The concentration of wealth in the capital cities gave strength and authority to the ruler, and was the necessary adjunct to a political system that was turning increasingly absolutistic. Conversely, the state grew progressively more vulnerable to disruptions of supplies from its outlying regions as the population not directly engaged in food production grew. To counter such tendencies, suitable ecological zones and areas of resource extraction were singled out to accommodate a production on an industrial scale. Examples of such areas include wine in the Kashiyari Mountains, cereals in the Jazira, and olive production in Palestine. In some areas the empire promoted cultural hybridization and economic specialization as two approaches to the same end. Local physical infrastructure was enhanced and provincial centers constructed or refurbished to function as nodes in this system.
A precondition for such activities was a system of large-scale deportations that began already during the early empire period. Although these are described in the Assyrian royal inscriptions primarily as political or military maneuvers, their function was presumably more related to issues of growth. Shifts in the demography transformed the economy of the empire and literally changed the face of the state. Instead of relying upon a gradual increase in population, Assyria actively changed settlement patterns through relocation. Deportation formed a component in all the strategies mentioned earlier: agriculture and industry were boosted by the influx of laborers, provincial capitals were built and settled with deportees, and ambitious waterworks were constructed for the swelling agriculturalist population whose surplus production was used to support the burgeoning royal elite and army. Voluntary movement caused by economic incentives may also account for some of the demographic shifts on the imperial frontier, but this is less clear.
The importance of slavery for the imperial economy is uncertain; people referred to as slaves in the textual record mainly appear to have been indentured by themselves or a family member, and were generally not chattel slaves or prisoners of war. They mostly appear in the possession of affluent urbanites, and could themselves own property under the head of the household. But whether this image is representative of reality is debatable, and it can be a problem to distinguish between slaves, prisoners, and deportees. Certainly, there was a market for (free) hired labor as well.
It is unknown whether the large expanses of new land that came under cultivation in theory all belonged to the ruler. In reality, conquered areas were often divided into estates that went to private ownership. A growing proportion of the farmland came to belong to a group of people of mixed heritage, whose loyalty was directly tied to the Assyrian king. In return for their services they had resources put at their disposal, including the benefit of labor, irrigational works, and transport systems. Wealth became increasingly concentrated within a small group of people, many of them with military titles. Such new elites had no ties to the traditional seats of power, but were linked to the estates they had bought or received as grants.
Alongside the court eunuchs and free specialists (scholars, priests, artisans), they came to form a class of royal dependents, whose fortunes were directly linked to the ruler.
The overall administrative division of the empire can be described as a system of provincial territories surrounded by client states, although in reality territorial dominance never became continuous or fully integrated. At any given point, an inventory of the empire would include crown land, privileged cities, temple estates, territorial provinces, private lands, itinerant tribal groups, client communities, and semi-independent buffer states.
Corvée service (ilku) and taxes on trade were claimed in the provinces, while tribute was imposed upon the outlying clients; tribute came under the direct jurisdiction of the king, while the governors collected the provincial taxes as part of their enterprise and presumably made a profit from it. Corvée service, grain tax and straw tax were also levied in the provinces, and there were agents who gathered horses and raised troops for the royal armies. Beyond the confines of the imperial provinces the economy of the subjugated areas varied according to local conditions.
The border regions remained under the control of the highest military officials—the “commander-in-chief” (turtānu), the “treasurer” (masennu), the “cupbearer” (rab šāqê), and the “palace herald” (nāgir ekalli). These were located in strategically sensitive areas along the upper stretches of the Euphrates, the Tigris, and along the Zagros Mountains. Their provinces were militarized and dedicated to the defense of the empire, while economic development was concentrated in regions further from the contested zones.
Newly annexed regions would see considerable initial investment in order to secure Assyrian rule and to set up a functioning infrastructure. This could include the construction of a provincial center and military installations, the reorganization of the local settlement structure, the linking up with the imperial information network, and the enhancement of agricultural potential by way of introducing new agricultural techniques and irrigation projects. The territory of a province was sometimes divided into smaller units, once imperial control had been consolidated and local agriculture developed, presumably because such tactics encouraged micro-management of the provincial economy and diminished the economic power of the individual governor.
The management of merchant communities was left particularly weak and the capacity of frontier cities to act as interstitial ports of trade was actively promoted. With the exception of Sidon, the Phoenician city-states in the Levant were not incorporated into the provincial system and instead the Assyrian annexation presumably became an impetus for the Phoenician maritime expansion through the stability, investments, and market provided by the empire. Also the subjugated polities along the northern frontier toward Phrygia and Urartu were left under indirect rule. There, patron-client relations were established with local rulers to create a band of strategic buffer states between the two contending empires.
Trading policies included the establishment of “ports” (kāru) and “trading houses” (bēt kāri), e.g., on the Iranian frontier, and the forceful opening of Egypt’s maritime ports to trade with Assyria. Some provinces even appear to have been formed specifically to manage trade relations with areas beyond the control of the state. Examples include Ashdod (in 711 BCE), which was charged with overseeing traffic with Egypt and the kingdoms of South Arabia, and Sidon (in 677 BCE), which in addition to strategic political considerations probably constituted an attempt to profit more directly from Mediterranean maritime trade. Following the conquest of Carchemish in 717 BCE an influx of vast quantities of silver facilitated a change from a copper to a silver standard that was already underway.
The private sector of the Assyrian imperial economy is not well represented in the surviving evidence. However, there are enough data to demonstrate an advance in the degree of monetization of exchange as an important first step to facilitate the introduction of coinage. As shown by Radner, former assumptions about a gradual shift from a mercantile economic system toward a largely tributary mode of production in Assyria seems more predicated upon contemporary ideology and the products of Assyrian state propaganda than actual fact.
[Coming in Part 3: administration of political, military, ideological power]
The Source:
Gojko Barjamovic, ‘The Empires of Western Asia and the Assyrian World Empire’, in The Oxford World History of Empire, Volume 2, The History of Empires, edited by Peter Fibiger Bang, C.A. Bayly, and Walter Scheidel, Oxford 2021 [pp. 82-91]
Evolutions of social order from the earliest humans to the present day and future machine age.