The Practical and Ideological Aspects of Assyrian Kingship
May 22, 2019 10:15:11 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on May 22, 2019 10:15:11 GMT -5
The Practical and Ideological Aspects of Assyrian Kingship
Description: the following essay represents one of two final writing assignments I completed at the end of the course work portion of my student career. The subject matter relates back to part of the course work I had done on the Assyrian empire. The value of this essay is that I had a chance to go into much more detail about the working of the Assyrian king and his ideology than I previously had. While I find this discussion to have been quite detailed, it was limited by a 10 page (single space) page limit, and by the fact that I could not include illustrations or charts etc. as I may otherwise have done. Hence, it is not perfectly detailed but reasonable so given the format specifications. Other than that, the title and the introduction below say it all.
1.0 Introduction
The following short essay sets out to examine the question: How did Neo-Assyrian kingship operate both practically and ideologically? As this figure sits at the pinnacle of the state and the imperial apparatus, the Neo-Assyrian king is deeply intertwined with the workings of the empire itself, to study one is to study the other in effect. Sometimes described as the first “world empire” the actual size of Assyria at its height is modest (by modern standards) and some scholars have suggested “regional empire” instead (Liverani 2017, 536). The empire, with the king at its center, has been the topic of academic examinations for over a century, with the essential administrative practice of the king and the native conceptions of the king and his reign, the ideology, being of prime interest to scholars (Machinist 2006, 152). Subsequently, differing theoretical models of imperialism have been proposed: according to Liverani’s model, a complex ideological system developed in order to further imperial objectives and, more specifically, to justify exploitation (Liverani 1979); according to another model, preferred here, Assyrian imperialism followed a territorial-hegemonic model, whereby expansion was carefully weighed on a cost – benefits continuum (Parker 1996). While the former model focuses on the ideological, the latter focuses on the practical.
In the following, sections 1.0-2.0 will detail the legitimation of the king and the means by which he secured loyalty to the throne; the ideological aspects of the king will be discussed in sections 3.0-3.3; consideration of the practical operation of the king is given in section 4.0-4.4.
2.0 The Legitimation of the King
A king’s ability to meet the preconditions for rule and to secure the legitimacy of his reign represents a fundamental practical objective. Failing this, the exercise of rule and the fulfillment of all of the other practical aspects of kingship would be unattainable. The preconditions were i) “descent from the male line of a specific family”; ii) “divine legitimation, necessary already for the appointment as crown prince” and iii) “ability, to be demonstrated already when crown prince” (Radner 2010, 27).
The hereditary right to rule descended along the male line in Assyria, and kingship could fall to any legitimate male member of that line sons, brothers, cousins (Radner 2010, 26). The Assyrian king list is an important document for the consideration of Assyrian royal genealogy, Grayson called it “the pillar of the concept of hereditary monarchy in Assyria” (Grayson 1980-83, 102). Not only does it passively supply a historical Assyrian royal genealogy, but for outsiders or usurpers, the inclusion of their name on this list amongst those of the original Assyrian rulers could actively lend legitimacy to a royal claim. The expression mār lā mammāna “son of a nobody” occurs in the entries of eight kings and signifies that the king in question did not have a dynastic claim to the throne; in the cases where the throne is seized by a family member, seven cases in all, the non-standard formulae mārašu “his son” and ahušu “his brother” occur (Grayson 1980-83, 102; Yamada 2003, 265-268).
The topic of Assyrian royal ideology is certainly multifaceted, requiring much elaboration (see 3.0 below). Divine election is one aspect of this ideology which is particularly pertinent to any consideration of the process of royal legitimation. An inscription from the North West Palace at Kalhu refers to the divine election of Assurnaṣirpal II: “when Aššur, the lord who called me by name (and) made my sovereignty supreme” (RIMA 2 A.0.101.2: 7-8). By studying the corpus of these (admittedly fleeting) allusions, scholars have suggested that the process of divine election was imagined as occurring in consecutive stages: onlooking (the deity lays eyes on the crown prince), name uttering (the deity pronounces the name of the crown prince), and destiny determining (Karlsson 2013, 71). In place of the onlooking stage, the king is sometimes said to have been ‘chosen in the heart’ of the god (Karlsson 2013, 71-72; Zaia 2018, 210). By claiming divine election, the Assyrian king evoked the divine right to rule, a familiar feature of kingship in various historical contexts.
The understanding that the crown prince must demonstrate ability as a prerequisite to rule is more of a modern scholarly surmise than an explicit stipulation from the ancient literature, but it is a surmise based on good evidence. An illustrative example here comes from a small letter corpus of crown prince Shalmaneser V (then named Ulūlāju) consisting of letters addressed to his father, Tiglath-pilesar III. This corpus has now been edited by the State Archives of Assyria project (SAA 19 8-11, 159). One letter attests to an intriguing (and perhaps unexpected) task which the crown prince was to carry out, namely, securing thirty-six loads of snow for the palace (Radner 2003/2004, 98). This account hinges on the reading of the relevant Akkadian word as kuppû II “snow”, rather than kupû “reed” as has been preferred elsewhere (SAA 19 9: 8). The letters also indicate that the crown prince was responsible for protecting the queen, and was tasked with important diplomatic duties. Perhaps the most important take away from this small corpus is that the crown prince was higher in the command hierarchy than the king’s other high officials (Radner 2003/2004, 98; Baker 2008, 586). This is borne out by epistolary evidence which suggests that crown princes (specifically Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal) could be tasked with militarily securing or defending portions of the empire; they were also likely to have had considerable importance in maintaining the heartland when the king was away (Zamazalová 2011, 332).
A second consideration for the ability of the crown prince would be the degree to which he achieved literacy. While not necessarily a precondition to success (as high officials commonly relied on scribes), literacy seems to have been esteemed by a number of crown princes and kings (admittedly, few personally claim literacy) (Livingstone 2007, 98). The primary example of a Neo-Assyrian king who made substantial explicit claims to literacy is Ashurbanipal, although scholars continue to nuance the veracity of these claims. In his often discussed inscription L, Ashurbanipal states that he learned the scribal practices of all the experts in the house of succession (an important insight into an otherwise enigmatic institution); in lines 11 and 17 of the same text, Ashurbanipal states how “Nabû, the scribe of the universe, made me a present of the precepts of his sagacity” and “I have studied elaborate composition(s) in obscure Sumerian (and) Akkadian which are difficult to get right” (Zamazalová 2011, 315, 321).
Estimates of Ashurbanipal’s actual erudition vary, some scholars point to the presence of special glosses in letters written to the king, additional aides to his understanding, as proof his modest erudition. Livingstone however, making the counter claim, points to three texts from the library which bear colophons indicating the scholarly activity of the king. The colophons read: “I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria” (Livingstone 2007, 113).
2.1 The Role of Adê in the Royal Succession
The system of legitimation and succession described above was reinforced by the adê oath requirements. Accurate description of this practice has often proved elusive, and any attempt at description must be carefully nuanced. The typical English labels for these documents “treaty” and “loyalty oaths” can be artificial and misleading on several grounds: i) these documents maintained the same basic format for bilateral agreements (between parties on an equal footing, strong king and strong king), and for unilateral agreements (between parties on an unequal footing, strong king and subordinate party) — hence, the distinction between treaty and loyalty oath is somewhat artificial; ii) the oath portion of an adê document, while important, only occupies a small portion of the overall text (in some case, .02%), the semantic value of adê cannot be “oath” (Parpola and Watanbe 1988, XV-XVI; Lauinger 2013, 107). A possible solution emerges from a study of the inscriptions from the king’s seal with which these documents were sealed with. The mytho-poetic allusions found in these inscriptions make it clear that, according to the emic view, an adê document constituted an earthly manifestation of Aššur’s tablet of destinies (when sealed with the king’s seal) (Lauinger 2013, 109-110).
Of particular interest here are those occasions in which an adê document is used to seal an agreement between the king and a subject nation/king concerning the succession of the crown prince, a “succession treaty”. The best extant exemplars belong to a group of eight tablets found at Nimrud, each containing variations of the text referred to as "Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty". In 2009, an excavation team discovered a further edition of this text at Tell Tayinat in Turkey (Lauinger 2012, 87-88). The document is a fascinating study in imperial policy with the adjuration of subordinate parties to not only abstain from rebellious, treasonous and seditious behaviour, but to report such behaviour. Perhaps the fundamental statement of the document is the succession statement itself: on the day that the current king passes away “Assurbanipal, the great crown prince desi[gnate], son of Esarhaddon, your lord, shall be your king and your lord” (SAA 2 6: 188-195).
3.0 Ideological Aspects – The Creation of the King
The notion that the king was specially created by the gods was not a Neo-Assyrian innovation, as Mayer was able to demonstrate, a small group of texts from the second millennium state that either Ninmah, Ea, or Nisaba (among others) specially created the king (Mayer 1987, 63). However, this aspect of royal ideology receives its best articulation in the creation myths of the Neo-Assyrian period, and more specifically, to material dating to the dynasty of the Sargonid kings. This dating follows intertextual studies which isolate the occurrences of special phrases such as šarru mālik(u) (amēlu) “the king, the counselor (man)” to the time of Sargon’s eighth campaign or later (Jimenez 2013, 243). Incidentally, the translation and interpretation of this phrase remains a thorny issue (despite its importance) with some philologists offering “king, distinctively superior person,” or even “king, source of wisdom, human”; “king, counsellor of man,” which seems preferable, rests on the interpretation of malik as a bound form rather than a form with elided case vowel (Jimenez 2013, 240-241). The most commonly cited iteration of the special creation theme is from a seventh century literary text, wherein the mother goddess Belit-ili receives the following instruction from Ea: “fashion now the king, the counsellor man (šarru māliku amēlu)! Gird the whole of his figure pleasingly, make perfect his countenance and well formed his body!” (Radner 2010, 27; VS 24 92 ii 33-34).
3.1 Ideological Aspects - The Royal Image
A study of the king in art reveals numerous physical signifiers which separate the king from lessor Assyrians: the king may appear in proximity to the symbols of the gods, he often wears a distinctive costume including a fez-like hat, moves under an umbrella, and sits with a footstool (Radner 2010, 25-26). In the oft-discussed limestone stele of Šamši-Adad VI from the Nabû temple at Kalhu (BM 118892), the king faces left and gestures with an extended finger in a show of reverence; just above are five divine symbols representing three astral deities, as well as Adad and Aššur. As Colon discusses, he wears on his wrist a “royal bracelet,” an intriguing feature of the Neo-Assyrian royal image. These bracelets, in some cases fashioned of gold and featuring a rosette design, were occasionally worn by queens, courtiers, high officials and even lamassu and other apotropaic creatures. As an insignia of kingship, the bracelet is specific to the Neo-Assyrian kings (Colon 2010, 152-153).
An interesting feature of Assyrian royal ideology is that the king was sometimes said to possess a divine radiance (melammu). Starting with the Middle-Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta, melammu, which in the Sumero-Babylonian tradition applied exclusively to the divine, becomes an attribute of the mortal Assyrian kings (Machinist 2013, 162). While it does not occur in visual depictions of the king, it does appear in textual references such as royal epithets, and the aura is said to be terrifying to the enemies of the king (Karlsson 2013, 78). In a royal inscription of the Neo-Assyrian king Adad-nārārī II, after the king was said to have been “created” by the great gods, and after his destiny was decreed by the great gods, the king relates that: “they had raised me above crowned kings (and) placed on my head the royal splendour [melamme]” (RIMA 2 A.0.99.2: 5-8).
3.2 Ideological Aspects – the Religious Role of the King, his Royal Titles and Epithets
Assyrian royal titulary evolves in tandem with the state reflecting differing formulations of power and hegemony, some as old as Assyria itself. The titles of the Neo-Assyrian king cannot be fully understood without a digression to his forebears. In the Old Assyrian period, the ruler was titled the waklum “overseer” or rubāʾum “great one”. He was, at the same time, the high priest, in which capacity his title was iššiakkum (Sum. énsi). Like his third millennium equivalent, the ruler as iššiakkum acted as the representative of his god (Assur) on earth, his vice regent (Maul 2017, 341; Steinkeller 1999, 116). In the early periods, the theophoric royal title iššiak dAššur appears alongside šakin dEnlil, apparently without contradiction; in the Middle Assyrian period, an equivalent title SANGA dAššur occurs — either the sumerogram SANGA should be read iššiakkum in this particular context, or the role of this sanga is here equitable with the king as iššiakkum (Machinist 2006, 153-155).
It is generally understood by scholars that in the earliest part of Assyrian history, the title šarrum ‘king’ was held only by the god Aššur. The first instance of the title in association with a mortal occurs as Assyria emerges as a leading power under a strong ruler, Šamaš-Adad (Maul 2017, 341; Machinist 2006, 154-157; Grayson 1971, 312). As Grayson’s study of the monarchy indicates, this principle, that the expansion of hegemony correlates with the length and majesty of royal titles, is one observable throughout Assyrian history. Interestingly, in the Neo-Assyrian period the theophoric titles iššak Aššur and even šakin Enlil continue and “one or both are always found when kings state their titular or genealogy in their inscriptions” (Zaia 2018, 210). In the time of Esarhaddon, the ‘secular’ list of epithets had expanded in proportion to the empire and in one formulation read: “the grea]t [king], mighty [king, king of the wor]ld, king of [Su]mer and Akkad, true shepherd, favorite of the lord of lords, pious prince, beloved of the goddess Zarpanītu” (RINAP 4 104 i 1-13).
3.3 Ideological Aspects – Imperial Ideology
While questioning whether Assyria should really constitute a “world empire” (much less a universal empire) on the basis of its actually geographic size, Liverani nonetheless makes the case that the emic view assumed just that: “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…” (Liverani 2017, 536). The oft-discussed divine mandate to expand the borders of Assyria was, ideologically, the expansion of the order of the gods into the chaotic and unruly periphery, seen as a benefit to foreign peoples as well (Maul 2017, 537).
4.0 Practical Aspects – the Imperial System
Given that the Neo-Assyrian king operated from his position at the pinnacle of a vast imperial apparatus, no in-depth discussion of his practical operation is possible without taking this system into account. Below the king, queen and crown prince, in terms of imperial hierarchy, were the members of the royal court, some 6,000 in all, of which 100-120 were designated magnates (Akk. rabiu) (Radner 2011, 359; Barjamovic 2011, 45). Among the magnates were the seven high officials: the treasurer (masennu), the palace herald (nāgir ekalli), the chief cupbearer (rab šāqê), the chief eunuch (rab ša-rēši), the chief judge (sartinnu), grand vizier (sukkallu), and the commander-in-chief (turtānu) (Matilla 2000, 161). The term magnate also encompassed the governors (bēl pāhete) who governed the Assyrian provinces on behalf of the king (Radner 2011, 359). Of high importance for royal decision making (a key practical consideration) were the king’s scholars (see 4.3 below).
The hierarchy of the royal court, which surely must have been concrete to the Assyrians, has proved difficult for scholars to describe. Postgate blames this issue on a “non-bureaucratic ethos” and the vexing tendency for officials to not specify their own rank when writing letters and their use the generic designation “Master’s house” when referring to a superior’s position (Postgate 1992, 357). While the epistolary evidence is thus of little use here, confirmation of a bureaucratic system comes, surprisingly, from Radner’s study of seal imagery, specifically, a type of seal she dubs ‘bureau seals’. The bureau seals originate in 9th century Assyria, an innovation in information technology commensurate with an expansion of imperial power and territory (Radner 2008, 486). Unlike personal seals, which are unique and pertain to the business of an individual, a bureau seal contains a simple emblematic insignia which carries the authority of a particular bureau — identified so far are seals belonging to the bureau of the king, the queen, the crown prince and the governor (Radner 2008, 510). For Radner, hierarchal position correlates with heading a bureau: “it is evident from the textual record, that the Assyrian administrative hierarchy was headed by the trinity of king, queen and crown prince, each heads of their own household (or bureau)” (Radner 2008, 505). The textual record referred to here is not the epistolary record, but (according to Radner’s footnote) evidence from tribute lists which do, in fact, record varying distributions of booty for different officials. These texts will be discussed below (see 4.2 below).
4.1 Practical Aspects – Royal Appointments and Compelling Loyalty
The imperial agenda would probably never have come to fruition if not for the fulfillment of one essential and practical royal task: the appointment of competent and loyal officials and governors. Evidence that the king was actively involved in the appointment of various officials and functionaries comes from a small corpus of divinatory queries to the sun god which date to the reigns of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. Not only was the king concerned with receiving confirmation of the loyalty of his current officials from the sun god, but he would seek divinatory confirmation of the loyalty and suitability of potential appointees as well (Starr 1990, LXIII). Using formulae which are typical for the genre, the king seeks confirmation about the appointment of a crown prince:
Query over Sin-nadin-apli: “Šamas, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you! Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, strive and plan? Should he enter his son, Sin-nadin-apli, whose name is written in this papyrus and place before your great divinity, into the Succession Palace?” (SAA 4 149: 1-2).
The king thus appointed the crown prince, and, as is apparent from the same corpus, he also appointed (at least some of) the temple staff (SAA 4 150; SAA 4 151), high officials like the rab ša-rēši (SAA 4 299; Matilla 200, 133) and governors (SAA 4 300). Certainly, an important mechanism for compelling loyalty to the king was the adê oaths, discussed in 2.1 above. It should be added that, in the context of civil loyalty, everyday documentation such as litigation clauses and contract documents refer back to the adê oath, demonstrating a public awareness of this obligation (Baker and Groß 2015, 78). An additional strategy that was sometimes used by Assyrian kings to secure loyalty was the granting of tax exemptions and land grants. These sort of grants, which were for rewards for faithful service, are attested in practice from the beginning of the 8th century under Adad-nerari III until the end of the empire (Kataja and Whiting 1995, XXI). There are, however, very few extant private land grants from any Assyrian king until the reign of Assurbanipal (SAA 12 24-35) and his successor Aššur-etel-ilani (SAA 12 35-44). In what seems like a departure (although it is an argument from silence), Assurbanipal frequently offers tax exemptions to eunuchs, who became more powerful in this period (SAA 12 26; SAA 12 29; Frahm 2017, 190). A second type of exception wherein the king exempts an entire city or region from taxes (likely for political reasons) is known from the reign of Sargon II — in the following example, Sargon grants a tax exemption to the city of Assur:
Assur Charter rev. 15-17: “I exempted them from labor and corvée (ilku tupšikku) from the call of the land, the proclamation of the herald, dues on quay [and crossing …] (and) all the temples of the land of Assyria” (Van Buylaere 2010, 246).
4.2 Practical Aspects – The Heartland: finance, labor, justice
Finance and Labor: the king was, ultimately, the source of the impetus driving the finance and production of the state. The Assyrian king has been dubbed “the supreme landlord,” he distributed land among officials, temples, and soldiers — with the caveat, however, that they fulfill the duty to pay šibšu grain taxes and nusāhē straw taxes (Radner 2000, 242). In the urban context, the king’s appointed municipal agents, the huzannu and the ša muhhi āli ensured that the ilku, tupšikku and iškāru services — often referred to as dullu šarri eqāšu ‘doing the king’s work’ — was carried out; it is possible that they also supervised the collection of agricultural taxes (Van Buylaere 2010, 240; Baker and Groß 2015, 80).
The King as Redistributor: on a related topic, a huge source of wealth for the empire was the tribute and booty it obtained from vassal states (or in other cases, from provincial taxes), what Frahm calls the ‘tributary mode of production’ (Frahm 2017, 162). This tribute went to the palace and, under the authority of the king, a part was distributed to the royal court. An administrative letter, SAA 1 34, provides a good example of the types and quantities of goods redistributed.
The King of Justice: there was no divide in the Neo-Assyrian period between administrative and judicial authority: functionaries from state (headed by the king), provincial and municipal levels could fulfill a judicial role, as could temple officials and (in certain capacities) the gods (Radner 2005, 42). The king, as earthy vicar of the god Aššur, and head of the urban hierarchy, could act as “supreme judge”. While his role is little attested in legal documents of the period, the occurrence of abat šarri ‘the king’s word’ in the letters indicate that the king could hear appeals and countermand those legal decisions he deems unjust (Radner 2005, 66).
4.3 Practical Aspects – Scholars, Divination and Royal Decision Making
While the king may have numerous knowledge networks with which to consider when decision making, that provided to him by his agents at the municipal level (the hazannu and ša muhhi āli), and the information regularly sent to him by his provincial governors (particularly well preserved today in the state archives of Sargon II), the information which (he believed to come from) the divine realm could be the most crucial for the king — this was provided to him by a group of royal court scholars and diviners, who numbered around forty-five by the end of the period (Radner 2011, 366). The essential validity of this system rested on the belief that the gods control every aspect of life, and “knowing the god’s plan beforehand, therefore, meant knowing the future” (Finke 2017, 380). The seriousness with which the Assyrian kings took this approach is evident in the oft-quoted line from the literary text Advice to a Prince: “if [the king] has no regard for his scholarly advisors, his land will rebel against him” (Foster 2005: 867; Radner 2011, 362).
According to Finke, the Sargonid kings display a distinctly higher focus on divinatory knowledge than their forbears. This may have something to do with the accident of discovery, nonetheless, the focus was certainly keen. The latter three Sargonid kings sent diviners to the cities of Ashur, Nineveh, Arba’il, Kalzu, Borsippa, Dilbat, Babylon and Nippur to observe the signs for them and to regularly write back with reports and letters (Finke 2017, 381).
K 11492 (AGS 50): “[in accor]dance with the command of your great divinity, Šam[aš], great lord, and your [favor]able decisions, should the subject of this query strive and plan? [Should he send] these troops and armed forces to where he wishes? Is it pleasing [to your great divinity]? (SAA 4 108: 5-6)
AGS 144: “[Should Assurbanipal, the crown prince of the] Succession Palace, [drink this drug which] is placed [before] your great [div]inity, [and in drinking this drug will he] be rescued and spared?” (SAA 4 187: 1-3)
The king could consult his diviners on a range of civic, military, and personal matters. In the above text examples, the king queries the sun god in relation to a planned military move; secondly, the health of the crown prince and the use of a specific drug is queried. In section 4.0, the use of divination for appointment was discussed. In addition, queries could be made about foreign territories, written plans, possible insurrections etc. (Starr 1995, XI).
4.4 Practical Aspects – The King at War
Rather than one long progressive march to power, scholars typically divide the Neo-Assyrian period into several ‘reconquista’ stages, wherein Assyria regained control of lost territories, and, with periodic setbacks, the final emergence of a true imperial phase (Postgate 1992, 242-245; Frahm 2017, 165-191). It follows that neither the practical nor ideological aspects of the king at war were entirely static during the course of this development. The strategy of the empire at its height can be understood using a territorial-hegemonic model: the king may opt either to i) expand the territory of the empire by making a peripheral territory into an Assyrian province (headed by an Assyrian governor); or ii) to expand hegemony over a vassal state. The decision between the two options could hinge on an assessment of the cost – benefit outcome, with the later strategy being “more cost-efficient” but also producing “less income” (Parker 1996, 253).
While a strong military focus is by no means unusual among Assyrian kings, some particularly stand out in this regard. Tigleth-Pilesar III, who campaigned from Syria to the Zagros, has been regarded as “the beginning of the real imperial phase of Assyria” (Yamada 2014, 32). Van De Mieroop sees Tigleth-Pilesar’s expansion as the point in which the imperial strategy leaned heavily toward replacing vassal states with Assyrian provinces led by Assyrian governors, a shift brought about, at least in part, by rebellions in the Syro-Palestenian region (Van De Mieroop 2007, 249-251). Another possibility was that this 8th century fulfillment of the divine mandate to expand Assyria was borne out of the necessity of consolidating Assyria’s periphery against the rival claims posed by its enemy to the North, Urartu (Radner 2010, 29).
With the exception of Assurbanipal, kings campaigned with their armies, accompanied by governors and magnates (often in charge of troops from their respective provinces), and by diviners, who were likely on hand to guide the king’s military decisions (Radner 2011, 372). At the practical level of war tactics, and despite the tone of Assyrian propaganda, the Assyrian kings conducted their campaigns with caution, building defensive forts along the way. A territorial objective could be pursued through the use of raids, conquests, sieges or even naval operations (although these relied on the fleets of vassal nations) (Fuchs 2011, 390-391).
5.0 Conclusion
The ideology of the Assyrian king, demonstrating both the Sumero-Akkadian formulation of the leader as divine representative, and distinctly Assyrian aspects such as the divine mandate to expand, is one that develops in tandem with the state itself. Situated at the pinnacle of the state and imperial apparatus, the perception that the king was close to the divine, was specially created and chosen by the gods, that he even possessed his own melammu aura, was vital in maintaining his legitimacy as the one Assyrian figure uniquely capable of engineering the empire. The demands of fulfilling this role would have been substantial, as an overview of the practical operation of the king indicates: from appointing officials and governors high and low, to managing the economy and redistributing booty, to presiding as supreme justice over the land, to guiding the state on the path to war — the king, as traditional high priest, and steadfastly guided by his divinatory advisors, manifests the will and order of Aššur in his expanding land.
1.0 Introduction
The following short essay sets out to examine the question: How did Neo-Assyrian kingship operate both practically and ideologically? As this figure sits at the pinnacle of the state and the imperial apparatus, the Neo-Assyrian king is deeply intertwined with the workings of the empire itself, to study one is to study the other in effect. Sometimes described as the first “world empire” the actual size of Assyria at its height is modest (by modern standards) and some scholars have suggested “regional empire” instead (Liverani 2017, 536). The empire, with the king at its center, has been the topic of academic examinations for over a century, with the essential administrative practice of the king and the native conceptions of the king and his reign, the ideology, being of prime interest to scholars (Machinist 2006, 152). Subsequently, differing theoretical models of imperialism have been proposed: according to Liverani’s model, a complex ideological system developed in order to further imperial objectives and, more specifically, to justify exploitation (Liverani 1979); according to another model, preferred here, Assyrian imperialism followed a territorial-hegemonic model, whereby expansion was carefully weighed on a cost – benefits continuum (Parker 1996). While the former model focuses on the ideological, the latter focuses on the practical.
In the following, sections 1.0-2.0 will detail the legitimation of the king and the means by which he secured loyalty to the throne; the ideological aspects of the king will be discussed in sections 3.0-3.3; consideration of the practical operation of the king is given in section 4.0-4.4.
2.0 The Legitimation of the King
A king’s ability to meet the preconditions for rule and to secure the legitimacy of his reign represents a fundamental practical objective. Failing this, the exercise of rule and the fulfillment of all of the other practical aspects of kingship would be unattainable. The preconditions were i) “descent from the male line of a specific family”; ii) “divine legitimation, necessary already for the appointment as crown prince” and iii) “ability, to be demonstrated already when crown prince” (Radner 2010, 27).
The hereditary right to rule descended along the male line in Assyria, and kingship could fall to any legitimate male member of that line sons, brothers, cousins (Radner 2010, 26). The Assyrian king list is an important document for the consideration of Assyrian royal genealogy, Grayson called it “the pillar of the concept of hereditary monarchy in Assyria” (Grayson 1980-83, 102). Not only does it passively supply a historical Assyrian royal genealogy, but for outsiders or usurpers, the inclusion of their name on this list amongst those of the original Assyrian rulers could actively lend legitimacy to a royal claim. The expression mār lā mammāna “son of a nobody” occurs in the entries of eight kings and signifies that the king in question did not have a dynastic claim to the throne; in the cases where the throne is seized by a family member, seven cases in all, the non-standard formulae mārašu “his son” and ahušu “his brother” occur (Grayson 1980-83, 102; Yamada 2003, 265-268).
The topic of Assyrian royal ideology is certainly multifaceted, requiring much elaboration (see 3.0 below). Divine election is one aspect of this ideology which is particularly pertinent to any consideration of the process of royal legitimation. An inscription from the North West Palace at Kalhu refers to the divine election of Assurnaṣirpal II: “when Aššur, the lord who called me by name (and) made my sovereignty supreme” (RIMA 2 A.0.101.2: 7-8). By studying the corpus of these (admittedly fleeting) allusions, scholars have suggested that the process of divine election was imagined as occurring in consecutive stages: onlooking (the deity lays eyes on the crown prince), name uttering (the deity pronounces the name of the crown prince), and destiny determining (Karlsson 2013, 71). In place of the onlooking stage, the king is sometimes said to have been ‘chosen in the heart’ of the god (Karlsson 2013, 71-72; Zaia 2018, 210). By claiming divine election, the Assyrian king evoked the divine right to rule, a familiar feature of kingship in various historical contexts.
The understanding that the crown prince must demonstrate ability as a prerequisite to rule is more of a modern scholarly surmise than an explicit stipulation from the ancient literature, but it is a surmise based on good evidence. An illustrative example here comes from a small letter corpus of crown prince Shalmaneser V (then named Ulūlāju) consisting of letters addressed to his father, Tiglath-pilesar III. This corpus has now been edited by the State Archives of Assyria project (SAA 19 8-11, 159). One letter attests to an intriguing (and perhaps unexpected) task which the crown prince was to carry out, namely, securing thirty-six loads of snow for the palace (Radner 2003/2004, 98). This account hinges on the reading of the relevant Akkadian word as kuppû II “snow”, rather than kupû “reed” as has been preferred elsewhere (SAA 19 9: 8). The letters also indicate that the crown prince was responsible for protecting the queen, and was tasked with important diplomatic duties. Perhaps the most important take away from this small corpus is that the crown prince was higher in the command hierarchy than the king’s other high officials (Radner 2003/2004, 98; Baker 2008, 586). This is borne out by epistolary evidence which suggests that crown princes (specifically Sennacherib and Ashurbanipal) could be tasked with militarily securing or defending portions of the empire; they were also likely to have had considerable importance in maintaining the heartland when the king was away (Zamazalová 2011, 332).
A second consideration for the ability of the crown prince would be the degree to which he achieved literacy. While not necessarily a precondition to success (as high officials commonly relied on scribes), literacy seems to have been esteemed by a number of crown princes and kings (admittedly, few personally claim literacy) (Livingstone 2007, 98). The primary example of a Neo-Assyrian king who made substantial explicit claims to literacy is Ashurbanipal, although scholars continue to nuance the veracity of these claims. In his often discussed inscription L, Ashurbanipal states that he learned the scribal practices of all the experts in the house of succession (an important insight into an otherwise enigmatic institution); in lines 11 and 17 of the same text, Ashurbanipal states how “Nabû, the scribe of the universe, made me a present of the precepts of his sagacity” and “I have studied elaborate composition(s) in obscure Sumerian (and) Akkadian which are difficult to get right” (Zamazalová 2011, 315, 321).
Estimates of Ashurbanipal’s actual erudition vary, some scholars point to the presence of special glosses in letters written to the king, additional aides to his understanding, as proof his modest erudition. Livingstone however, making the counter claim, points to three texts from the library which bear colophons indicating the scholarly activity of the king. The colophons read: “I am Ashurbanipal, king of the world, king of Assyria” (Livingstone 2007, 113).
2.1 The Role of Adê in the Royal Succession
The system of legitimation and succession described above was reinforced by the adê oath requirements. Accurate description of this practice has often proved elusive, and any attempt at description must be carefully nuanced. The typical English labels for these documents “treaty” and “loyalty oaths” can be artificial and misleading on several grounds: i) these documents maintained the same basic format for bilateral agreements (between parties on an equal footing, strong king and strong king), and for unilateral agreements (between parties on an unequal footing, strong king and subordinate party) — hence, the distinction between treaty and loyalty oath is somewhat artificial; ii) the oath portion of an adê document, while important, only occupies a small portion of the overall text (in some case, .02%), the semantic value of adê cannot be “oath” (Parpola and Watanbe 1988, XV-XVI; Lauinger 2013, 107). A possible solution emerges from a study of the inscriptions from the king’s seal with which these documents were sealed with. The mytho-poetic allusions found in these inscriptions make it clear that, according to the emic view, an adê document constituted an earthly manifestation of Aššur’s tablet of destinies (when sealed with the king’s seal) (Lauinger 2013, 109-110).
Of particular interest here are those occasions in which an adê document is used to seal an agreement between the king and a subject nation/king concerning the succession of the crown prince, a “succession treaty”. The best extant exemplars belong to a group of eight tablets found at Nimrud, each containing variations of the text referred to as "Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty". In 2009, an excavation team discovered a further edition of this text at Tell Tayinat in Turkey (Lauinger 2012, 87-88). The document is a fascinating study in imperial policy with the adjuration of subordinate parties to not only abstain from rebellious, treasonous and seditious behaviour, but to report such behaviour. Perhaps the fundamental statement of the document is the succession statement itself: on the day that the current king passes away “Assurbanipal, the great crown prince desi[gnate], son of Esarhaddon, your lord, shall be your king and your lord” (SAA 2 6: 188-195).
3.0 Ideological Aspects – The Creation of the King
The notion that the king was specially created by the gods was not a Neo-Assyrian innovation, as Mayer was able to demonstrate, a small group of texts from the second millennium state that either Ninmah, Ea, or Nisaba (among others) specially created the king (Mayer 1987, 63). However, this aspect of royal ideology receives its best articulation in the creation myths of the Neo-Assyrian period, and more specifically, to material dating to the dynasty of the Sargonid kings. This dating follows intertextual studies which isolate the occurrences of special phrases such as šarru mālik(u) (amēlu) “the king, the counselor (man)” to the time of Sargon’s eighth campaign or later (Jimenez 2013, 243). Incidentally, the translation and interpretation of this phrase remains a thorny issue (despite its importance) with some philologists offering “king, distinctively superior person,” or even “king, source of wisdom, human”; “king, counsellor of man,” which seems preferable, rests on the interpretation of malik as a bound form rather than a form with elided case vowel (Jimenez 2013, 240-241). The most commonly cited iteration of the special creation theme is from a seventh century literary text, wherein the mother goddess Belit-ili receives the following instruction from Ea: “fashion now the king, the counsellor man (šarru māliku amēlu)! Gird the whole of his figure pleasingly, make perfect his countenance and well formed his body!” (Radner 2010, 27; VS 24 92 ii 33-34).
3.1 Ideological Aspects - The Royal Image
A study of the king in art reveals numerous physical signifiers which separate the king from lessor Assyrians: the king may appear in proximity to the symbols of the gods, he often wears a distinctive costume including a fez-like hat, moves under an umbrella, and sits with a footstool (Radner 2010, 25-26). In the oft-discussed limestone stele of Šamši-Adad VI from the Nabû temple at Kalhu (BM 118892), the king faces left and gestures with an extended finger in a show of reverence; just above are five divine symbols representing three astral deities, as well as Adad and Aššur. As Colon discusses, he wears on his wrist a “royal bracelet,” an intriguing feature of the Neo-Assyrian royal image. These bracelets, in some cases fashioned of gold and featuring a rosette design, were occasionally worn by queens, courtiers, high officials and even lamassu and other apotropaic creatures. As an insignia of kingship, the bracelet is specific to the Neo-Assyrian kings (Colon 2010, 152-153).
An interesting feature of Assyrian royal ideology is that the king was sometimes said to possess a divine radiance (melammu). Starting with the Middle-Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta, melammu, which in the Sumero-Babylonian tradition applied exclusively to the divine, becomes an attribute of the mortal Assyrian kings (Machinist 2013, 162). While it does not occur in visual depictions of the king, it does appear in textual references such as royal epithets, and the aura is said to be terrifying to the enemies of the king (Karlsson 2013, 78). In a royal inscription of the Neo-Assyrian king Adad-nārārī II, after the king was said to have been “created” by the great gods, and after his destiny was decreed by the great gods, the king relates that: “they had raised me above crowned kings (and) placed on my head the royal splendour [melamme]” (RIMA 2 A.0.99.2: 5-8).
3.2 Ideological Aspects – the Religious Role of the King, his Royal Titles and Epithets
Assyrian royal titulary evolves in tandem with the state reflecting differing formulations of power and hegemony, some as old as Assyria itself. The titles of the Neo-Assyrian king cannot be fully understood without a digression to his forebears. In the Old Assyrian period, the ruler was titled the waklum “overseer” or rubāʾum “great one”. He was, at the same time, the high priest, in which capacity his title was iššiakkum (Sum. énsi). Like his third millennium equivalent, the ruler as iššiakkum acted as the representative of his god (Assur) on earth, his vice regent (Maul 2017, 341; Steinkeller 1999, 116). In the early periods, the theophoric royal title iššiak dAššur appears alongside šakin dEnlil, apparently without contradiction; in the Middle Assyrian period, an equivalent title SANGA dAššur occurs — either the sumerogram SANGA should be read iššiakkum in this particular context, or the role of this sanga is here equitable with the king as iššiakkum (Machinist 2006, 153-155).
It is generally understood by scholars that in the earliest part of Assyrian history, the title šarrum ‘king’ was held only by the god Aššur. The first instance of the title in association with a mortal occurs as Assyria emerges as a leading power under a strong ruler, Šamaš-Adad (Maul 2017, 341; Machinist 2006, 154-157; Grayson 1971, 312). As Grayson’s study of the monarchy indicates, this principle, that the expansion of hegemony correlates with the length and majesty of royal titles, is one observable throughout Assyrian history. Interestingly, in the Neo-Assyrian period the theophoric titles iššak Aššur and even šakin Enlil continue and “one or both are always found when kings state their titular or genealogy in their inscriptions” (Zaia 2018, 210). In the time of Esarhaddon, the ‘secular’ list of epithets had expanded in proportion to the empire and in one formulation read: “the grea]t [king], mighty [king, king of the wor]ld, king of [Su]mer and Akkad, true shepherd, favorite of the lord of lords, pious prince, beloved of the goddess Zarpanītu” (RINAP 4 104 i 1-13).
3.3 Ideological Aspects – Imperial Ideology
While questioning whether Assyria should really constitute a “world empire” (much less a universal empire) on the basis of its actually geographic size, Liverani nonetheless makes the case that the emic view assumed just that: “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…” (Liverani 2017, 536). The oft-discussed divine mandate to expand the borders of Assyria was, ideologically, the expansion of the order of the gods into the chaotic and unruly periphery, seen as a benefit to foreign peoples as well (Maul 2017, 537).
4.0 Practical Aspects – the Imperial System
Given that the Neo-Assyrian king operated from his position at the pinnacle of a vast imperial apparatus, no in-depth discussion of his practical operation is possible without taking this system into account. Below the king, queen and crown prince, in terms of imperial hierarchy, were the members of the royal court, some 6,000 in all, of which 100-120 were designated magnates (Akk. rabiu) (Radner 2011, 359; Barjamovic 2011, 45). Among the magnates were the seven high officials: the treasurer (masennu), the palace herald (nāgir ekalli), the chief cupbearer (rab šāqê), the chief eunuch (rab ša-rēši), the chief judge (sartinnu), grand vizier (sukkallu), and the commander-in-chief (turtānu) (Matilla 2000, 161). The term magnate also encompassed the governors (bēl pāhete) who governed the Assyrian provinces on behalf of the king (Radner 2011, 359). Of high importance for royal decision making (a key practical consideration) were the king’s scholars (see 4.3 below).
The hierarchy of the royal court, which surely must have been concrete to the Assyrians, has proved difficult for scholars to describe. Postgate blames this issue on a “non-bureaucratic ethos” and the vexing tendency for officials to not specify their own rank when writing letters and their use the generic designation “Master’s house” when referring to a superior’s position (Postgate 1992, 357). While the epistolary evidence is thus of little use here, confirmation of a bureaucratic system comes, surprisingly, from Radner’s study of seal imagery, specifically, a type of seal she dubs ‘bureau seals’. The bureau seals originate in 9th century Assyria, an innovation in information technology commensurate with an expansion of imperial power and territory (Radner 2008, 486). Unlike personal seals, which are unique and pertain to the business of an individual, a bureau seal contains a simple emblematic insignia which carries the authority of a particular bureau — identified so far are seals belonging to the bureau of the king, the queen, the crown prince and the governor (Radner 2008, 510). For Radner, hierarchal position correlates with heading a bureau: “it is evident from the textual record, that the Assyrian administrative hierarchy was headed by the trinity of king, queen and crown prince, each heads of their own household (or bureau)” (Radner 2008, 505). The textual record referred to here is not the epistolary record, but (according to Radner’s footnote) evidence from tribute lists which do, in fact, record varying distributions of booty for different officials. These texts will be discussed below (see 4.2 below).
4.1 Practical Aspects – Royal Appointments and Compelling Loyalty
The imperial agenda would probably never have come to fruition if not for the fulfillment of one essential and practical royal task: the appointment of competent and loyal officials and governors. Evidence that the king was actively involved in the appointment of various officials and functionaries comes from a small corpus of divinatory queries to the sun god which date to the reigns of Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. Not only was the king concerned with receiving confirmation of the loyalty of his current officials from the sun god, but he would seek divinatory confirmation of the loyalty and suitability of potential appointees as well (Starr 1990, LXIII). Using formulae which are typical for the genre, the king seeks confirmation about the appointment of a crown prince:
Query over Sin-nadin-apli: “Šamas, great lord, give me a firm positive answer to what I am asking you! Should Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, strive and plan? Should he enter his son, Sin-nadin-apli, whose name is written in this papyrus and place before your great divinity, into the Succession Palace?” (SAA 4 149: 1-2).
The king thus appointed the crown prince, and, as is apparent from the same corpus, he also appointed (at least some of) the temple staff (SAA 4 150; SAA 4 151), high officials like the rab ša-rēši (SAA 4 299; Matilla 200, 133) and governors (SAA 4 300). Certainly, an important mechanism for compelling loyalty to the king was the adê oaths, discussed in 2.1 above. It should be added that, in the context of civil loyalty, everyday documentation such as litigation clauses and contract documents refer back to the adê oath, demonstrating a public awareness of this obligation (Baker and Groß 2015, 78). An additional strategy that was sometimes used by Assyrian kings to secure loyalty was the granting of tax exemptions and land grants. These sort of grants, which were for rewards for faithful service, are attested in practice from the beginning of the 8th century under Adad-nerari III until the end of the empire (Kataja and Whiting 1995, XXI). There are, however, very few extant private land grants from any Assyrian king until the reign of Assurbanipal (SAA 12 24-35) and his successor Aššur-etel-ilani (SAA 12 35-44). In what seems like a departure (although it is an argument from silence), Assurbanipal frequently offers tax exemptions to eunuchs, who became more powerful in this period (SAA 12 26; SAA 12 29; Frahm 2017, 190). A second type of exception wherein the king exempts an entire city or region from taxes (likely for political reasons) is known from the reign of Sargon II — in the following example, Sargon grants a tax exemption to the city of Assur:
Assur Charter rev. 15-17: “I exempted them from labor and corvée (ilku tupšikku) from the call of the land, the proclamation of the herald, dues on quay [and crossing …] (and) all the temples of the land of Assyria” (Van Buylaere 2010, 246).
4.2 Practical Aspects – The Heartland: finance, labor, justice
Finance and Labor: the king was, ultimately, the source of the impetus driving the finance and production of the state. The Assyrian king has been dubbed “the supreme landlord,” he distributed land among officials, temples, and soldiers — with the caveat, however, that they fulfill the duty to pay šibšu grain taxes and nusāhē straw taxes (Radner 2000, 242). In the urban context, the king’s appointed municipal agents, the huzannu and the ša muhhi āli ensured that the ilku, tupšikku and iškāru services — often referred to as dullu šarri eqāšu ‘doing the king’s work’ — was carried out; it is possible that they also supervised the collection of agricultural taxes (Van Buylaere 2010, 240; Baker and Groß 2015, 80).
The King as Redistributor: on a related topic, a huge source of wealth for the empire was the tribute and booty it obtained from vassal states (or in other cases, from provincial taxes), what Frahm calls the ‘tributary mode of production’ (Frahm 2017, 162). This tribute went to the palace and, under the authority of the king, a part was distributed to the royal court. An administrative letter, SAA 1 34, provides a good example of the types and quantities of goods redistributed.
The King of Justice: there was no divide in the Neo-Assyrian period between administrative and judicial authority: functionaries from state (headed by the king), provincial and municipal levels could fulfill a judicial role, as could temple officials and (in certain capacities) the gods (Radner 2005, 42). The king, as earthy vicar of the god Aššur, and head of the urban hierarchy, could act as “supreme judge”. While his role is little attested in legal documents of the period, the occurrence of abat šarri ‘the king’s word’ in the letters indicate that the king could hear appeals and countermand those legal decisions he deems unjust (Radner 2005, 66).
4.3 Practical Aspects – Scholars, Divination and Royal Decision Making
While the king may have numerous knowledge networks with which to consider when decision making, that provided to him by his agents at the municipal level (the hazannu and ša muhhi āli), and the information regularly sent to him by his provincial governors (particularly well preserved today in the state archives of Sargon II), the information which (he believed to come from) the divine realm could be the most crucial for the king — this was provided to him by a group of royal court scholars and diviners, who numbered around forty-five by the end of the period (Radner 2011, 366). The essential validity of this system rested on the belief that the gods control every aspect of life, and “knowing the god’s plan beforehand, therefore, meant knowing the future” (Finke 2017, 380). The seriousness with which the Assyrian kings took this approach is evident in the oft-quoted line from the literary text Advice to a Prince: “if [the king] has no regard for his scholarly advisors, his land will rebel against him” (Foster 2005: 867; Radner 2011, 362).
According to Finke, the Sargonid kings display a distinctly higher focus on divinatory knowledge than their forbears. This may have something to do with the accident of discovery, nonetheless, the focus was certainly keen. The latter three Sargonid kings sent diviners to the cities of Ashur, Nineveh, Arba’il, Kalzu, Borsippa, Dilbat, Babylon and Nippur to observe the signs for them and to regularly write back with reports and letters (Finke 2017, 381).
K 11492 (AGS 50): “[in accor]dance with the command of your great divinity, Šam[aš], great lord, and your [favor]able decisions, should the subject of this query strive and plan? [Should he send] these troops and armed forces to where he wishes? Is it pleasing [to your great divinity]? (SAA 4 108: 5-6)
AGS 144: “[Should Assurbanipal, the crown prince of the] Succession Palace, [drink this drug which] is placed [before] your great [div]inity, [and in drinking this drug will he] be rescued and spared?” (SAA 4 187: 1-3)
The king could consult his diviners on a range of civic, military, and personal matters. In the above text examples, the king queries the sun god in relation to a planned military move; secondly, the health of the crown prince and the use of a specific drug is queried. In section 4.0, the use of divination for appointment was discussed. In addition, queries could be made about foreign territories, written plans, possible insurrections etc. (Starr 1995, XI).
4.4 Practical Aspects – The King at War
Rather than one long progressive march to power, scholars typically divide the Neo-Assyrian period into several ‘reconquista’ stages, wherein Assyria regained control of lost territories, and, with periodic setbacks, the final emergence of a true imperial phase (Postgate 1992, 242-245; Frahm 2017, 165-191). It follows that neither the practical nor ideological aspects of the king at war were entirely static during the course of this development. The strategy of the empire at its height can be understood using a territorial-hegemonic model: the king may opt either to i) expand the territory of the empire by making a peripheral territory into an Assyrian province (headed by an Assyrian governor); or ii) to expand hegemony over a vassal state. The decision between the two options could hinge on an assessment of the cost – benefit outcome, with the later strategy being “more cost-efficient” but also producing “less income” (Parker 1996, 253).
While a strong military focus is by no means unusual among Assyrian kings, some particularly stand out in this regard. Tigleth-Pilesar III, who campaigned from Syria to the Zagros, has been regarded as “the beginning of the real imperial phase of Assyria” (Yamada 2014, 32). Van De Mieroop sees Tigleth-Pilesar’s expansion as the point in which the imperial strategy leaned heavily toward replacing vassal states with Assyrian provinces led by Assyrian governors, a shift brought about, at least in part, by rebellions in the Syro-Palestenian region (Van De Mieroop 2007, 249-251). Another possibility was that this 8th century fulfillment of the divine mandate to expand Assyria was borne out of the necessity of consolidating Assyria’s periphery against the rival claims posed by its enemy to the North, Urartu (Radner 2010, 29).
With the exception of Assurbanipal, kings campaigned with their armies, accompanied by governors and magnates (often in charge of troops from their respective provinces), and by diviners, who were likely on hand to guide the king’s military decisions (Radner 2011, 372). At the practical level of war tactics, and despite the tone of Assyrian propaganda, the Assyrian kings conducted their campaigns with caution, building defensive forts along the way. A territorial objective could be pursued through the use of raids, conquests, sieges or even naval operations (although these relied on the fleets of vassal nations) (Fuchs 2011, 390-391).
5.0 Conclusion
The ideology of the Assyrian king, demonstrating both the Sumero-Akkadian formulation of the leader as divine representative, and distinctly Assyrian aspects such as the divine mandate to expand, is one that develops in tandem with the state itself. Situated at the pinnacle of the state and imperial apparatus, the perception that the king was close to the divine, was specially created and chosen by the gods, that he even possessed his own melammu aura, was vital in maintaining his legitimacy as the one Assyrian figure uniquely capable of engineering the empire. The demands of fulfilling this role would have been substantial, as an overview of the practical operation of the king indicates: from appointing officials and governors high and low, to managing the economy and redistributing booty, to presiding as supreme justice over the land, to guiding the state on the path to war — the king, as traditional high priest, and steadfastly guided by his divinatory advisors, manifests the will and order of Aššur in his expanding land.
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