Sargon the Great: The First Empire Builder

I wrote previously about the establishment of civilization with corresponding technological and cultural developments required to produce an organized city-state including writing, social structure, division of labor and other necessary attributes of civilization (Civilization as a Survival Tool).  Urban centers were the first step.  The second involved building connections (forced or voluntary) between individual cities.  Individual communities interacted peacefully but also through conflict.  Though unfortunate and often devastating on the short term, war is a basic component in the creation of most every influential society.  War causes strife, death and misery, but whether just or not, it also often brings about innovation, cultural synthesis, and stronger ties between communities in the long run.  The first true city-states arose in Mesopotamia and not surprisingly, the region witnessed the world’s first empire forged by an illegitimate peasant named Sargon.  In so doing, Sargon introduced new methods of conquest, leadership and administration that future leaders adapted to integrate isolated Middle Eastern cultures eventually reaching Europe.

In Mesopotamia, city-states arose along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in modern Iraq and Kuwait circa 5,400 BC.  Historians commonly call the area between the two rivers the “Fertile Crescent.”  The inhabitants of the southern part of Mesopotamia named themselves Sumerians, or the “black headed people.”  They built numerous urban centers from small towns to medium cities to large city-states of 20,000-60,000.    Writing followed circa 3,500 BC first as numbers to record economic transactions in the distinctive wedge-shaped cuneiform.  500 years later, Sumerians began writing in words.

These early cities interacted in different ways.  Trade developed and with that came other impulses.  Population growth outstripped local natural resources.  Shortages made the citizens of one city covet the assets of other cities.  City-states began fighting over arable land to feed their inhabitants.  Early on, conflicts were small-scale battles between a few hundred to a thousand combatants.  

In contrast, the Early Egyptians enjoyed relative peace with little outside interference.  The Nile River flowed between two large deserts that were difficult to traverse.  Egyptians could focus on developing their culture without outside interference.  Unlike Egypt, the Middle East lacked natural boundaries.  As the “crossroads of the world,” Mesopotamian city-states continually faced hostile migrations from other regions.  The Kura-Araxes from the Caucasus, the Elamites from the east, and most notably the Semite peoples from the Levant/Syria invaded in waves disrupting society and altering the culture.  Warfare became a common component of life.

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By 2,400 BC, city-states could afford small cadres of professional warriors of a few hundred.  They acted as palace guards doubling as the core of an army when needed to fight wars with neighboring city-states or to turn back migrating invaders.  Civilians could be called up temporarily supplement the army.  Military forces had little specialization.  The wealthy might possess chariots and there may be some archers and /or slingers, but most soldiers were infantry.  Their equipment included a shield, spear, copper helmet and little else.  They formed simple lines using their shields as a protective wall.  With small armies, smaller population centers sought alliances with each other and sometimes a larger city.  Allied cities vied with rival alliances for control of farmland but remained separate political entities with their own rulers and customs.

About this time, a child of humble origins entered the picture.  The details of this child’s life come from the Chronicle of Early Kings and Babylonian and Assyrian texts written hundreds of years later.  No known contemporary records exist.  Historians, devoted to creating objective accounts of events, will not appear until the rise of the Greeks almost 2,000 years later.  It is important to note that what follows is the best reconstruction of legend and artifacts based on synthesizing texts written at different times by different authors (who also hailed from different cultures).  With such limitations, the picture that may not be historically accurate, but these sources are the only ones we have from ancient times.

This young man’s birth name is lost to history and he is known only by the name he later took: Sargon.  The King’s Chronicle lists a little biographical information and some highlights of Sargon’s reign but includes few details.  According to Chronicle, a priestess of Inanna had a baby by an unknown father.  To avoid scandal, she placed her baby in a tar sealed basket and floated him down the Euphrates River.  A royal gardener of the city-state Kish found the baby in the reeds and raised him as a garden servant.

The people of Kish were not Sumerians.  They were a Semite tribe, the Akkad, who settled in Mesopotamia founding Kish as their own city-state.  Sargon apparently possessed great talents.  He quickly rose to become the cup bearer of the King of Kish, Ur-Zababa.

The cupbearer in this society had many important duties.  He poured the king’s drink insuring royal safety from poisoning.  He also served as a constant companion, advisor and trusted messenger.  At some point, Sargon had a dream where Inanna drowned Ur-Zababa in blood.  Upon learning of the dream, Ur-Zababa became paranoid.  He sent Sargon to Lugal-Zagesi, the king of neighboring Umma, with a request that the messenger be killed upon arrival.  Lugal-Zagesi declined and instead invited Sargon to join him in attacking Kish.  Ur-Zababa fled as Lugal-Zagesi easily conquered Kish and installed Sargon as a vassal ruler.

Eventually Lugal-Zagesi and Sargon had a falling out.  The record is incomplete and it is unknown how they became enemies, but Sargon turned on Lugal-Zagesi and defeated him in battle.  Though Sargon captured Umma, Lugal-Zagesi escaped to Uruk.  Undeterred. Sargon followed and conquered Uruk.  The victorious Sargon pronounced himself king and took the name by which we know him.

With Ur-Zababa and Lugal-Zagesi defeated, Sargon began conquering other Sumerian city-states.  With each victory, the Akkadian army grew larger through the addition of each conquered city’s core of professional soldiers to its number.  By the time Sargon’s army washed their weapons in the Persian Gulf (symbolizing conquest of Sumer), he boasted the world’s first standing army, 5,400 strong, an overwhelming force for its day.

Now possessing a strong base and a powerful army, Sargon turned his attention to the rest of Mesopotamia.  Successful campaigns in the north opened the door to expand to Palestine on the coast of the Mediterranean and then into the Taurus Mountains of Anatolia (modern Turkey).  Enormous ancient forests of cedar made Palestine valuable.  The dry climate of Mesopotamia provided few trees.  Cedar was a highly valued construction material.  The ancients nicknamed the Taurus range the “Silver Mountains” denoting rich deposits of silver, likely gold, copper, and other valuable metal ores.

A Babylonian text claims Sargon fought 34 battles conquering multiple regions and peoples, founding the world’s first multinational empire.  Expansion beyond Mesopotamia brought the new Akkadian empire valuable imports of wood and metals diversifying the economy.  Sargon replaced Sumerian with Akkadian as the lingua franca of his realm adapting the pre-existing Sumerian cuneiform for written language.  He created a uniform system of weights and measures while establishing protected routes that improved trading efficiency.  Loyal royal officials became regional administrators to promote and maintain control.  Sargon implemented taxes (or tributes) but was careful not to overburden his conquered peoples.  The increased interaction fostered by a common language spread culture throughout the region drawing previously isolated groups together.  Future conquerors would recognize the value of integrating new communities over despotic oppression and exploitation.

War was a necessary component to founding the Akkadian Empire, but once established Sargon did not continue his campaigns indefinitely.  He appeared to recognize that ruling an empire included more than perpetual fighting.  He focused on consolidating control through a bureaucracy that fostered order, unity and trade.

What can we make of Sargon’s origin story?  He seems to have understood the importance of symbolism in building his empire.  In this time, kings claimed they descended from the gods and thus had a divine right to rule.  Sargon set himself apart from this tradition casting himself as a “man of the people.”  In this time, a wealthy minority of city-states owned as much as 75% of the agricultural fields.  Sargon may have been the world’s first populist using his humble origins to appeal to the vast majority of poor in the cities he conquered.

Mesopotamian rulers valued their gardens and Sargon was no exception.  He built a new capital, the city of Agade with a luxurious palace complete with a large garden.  With added revenues and new sources of commerce, Agade became the largest and most affluent city in the new empire.  Growing a lush garden reinforced the power of a king through creation of a large green oasis in the dry Mesopotamian climate.  Sargon transported exotic plants from his far-flung conquests as a symbolic gesture of his ability to control a large territory.  Future leaders would also construct monuments, palaces, temples and other large building projects to project power and establish a lasting legacy.

Sargon’s approaches became ingrained in the wider culture.  Later rulers of Babylon and Assyria measured themselves by Sargon.  To them he conquered the known world and they sought to emulate Sargon’s success.  At least two even took his name.  Cyrus the Great knew of Sargon’s legend.  He employed Sargon’s methods in building the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire.  Alexander the Great studied Cyrus in launching his great campaigns which included the precedents set by Sargon.

Sargon ruled for 50 years or more and though he faced challenges and a major famine, left an effective infrastructure that formed the first imperial dynasty.  His descendants continued ruling for another 186 years until another migrating group, the Gutians overthrew Akkadian rule.  Establishing the first standing army, creating a bureaucracy and fostering trade combined with the use of symbolism to trumpet his authority and power provided effective lessons for future leaders.  Sargon became the standard for those who sought to build greater civilizations.

Sources:

Translation of the Chronicle of Early Kings.  http://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-20-chronicle-of-early-kings/

Ancient and Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament with Supplement, edited by James B. Pritchard, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Johannes Haubold, Greece and Mesopotamia: Dialogues in Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Charles N. Pope, Alexander the Great: Beyond the Divide, US Library of Congress, 2014.

Jason Freewalt, Sargon the Great of Akkad: The First Empire Builder of Mesopotamia, https://www.academia.edu/9083418/Sargon_the_Great_of_Akkad_The_First_Empir,

Andreas Johandi, Mesopotamian Influences on the Old Persian Royal Ideology and Religion: The Example of Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions, ENDC Proceedings, Volume 16,  2012, pp. 159–179.  http://www.ksk.edu.ee/en/

All images provided courtesy of Wikipedia except the maps.

Sumer map courtesy of besttemplates.com: http://besttemplatess.com/templates/map-of-sumerian-civilization-bueic-unique-american-tribune-blog-archive-sumer-cradle-of-western-219364/

Map of the Akkadian Empire courtesy of flickr.com:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/136041510@N05/21834259018

All images are in the common domain and subject to Fair Use laws.