Imperien und Reiche

in der Weltgeschichte
Epochenbergreifende
und globalhistorische Vergleiche
Herausgegeben von
Michael Gehler und Robert Rollinger
Unter Mitarbeit von
Sabine Fick und Simone Pittl

Teil 1:
Imperien des Altertums,
Mittelalterliche und frhneuzeitliche Imperien

2014

Harrassowitz Verlag . Wiesbaden

The Neo-Assyrian Empire

Karen Radner

1 Material history of the Assyrian Empire

The Assyrian Empire is the modern designation used to describe the kingdom of Assyria
from the early 9th to the late 7th century BC, in the final phase of its long history when this
state controlled from a core region situated in the north of modern Iraq most of the Middle
East, governing its dependencies either directly or indirectly. Due to Assyrias wide-ranging influence, this phase of Middle Eastern history is conventionally called the Neo-Assyrian period.

1.1 Origins
There is no founding myth of Assyria, as far we know. Assyrias self-designation from the
14th century onwards was m t Aur, the land of Aur, which refers as much to the city
of Aur (="Qalaat Sherqat, just north of modern Tikrit) as to the deity of the same name
whose temple was housed in this city. The god Aur is an ancient numen loci (Lambert
1983), corresponding to the rocky outcrop rising high over a bend of the river Tigris that
gave the fortified city its favourable location in the river and overland trade network.
From the mid-third millennium onwards, the city found itself periodically integrated
into states that had their centres in southern Mesopotamia (Michalowski 2009). In conjunction with and as a reaction to this, the god Aur was identified with the Babylonian god
Enlil (possibly during the reign of the southern conqueror Samsi-Addu, c."1800 BC; see
Neumann, this volume); this gave Aur a more complex mythology that included a consort
(Mullissu; Meinhold 2009: 192194, 199) and offspring (erua: Meinhold 2009, 209,
218). Especially in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, the available sources allow us to trace in
some detail how the mythology of Aur and his circle was moulded and reshaped in response to political developments such as the courts relocation to another city (see below,
I.3.) or foreign affairs, especially in relation to Babylon (cf. Chamaza 2002; Meinhold
2009).
As the place of origin of its royal family, the city of Aur was at the heart of the idea of
the Assyrian state, with the temple of god Aur providing its religious centre (Postgate
1992, 251252). To his devotees, god Aur had always been the paramount deity and (in
theory) the master of all. Like many other city gods, he was seen as the source of power for
the local dynast who was styled Aurs representative on earth (e.g. Faist 2010, 1618).

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From the 14th century onwards, Aur profited from the decline of its former sovereign
power Mittani and used the power vacuum in northern Mesopotamia to establish itself as
the centre of a territorial state (Postgate 2011, 8993): the rulers of Aur now used the title
of king and defined their domain as m t Aur, the land of Aur (e.g. Faist 2010, 17),
controlling by the 12th century most of Mittanis former holdings.
God Aur was now seen as the actual master of the world, a view certainly shaped by
the political and military successes, and this notion was in turn used to legitimise his representatives, the Assyrian kings claim to be the universal sovereign: during his formal
investiture, the new ruler receives the divine command to enlarge your land with your just
sceptre (Mller 1937, 1213: ll. 3435; cf. Kryszat 2008). This is by no means a novel
Assyrian concept but follows a well established tradition that is attested elsewhere in Middle Eastern states in the aftermath of territorial expansion, e.g. in the early second millennium in the kingdom of Enunna (Frayne 1990, 544546: king Ipiq-Adad II commanded by
god Tipak) or in the 12th century BC in the kingdom of Elam (Knig 1965: 2224a: king
utruk-Nahhunte commanded by god Inuinak).
To see the creation of the Assyrian Empire of the first millennium (see below, I.2.) predetermined by the supposedly aggressive nature of god Aur is therefore inherently problematic. There is no evidence for any notion of an Assyrian religious imperialism targeted
at forcing god Aur onto conquered regions (cf. Frame 1997 for Babylonia; Smith 2008,
156 n. 96 for the debate in regard to Israel and Judah). It is worth stressing that the Assyrian
army fought under the banners (or more correctly, war standards) of the storm god Adad,
the god of heroic battle Ninurta and the goddess of war and destruction Itar deities worshipped all over the Middle East and lacking Aurs very specific link with the Assyrian
state (Deller Bleibtreu Pongratz-Leisten 1992).

1.2 Creation and extent

The crucible of empire, the relevant power area (Mnkler 2007, 23), was a geographical
area much larger than the city of Aur and its hinterland. It is the triangle defined by Aur
in the south, Nineveh (="modern Mosul) in the north and Arbilu (="modern Erbil) in the
east (Radner 2011a). This regions fertile soils and good rainfall conditions, combined with
the advantageous riverine traffic network formed by the eastern tributaries of the Tigris,
offers excellent economic potential, both for local production and for trade. The neighbouring regions to the north and east are dominated by the mountain ranges of Taurus and
Zagros, westwards lie the steppe lands of the Jezirah and to the south is the flood plain of
Euphrates and Tigris whose promise of prosperity is closely linked to the political organisation of the region.
In northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrian triangle constituted the regionally dominant
power from the late 14th century onwards when king Aur-uballit I and his heirs established their dominion as the successor of the ailing Mittani state, its former overlord (Postgate 2011, 8993). From the late 10th / early 9th to the late 7th century BC, this was the
political, economic and cultural centre of the Middle East and the wider Eastern Mediterranean region.

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Mario Liverani (2011, 254259) has recently described and analysed the development
from the city-state of Aur to a restricted and then large regional polity to the Assyrian
Empire with a particular focus on tempo, highlighting that compared to Rome and the Roman Empire, the pace of evolution and growth was much slower: more than a millennium
separate the city state from the imperial phase and the intermediate stage of the regional
stage lasted far longer than in Romes case. In the following, our focus is on Assyrias
evolution and growth during the final, imperial stage of the 9th to 7th centuries BC.
From regional power to hegemonial empire
The land of Aur was organised into provinces (Postgate 1992, 251252; Radner 2006)
and local governing power was in the hands of the provincial governors who were appointed by the king. They resided in the palaces (Assyrian ekallu, a term exclusively associated with the crown) that the king maintained in all provincial centres (see also below,
I.3.).
In general, the Assyrian administration established in a newly annexed region would at
first face considerable expenditures in order to secure Assyrian rule and to set up the necessary infrastructure to do so. This included the transformation of a suitable existing city into
the Assyrian provincial centre (including palace), the reorganization of the local settlement
structure (cf. Wilkinson and Barbanes 2000; Radner and Schachner 2004, 117118), the
linking up with the imperial information network (see below, I.3.) and the enhancement of
the agricultural potential of the land (see below, I.3.). But once these infrastructural changes
had been achieved a large province could be divided into smaller units: examples are the
once enormous province of Raappa and the border march of the commander-in-chief (turt nu, see below, I.3.) which were split up into several provinces in the second half of the 8th
century (Radner 2006, 48, 5253).
In the 9th century Assyrias extent didnt significantly differ from its boundaries in the
th
13 and 12th centuries BC. However, its role in the wider region was markedly different.
Assyria was no longer surrounded by states of comparable size and manpower but by much
smaller principalities. This was the result of the migrations at the end of the Bronze Age
that had led to a temporary reduction of Assyrias size in the 11th and 10th centuries but had
seen the end of its former peers, including the Hittite state (see Schuol, this volume), New
Kingdom Egypt (see Witthuhn, this volume) and the kingdom of Babylonia. After Assyria
had reclaimed its lost territories (primarily located in the west and north of the core area) by
the mid-9th century it exceeded in extent and manpower its neighbours many times over and
was able to assume the role of hegemon. Its client states continued to be ruled by local
dynasts who were bound to the Assyrian king by oath and treaty (which probably often
included dynastic marriages), accepted his supremacy and supplied him with goods, services, workforce and political support: all this is implied in the Assyrian idiom to bear the
yoke of Aur (Postgate 1992, 254255). In the 9th century BC we can describe Assyria as
a hegemonial empire lined by a periphery of client states (cf. maps in Wittke, Olshausen
and Szydlak 2007, 47 and 49).
From hegemonial empire to territorial empire
In the course of the first half of the 8th century, Assyrias hegemony over the Middle East
came to be threatened by the emergence of antagonistic powers in the form of two aggres-

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sive rival states in eastern Turkey, Armenia and north-western Iran (Urartu; see Salvini, this
volume) and Sudan and Upper Egypt (Kush; see Lohwasser, this volume). The loyalty of
the client kings to their Assyrian overlord was no longer guaranteed in the presence of these
strong and persuasive alternatives: Kush strove for control over the regions previously
under the dominion of the New Kingdom of Egypt which included the Southern Levant
while Urartu, after achieving control over the Caucasus passages into Anatolia and Iran,
attempted to dominate also the Euphrates passage into Northern Syria and the passage of
the so-called Silk Road linking Western Iran with Mesopotamia.
In 754, the year of his accession, Aur-nerari V of Assyria (r. 754745 BC) lost a key
confrontation with Urartu in a pitched battle fought in the territory of Assyrias longstanding client state Arpad in northern Syria. The borders of the provincial system remained stable and there was no Urartian invasion but the defeat seems to have paralysed
Assyria. Aur-nerari was eventually ousted in a putsch that started at Kalhu, the seat of
royal power (see below, I.3.), with the support of some of the highest state officials, including the governors of Aur and Kalhu (Zawadzki 1994). Many other governors and high
ranking state officials were replaced, in all likelihood because they had been executed after
the successful usurpation's faction prevailed against those who remained loyal to Aurnerari V. The new leadership under king Tiglath-pileser III (r. 744727 BC), like his three
predecessors a son of Adad-nerari III (r. 811783 BC), embarked on a decades-long war on
all frontiers of the Assyrian state (for the west: Bagg 2011, 213244). This led to the incorporation of territories that doubled the size of the directly controlled holdings of the Assyrian state. By the late 8th century, the Assyrian provincial system (Radner 2006, 5663)
included most of the client states of the 9th century.
Assyria can now be described as a territorial empire (Fig. 2 and cf. maps in Wittke, Olshausen and Szydlak 2007, 51, 53 and 55). What has traditionally been labelled the expansion of Assyria can be analysed as a fundamental change in the relationship between
central power and its local representation. When placed in its wider historical context the
radical modification in imperial policy can be appreciated as a new power factions reaction
to external developments that the former leadership had not addressed, leading to an inner
crisis and regime change.
The change in the Assyrian imperial strategy under the new regime had deep repercussions for the entire Middle East, landscape and people alike. During the 7th century BC,
Assyrian control reached far beyond the traditional boundaries of the Mediterranean Sea,
the Arabian Desert, the Persian Gulf and the Zagros and the Taurus mountain ranges and
influenced, and often dominated, political, cultural and economic affairs between Sudan,
Central Anatolia and Iran. A key strategy in asserting power over the client states was the
attempt to combine fragmented political landscapes into larger regional states, as attested
e.g. in Babylonia (Jursa, this volume), Elam (Henkelman, this volume) and Egypt (under
the 26th Dynasty; Morkot 2007). This strategy was undoubtedly designed to serve Assyrian
interests by clarifying and simplifying the power relationship and its management. Yet
promoting and even imposing unification also strengthened these areas and allowed them to
contribute to, or at least profit from, the collapse of the Assyrian Empire (see below, I.5.).

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1.3 Structure
The Assyrian Empire has been seen as a paradigmatic case of a war empire, relying solely
on military surplus extraction and incapable of crossing the Augustan threshold
(Mnkler 2007, 5354), using Michael W."Doyles (1986, 80) expression for the transition
from a phase of expansion to a phase of consolidation. But this view, with its exclusive
emphasis on the Assyrian army, is ill-informed (cf. also the critique of Bagg 2011, 276
277, 280281).
Such an assessment does little justice to the long-lived Assyrian Empire which underwent several periods of expansion and consolidation between the 10th and the late 7th century BC. It is far more appropriate to emphasize Assyrias stability and to attempt to illuminate the reasons for its unprecedented longevity over three centuries, as for example
Mitchell Allen has done in his contribution to a volume exploring the historical evolution of
pre-modern world-systems. He argues that this success owes much to innovations in
administrative technology, the kind that allowed a world-empire to act like a world-economy (Allen 2005, 76). Assyrias administrative system and its strategies for communication, data management and the control of tangible and intangible assets, which adapted,
advanced and transformed traditional Near Eastern administrative technologies, must be
recognized as a key factor in controlling and stabilizing the Assyrian empire.
The second half of the 9th century BC when Shalmaneser III (r. 859824 BC) was king
constitutes a first period of imperial consolidation after the period of expansion of the 10th
and early 9th centuries. It is worth noting that expansion did not come to a complete halt
during that time (Liverani 2004).
A central strategy for achieving the states cohesion saw, after a period of transition, the
total abolishment of local dynasties in the newly integrated provinces (see above, I.2.) and
their replacement with governors without hereditary claims from the core region who were
appointed by the king. This period witnessed the implementation of new methods of delegating power. The governors were equipped with the imperial seal (Fig. 1) that enabled
them to issue commands in the kings stead while stressing that they were his men (Radner
2008, 487490, 508509). Bound by loyalty oaths, their allegiance to the king was further
protected by the fact that many of them were, from the 9th century onwards, eunuchs (Radner 2011c, 359360), whose family links had been severed and replaced by the patronage
of the royal family. Their sterility also effectively prevented the emergence of new local
dynasties and moreover avoided competition with the royal clan, of which all Assyrian
kings without exception were members, regardless of whether they had been appointed
crown-prince or taken the throne as usurpers. Members of this one family are attested in
control of the city of Aur and later the land of Aur for more than a millennium (Radner 2010a, 2527). The king maintained his presence by establishing royal cities with
palaces throughout the realm, which he appears to have used on a regular basis. The creation of a privileged Royal Road network and a relay system of transporting messages
enabled reliable high-speed communication between the king and the governors (Radner
2012, 5962).

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Assyrianisation: population and land management

The Assyrian kings used the phrases to count among the people of the land of Aur and
to turn into a part of the land of Aur in their inscription when referring to the integration of people and territories. This broadcasts a conscious policy designed to eradicate environmental and social differences within the land of Aur and to create a homogeneous
way of life throughout Assyria which has been termed Assyrianisation in modern scholarship. How successful this strategy was is a matter of much debate, led by modern scholars with particular gusto in the case of the Levant where some see a high level of Assyrianisation (e.g. Parpola 2003) while others reject the very concept (e.g. Bagg 2011, 281 who
uses Romanisation during the Principate as a benchmark).
A key strategy was to put unused or underused land under the plough (Radner 2000,
235238), often in conjunction with the introduction of new agricultural techniques (including beekeeping and the cultivation and processing of flax, fruit, wine and olive oil) and
measures meant to improve irrigation, especially in the steppe regions of Syria (Khne
2010, 120126). This was only possible by bringing in additional manpower. An extensive,
centrally directed resettlement programme saw population groups from the enormous geographical horizon under Assyrian control being moved across great distances and settled
within the provinces making up the land of Aur, including the core area (Oded 1979).
Moreover, the organisation into units based on the decimal system (10, 50, 100; cf. Postgate
2007) for taxation and conscription purposes was designed to weaken the cohesion of extended families and provided an alternative social structure. The explicit goal was the creation of a integrated, economically highly developed culture and society of Assyrians: no
longer seen as an ethnic label, Assyrian was now a designation referring to all the kings
subjects, regardless of their origins (Machinist 1993).
While the goal of deportation was to create a carefully balanced population inside the
boundaries of Assyria, no such consideration was extended to any region that was not incorporated into the empire. Those who were taken away were not replaced, and the dire
consequences for the economy and for communal life of places like e.g. Memphis and
Thebes in 671 (Radner 2009, 223224) cannot be underestimated. The vast majority of
people, and certainly the most valuable experts, were dispatched to the cities in the Assyrian heartland to generate knowledge and wealth. Without them, some of the most lasting
achievements of the Assyrian kings, such as constructing and furnishing the magnificent
palaces and temples or assembling the contents of the fabled library of Assurbanipal (r.
668627 BC), would have been impossible.
The army
Under Shalmaneser III, the size of the army was increased substantially (Liverani 2004,
215216), the integration of subdued enemy forces constituting a key factor (Fuchs 2005,
53). The armys character shifted from being predominantly a seasonally active conscript
army to a largely professional standing army, with the cavalry gaining in importance. But
contrary to the wide-spread assumption that the Assyrian army had the task to wage
war all year round (Mnkler 2007, 53) in order to prevent the empire from collapse, a
rather more efficient defensive system concentrated much of the standing army in four
strategically located border marches (Liverani 2004, 217218) under the command of the

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commander-in-chief (turt nu), the treasurer (masennu), the cupbearer (rab q) and the
palace herald (n gir ekalli). Known by ancient court titles, they were the most powerful
military commanders in the empire, and usually eunuchs. These heavily militarized zones
were located in strategically sensitive border regions along the upper stretches of the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Lesser (Iraqi) Habur and the Great Zab and guarded the empire
against the northern rival power Urartu and its allies (Radner 2006, 4849).
The Assyrian army was not organized as one unified body but rather as multiple contingents who were in competition with each other. This seems to be an intentional, and successful, strategy designed to neutralise the armys power vis--vis the king in order to protect his sovereignty (Fuchs 2005, 5155; Radner 2011b, 39).
Political institutions and the seat of royal power: Kalhu
Apart from the king, the political institutions of the Assyrian Empire are largely obscure.
They are relatively well known for the period when Aur was a city-state and Mario Liverani (2011, 263) has recently described its mixed constitution as comprising a monocratic power represented by the [ruler], an aristocratic power represented by the l mum [i.e.,
a high administrative office held in annual rotation by the head of one of the major families,
determined by lot] and a democratic power represented by the city assembly. All these
institutions were maintained until the end of the Assyrian state in the late 7th century but
while it is unmistakable that they were modified in order to suit the needs of empire it is
less than clear how. The available sources focus very much on the king and his palace,
which Liverani (2011, 263) has described very appropriately as an impressive apparatus of
military and fiscal nature: in the shape of the palaces created in the provincial centres this
institution was physically present throughout the entire land of Aur. But the mere fact
that the other institutions were kept alive at all highlights that the Assyrian monarchy did
not care to promote itself as the sole pillar of the state.
A turning point in the relation between the king and the aristocratic and democratic
powers of Assyria was marked by the relocation of the seat of royal power away from
Aur to Kalhu (modern Nimrud) in 879 BC during the reign of Assurnasirpal II (r. 883
859 BC). The transformation of Kalhu into the unrivalled political, administrative and military centre of the empire continued under his son and heir Shalmaneser, and the resultant
restructuring of the state organisation certainly provides the context for the implementation
of the strategies of imperial consolidation described above. The creation of the new imperial centre can be seen as the prelude for the period of consolidation.
Kalhu was not a new foundation. Situated near a ford over the Tigris, this ancient city
could by the 9th century BC look back at roughly a millennium of recorded history. It occupies a uniquely central position in relation to Aur, Nineveh and Arbilu as the most convenient routes linking these most important cities of the core region all lead through Kalhu.
But while its geographical location may well have provided the primary reason for selecting
this specific site, easier accessibility and communications are only a convenient result of
the move. The relocation of the seat of royal power must be primarily seen as a strategy to
weaken the influence of the aristocratic and democratic powers whose influence must have
been strongest and most visible in Aur. We have already discussed the creation of a new
class of administrators eunuchs of deliberately obscure origins but undoubted loyalty to
the king who now were the preferred choice for the highest administrative and military

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appointments, at the expense of the members of the old urban elites. The move to Kalhu
further strengthened the position of the king at the expense of the notables of Aur, but
also in other key cities in the heartland like Nineveh and Arbilu. Kalhu was greatly expanded in size and the residents of the new centre of state were handpicked from among the
urban elites of the Assyrian heartland and also the new provinces, as the royal edict appointing the royal official Nergal-apil-kumua (a eunuch) to oversee the move to Kalhu
makes abundantly clear (Kataja & Whiting 1995, no. 83). We can safely assume that only
those were selected who had shown enthusiasm for the king, thus creating in 879 BC not
only a new political centre but one that was exclusively populated by loyal supporters of the
crown (Radner 2011a, 323325).
The royal strategy of weakening the aristocratic and democratic powers is combined
with a clear preference for delegating governing power to officials who owe their appointment and status entirely to the king. But did the king interact with these officials only on an
individual basis or were they organised in established institutions?
Evidence for advisory group meetings of high-ranking officials comes from the administrative state correspondence of the late 8th century BC (Radner 2011c, 371372) but it is
unclear whether the king convened an established council with a fixed membership or
whether these were less formal meetings with an ad hoc choice of trusted officials; that the
king regularly consulted with advisors is of course beyond doubt (Radner 2011c). Simo
Parpolas (1995b) reconstruction of a council with fixed membership for the most part
reflects cosmological ideals that he believes to inform Assyrian governance but this remains speculative.
A state-wide assembly of governors took place when a new king ascended to the throne
as he then proceeded to assign the state offices, either reappointing his predecessors' officials or making new choices. But whether there were regular comprehensive state-wide assemblies of all governors remains unclear due to a lack of evidence (Radner 2011c, 371
372). Logistically, holding a regular comprehensive assembly would have been possible.
Each governor had a deputy who was expected to handle local affairs in his superior's absence. Annual religious festivals, such as most prominently the New Year celebration held
at the city of Aur, where all governors were expected to assemble would certainly have
provided a fitting framework for a state-wide assembly.
A second phase of consolidation and a new seat of royal power: Nineveh
Above, we have focused on the structures implemented during the 9th century BC in a first
phase of Assyrias imperial consolidation. A subsequent period of expansion took up most
of the second half of the 8th century BC, during the reigns of kings Tiglath-pileser III (r.
744727 BC; see above, I.2.) and his sons Shalmaneser V (r. 726722 BC) and Sargon II (r.
721705 BC), and saw the incorporation of many former client states as provinces. The
creation of a new imperial centre in 706 can once more be seen as the prelude to a period of
consolidation, yet again focused on safeguarding royal power. While the newly created
provinces of the 8th century were on the same level as the old provinces, all were eclipsed in
importance by the imperial centre, with the disparity between the seat of royal power and
the rest of the empire ever-increasing.
Sargon, who had taken his brothers throne by force, planned his new city of Dur-arruken (Sargons Fortress, mod. Khorsabad) as an architectural ideal type on the drawing

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board and had it created from scratch just north of Nineveh. The kings unexpected death in
the battle field meant that this project was abandoned under his son and successor Sennacherib (r. 704681 BC) who replaced Dur-arruken as the seat of royal power with the more
pragmatic choice of Nineveh. Based primarily on location and long-distance traffic links,
this city was after the incorporation of the west into the provincial system the obvious
choice for the Assyrian Empires political centre.
Nineveh was massively expanded into a city of gigantic dimensions, without equal anywhere in the empire: with 750 hectares enclosed by fortification walls it boasted double the
area of the already enormous cities of Kalhu (380 hectares) and Dur-arruken (315 hectares). Despite adding no new provinces to the Assyrian state, Sennacherib had more people
moved across the empire than any of his predecessors (or any of his successors, for that
matter): on the basis of his inscriptions, he resettled close to half a million people, and
almost half of them came from Babylonia (Oded 1979, 2021). Most deportees were destined for Nineveh whose new size called for additional settlers. The move to Nineveh and
its enlargement was accompanied by the construction of an extensive network of water
reservoirs, canals and aqueducts (Ur 2005) designed to release the water from some seasonal tributaries of the Tigris, which only carry water after the spring snowmelt, gradually
and all year round to Nineveh, guaranteeing sufficient water supplies for the new megacity
and its inhabitants.
Sennacheribs preferential treatment of Nineveh went hand in hand with a rebalancing
of the power distribution between the crown and the officials of the empire. This saw the
core royal family and the court, based at Nineveh, strengthened at the expense of the officials in the provinces, a strategy that also continued under his successors. Most prominently
the queen and the crown prince now commanded their own standing army (Radner 2008,
510). Sennacheribs son Esarhaddon (r. 680669 BC) twice ordered mass executions
among the state officials (Radner 2003, 167, 174175; Frahm 2010, 110), and under his son
Assurbanipal (r. 668627 BC) and his successors, palace officials and courtiers rather than
state officials received special marks of distinction and privileges (Mattila 2009). The
kings exposure to the public was much reduced (e.g. Radner 2011b, 4950 on contact with
soldiers) and increasingly heavily regulated (Radner 2010b). If previous Assyrian rulers
had divided their lives between the court and the military camp, together with army and
state officials, the kings of the 7th century spent most of their days in the palace in the
company of their courtiers.
Economic strategies
All Assyrian governors were expected to provide the central administration with the same
contributions in taxes and labour, regardless of the size of their province; this emerges most
clearly from the records on the construction of Dur-arruken (cf. Parpola 1995a). At least
in theory all provinces were expected to have roughly the same economic potential. The
exception were the border marches: economic development was certainly considered secondary there as long as there was a danger of war with Urartu. Some other provinces
primary function was to generate trade with the neighbouring regions (Radner 2004). This
is clear in the case of the provinces in Median territory which were collectively known as
House of trade (b t k ri; established 744 and 716: trade with the east along the Silk
Route) and the western provinces of Ashdod (established 711, trade with Egypt and the

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Arabian peninsula) and Sidon (established in 677; maritime trade and surveillance of the
trading activities of the Phoenician client states Tyre and Arwad).
The Assyrian Empire constituted the largest economic power of its time, both in terms
of area and financial potency. The maritime trade network of Tyre, for example, depended
on collaboration with Assyria. After the conquest of Carchemish and the sacking of its state
treasury in 717, the influx of vast quantities of silver caused a change from the copper standard previously favoured in Assyria to a silver standard (Radner 1999, 131), creating a new
monetary standard for the entire empire.
Internally, the beneficial effects of the Assyrian state on local economies are best understood in what is today Israel and in the Habur valley in northeastern Syria where the intensive archaeological exploration of the past decades has brought to light evidence for the
transformations under Assyrian rule: examples are the establishment of an olive oil industry
at Ekron in the province of Ashdod (Gitin 1997; James 2006) and the creation of a canal
system as a means of irrigation and transportation to support and enhance the Habur river
(Pucci 2010, 168).

1.4 Contemporary reactions and perceptions

The non-Assyrian sources portray the Assyrian Empire of the 9th and 8th century BC predominantly in the role of the legitimate overlord who supports the client kings as a mediator
and, if necessary, by military intervention. This attitude highlights the key benefit of drawing the yoke of Aur for the client states: the membership in an international community with a clear hierarchy and resultant mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts.
Beyond this community, Assyria provided additional military defence forces (for example
against Ionian pirates who were raiding the client states Que and Tyre: Lanfranchi 2000,
1417).
Good examples of this positive assessment of the Assyrian overlord can be found in the
Book of Kings (1 Kings 15: 19; 2 Kings 16: 719; e.g. Parker 1996) which deals with Assyrias relationship with Judah and in the inscriptions of king Warikas of Que (Hiyawa), an
Assyrian client kingdom situated in Cilicia, the region of modern Adana (Lanfranchi 2007;
2009), and those of kings Kilamuwa and Bar-rakib of Samal (mod. Zinjirli), another Assyrian client kingdom just to the west of Que at the other side of the Cilician Gates (Parker
1996).
On the other hand, the Assyrian Empire of the 7th century appears in the non-Assyrian
sources predominantly as an unlawful oppressor. It must be stressed that these texts were
written in the historical context and under the impression of the decline and collapse of the
Assyrian Empire (see below, I.5.). Examples for this negative attitude can be found in the
Book of Prophets (Nahum, Jonah; Machinist 1997) and in the so-called Nabopolassar Epic,
a Babylonian composition celebrating how Nabopolassar heroically wrestled in 626 BC the
rule over Babylonia away from Assyrian control (Tadmor 1998; cf. Schaudig 2011).

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1.5 The end of the Assyrian Empire a matter of perspective

A two-pronged attack by the Babylonian army under Nabopolassar and the Median troops
under Cyaxares (e.g. Melville 2009) destabilised the Assyrian core region from 616 BC
onwards. The conquest and sacking of Aur in 614 BC destroyed the empires ideological
nucleus, the temple of god Aur, while the fall and ruination of Nineveh in 612 BC shattered the empires administrative and political centre and left it a smouldering ruin: the
gruesome results of the excavations at some of Ninevehs city gates showed that the bodies
of the fallen had never been cleared away (Stronach 1997, 317319; Pickworth 2005). The
core region lost, the remnants of the Assyrian army withdrew to the western part of the
Empire where fighting continued for several years (Radner 2002, 1619). With the involvement of Babylonia, the Medes, the Northern Iranian state of Mannea and Egypt, the
conflict was a world war that destabilised the Middle East for two decades.
But whether one sees the collapse of the Assyrian Empire as an abrupt end or an erosion
is a matter of perspective. We have already stressed that in the phase of consolidation following the massive expansion in the second half of the 8th century power was increasingly
focused on the imperial court at Nineveh. Symptoms of a creeping and protracted decline of
the Assyrian Empire are evident since the 670s when Esarhaddon twice ordered mass executions among state official guilty or suspected of treason against the crown. Much political
and economic power came to be concentrated in the hands of the kings favourite courtiers
while the governors of the provinces were sidelined. Client states quietly slipped (e.g. Saite
Egypt in the 640s) or violently struggled (Babylonia in the 620s) out of Assyrias control.
While a longer-term perspective on the fall of Assyria is certainly attractive, the relatively
limited primary source documentation for the period after 648 hampers our ability to analyse the decline of the Assyrian Empire with a focus on the inner workings of the state.
After the collapse of the Assyrian Empire the state was never restored or revived.

2 Reception history of the Assyrian Empire

2.1 Heritage and legacy
No attempt was ever made to re-establish an Assyrian state. Whatever the reasons (e.g.
Yoffee 2011, 99100: Assyrian restructuring of social hierarchies; Radner 2002, 19: loss of
Aur temple), this lack of continuity helps explain why concrete imperial heritage is hard
to trace. However, the Assyrian Empire clearly provided a blueprint of Empire for the
successor states in the wider region, which adopted and adapted many of Assyrias administrative technologies (see Jursa, this volume and Rollinger, this volume).
In addition, Assyrian cultural traditions lived on in the core region, most clearly perhaps
in the Parthian-period kingdoms of Hatra (Beyer 1998; including worship of god Aur)
and Adiabene (Reade 2001), but without any noticeable attempt to draw on the Assyrian
imperial heritage for political or ideological purposes.

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2.2 Imagined receptions

Prior to the discovery of Neo-Assyrian material and textual sources in the 19th century (Larsen 1996), views on Assyria were based solely on the testimony of the Bible (Frahm 2011)
and the more limited classical sources (Frahm 2003, 3940; Rollinger 2011). Especially the
Bible informed, and continues to inform, works of art that shape the public image of Assyria to a considerable extent. Very popular was e.g. the subject of the destruction of Sennacheribs army at Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:1319:36; 2 Chronicles 32:121; Isaiah 36:1
37:37), with the illustrator of Petrus Comestor's Bible Historiale (France, 1372) or Peter
Paul Rubens (c. 1616) providing some good examples. Eckart Frahm gives a good overview of the changing and different perceptions of Assyria in 19th and 20th century scholarship (2006) as well as in literature, art and popular culture (2003, 41*45*).
Syriac Orthodox Christian groups in the former Assyrian core region of Northern Mesopotamia, such as Nestorians and Jacobites, identify themselves as Assyrians (Novak and
Younansardaroud 2003; Donabed and Mako 2009); the origins of this view remain a matter
of debate but would seem to predate the spectacular archaeological discoveries of the mid19th century.

2.3 References to historical empires

The Assyrian Empire had an imagined forerunner in the state created by the kings of Akkad
in the third millennium BC (see Neumann, this volume). Regardless of how we evaluate the
realities of this state as an empire or not it served as an accepted model for the Assyrian
Empire. A good example highlighting how Akkad was used to provide authority of tradition is a 7th century composition known today as The Sargon Geography (after king Sargon of Akkad) offering a description of the world, or rather the regions under Assyrian
dominion (Liverani 19992001).

2.4 Historiographies and the state of modern research

Since the 5th century BC and in both the Biblical and the Greco-Roman tradition, Assyria in
its first millennium incarnation has been seen as an empire, and moreover as the very first
of a sequence of successive empires (Wiesehfer 2003). Modern historians have accepted
this view. But what differs enormously in the historiography is the assessment of the nature
of this empire.
For the past century, Assyrian specialists like Albert T."Olmstead (1918, 63) have emphasised Assyrias achievements in stabilising its control: To the more scientific student
there must be great interest in a system [i.e., the Assyrian system of governance] which
furnished the model to the Persians, to the Hellenistic rulers, to the Romans, and so to the
modern systems of provincial government.
Yet such views have not found much reception outside of the specialised discipline of
Ancient Near Eastern studies. Hence, more general discussions of the phenomenon of

The Neo-Assyrian Empire

113

empire usually feature relatively ill-informed assessments like that by political scientist
Herfried Mnkler (2007, 5354), which we have criticised above for focusing only on the
Assyrian military conquest of a large geographical area without taking its administration
and government or the longevity of the state into account.
There is, however, a growing interest in the Assyrian Empire in comparative context, as
the recent contributions to edited volumes on ancient empires by Bedford (2009) and Liverani (2011) illustrate. A monographic historical study analysing the Assyrian empire as a
state remains a desideratum.

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Karen Radner

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Figures and captions

118

Karen Radner

Figure 1: The imperial seal showing the king defeating a lion, the archetypical foe.
Ancient impression from Nineveh. British Museum, BM 84672.
Photo by Dick Hodges.

Figure 2: The Neo-Assyrian Empire, c. 670 BC.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire

119

Inhalt
EINLEITUNG
Michael Gehler (Hildesheim) / Robert Rollinger (Helsinki/Innsbruck)
Imperien und Reiche in der Weltgeschichte
Epochenbergreifende und globalhistorische Vergleiche . ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... ... .. .. 1
1 IMPERIEN DES ALTERTUMS
Hans Neumann (Mnster)
Altorientalische Imperien des 3. und frhen 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr.
Historische Voraussetzungen und soziokonomische Grundlagen .... 33
Susanne Paulus (Mnster)
Babylonien in der 2. Hlfte des 2. Jt. v. Chr. (k)ein Imperium? .... . 65
Karen Radner (London)
The Neo-Assyrian Empire 101
Michael Jursa (Wien)
The Neo-Babylonian Empire ... 121
Robert Rollinger (Helsinki/Innsbruck)
Das teispidisch-achaimenidische Imperium . 149
Monika Schuol (Berlin)
Das Reich der Hethiter ein Imperium? . 193
Karl Jansen-Winkeln (Berlin)
gypten im 3. und in der 1. Hlfte des 2. Jahrtausends ein Imperium? .. . 219
Orell Witthuhn (Marburg)
gypten im Neuen Reich ein Imperium? . 241
Angelika Lohwasser (Mnster)
Das Reich von Kusch .. 273
Miroslavo Salvini (Rom)
Urartu. Ein Imperium .. 299

vi

Michael Gehler/Robert Rollinger

Peter Kehne (Hannover)

Das attische Seereich (478404 v. Chr.)
und das spartanische Hegemonialreich (nach 404 v. Chr.): Griechische Imperien? 329
Michael Zahrnt (Kln)
Das Knigreich Makedonien vor und nach Philipp II. . 363
Christoph Schfer (Trier)
Die Diadochenstaaten: Imperien oder doch konkurrierende Territorialstaaten? .. 387
Kai Ruffing (Marburg)
Rom das paradigmatische Imperium . 401
Josef Wiesehfer (Kiel)
Parther und Sasaniden: Imperien zwischen Rom und China .. 449
Wolfgang Christian Schneider (Hildesheim)
Das ostrmische Imperium der Sptantike vom 4. bis zum 6. Jh.
Das Imperium Justinians I. .. 479
Hermann Kulke (Kiel)
Der Maurya-Staat (4.2. Jh. v. Chr.): Gesamtindisches Groreich oder Imperium? .. 503
Hans van Ess (Mnchen)
Chinesische Imperien .. 515
2 MITTELALTERLICHE UND FRHNEUZEITLICHE IMPERIEN
Jaakko Hmeen-Anttila (Helsinki)
The Umayyad State an Empire? 537
Heinz Halm (Tbingen)
Die Reiche der Fatimiden, Ayyubiden und Mamluken . . 559
Heinz Halm (Tbingen)
Die Reiche der Almoraviden und Almohaden . 567
Dieter Rothermund (Heidelberg)
Imperien in Indien vom Mittelalter bis zur Neuzeit 571
Johannes Gieauf (Graz)
Size does matter das mongolische Imperium 589

Inhaltsverzeichnis

vii

Evangelos Chrysos (Athen)

Das Byzantinische Reich. Ein Imperium par excellence . 621
Kenan 1nan (Trabzon)
The Ottoman Empire 635
Roland Steinacher Katharina Winckler (Wien)
Merowinger und Karolinger Imperien zwischen Antike und Mittelalter . 659
Thomas Vogtherr (Osnabrck)
Die europische Staatenwelt im hohen und spten Mittelalter.
Imperium oder konkurrierende Territorialstaaten? .. 697
Christoph Kampmann (Marburg)
Das Heilige Rmische Reich deutscher Nation das nominelle Imperium? .. 711
Stefan Schima (Wien)
Der Heilige Stuhl und die Ppste . 725
Jens E. Olesen (Greifswald)
Das schwedische Reich ein frhneuzeitliches Ostseeimperium? . 761
Felix Hinz (Hildesheim)
Der aztekische Dreibund ein Tributimperium . . 777
3 NEUZEITLICHE IMPERIEN
Walther L. Bernecker (Erlangen-Nrnberg)
Das Spanische Weltreich . 817
Alfred Kohler (Wien)
Das Universalreich Karls V. . 853
Friedrich Edelmayer (Wien)
Das Imperium Philipps II. von Spanien 871
Michael Broers (Oxford)
The Napoleonic Empire . . 893
Robert Aldrich (Sydney)
The French Empire: 18301962 . . 913
Christian Hauer (Talca, Chile)
Das portugiesische Imperium Raum ohne Herrschaft . . 935

viii

Michael Gehler/Robert Rollinger

Guy Vanthemsche (Brssel)

The Belgian Colonial Empire (1885/19081960) 971
Ulbe Bosma (Amsterdam)
Dutch Colonial Empire 999
Arno Strohmeyer (Salzburg)
Die Habsburgermonarchie in der Frhen Neuzeit ein Imperium?
Ein Problemaufriss . 1027
Arnold Suppan (Wien)
Das Habsburgische Reich Grundelemente und Bewertungen . 1057
Hans-Heinrich Nolte (Hannover)
Das russlndische Imperium 17211917 .. . 1083
Peter Wende (Frankfurt am Main)
Das Britische Empire . 1101
4 ZEITGESCHICHTLICHE IMPERIEN
Hans-Ulrich Thamer (Mnster)
Das Dritte Reich und sein Imperium .. 1119
Carlo Moos (Zrich)
Mussolinis faschistisches Imperium .. 1133
Wolfgang Mueller (Wien)
Die Sowjetunion als Imperium . . 1165
Hans-Jrgen Schrder (Gieen)
Die USA: Ein Imperium? .. 1209
Michael Gehler (Hildesheim)
Die Europische Union ein postmodernes Imperium? 1255
Harald Kleinschmidt (Tokyo und Tsukuba)
Ein Imperium der Defensive. Japanische Gromachtpolitik 18721945 .. 1309
Xuewu Gu (Bonn)
Das chinesische Imperium: Niedergang, Wiedergeburt und Aufstieg in Zeiten
der weltpolitischen Umbrche 1381

Inhaltsverzeichnis

ix

5 IMPERIEN IN THEORIE, GEIST, WISSENSCHAFT, RECHT UND ARCHITEKTUR

Ulrich Leitner (Innsbruck)
Der imperiale Ordnungskomplex.
Die theoretische Fiktion eines politischen Systems .. 1415
Simone Pittl (Innsbruck)
Merkmale von Imperien. Kriterienkataloge im Vergleich . 1453
Herbert Reginbogin (Lefke, Zypern)
The Paradigmatic Implications of International Law and the End of Empire ... 1469
Silvio Vietta (Heidelberg)
Das Imperium der Rationalitt . . 1499
Paul Naredi-Rainer (Innsbruck)
St. Michaelis, die romanische Architektur und die Idee des gttlichen Imperiums .. 1535
6 WAHRNEHMUNG UND VERMITTLUNG VON IMPERIEN
Reinhold Bichler (Innsbruck)
Die Wahrnehmung des Alexanderreichs: Ein Imperium der Imagination . 1557
Christian Lekon (Lefke, Zypern)
Die Wahrnehmung moderner Imperien oder:
Niklas Luhmann und Anthony Giddens im Orient .. 1593
Raimund Schulz (Bielefeld)
Ungeliebte Kinder? Imperien im Geschichtsunterricht
und in der Geschichtsdidaktik 1623
Ulrich Menzel (Braunschweig)
Die Idealtypen von Imperium und Hegemonie .. 1645
Otto May (Hildesheim)
Groreiche und Imperien auf politischen Ansichtskarten 18901945 . . 1677
AUTORENVERZEICHNIS . . 1735
REGISTER 1741