The Historians' History of the World 01

However much the customs of the Babylonians and Assyrians may have changed in the course of ages, there was one important regard in which there was probably no conspicuous alteration from first to last. This was the character of the government. Like other orientals, the Mesopotamians had no conception of any government except a thoroughly despotic one. They were ruled by kings whose authority was absolute, and whose will was accepted as the sole law. A change of government meant merely the overthrow of one king by some one who, attaining supreme authority, was himself to be recognised as king.

But the assumption and retention of exclusive power in a body politic by one individual presupposes a triumph of physical force. Kingship in its oriental manifestation has its foundation in military power. We find, therefore, that the Babylonian or Assyrian monarch is able to make himself felt and remembered just in proportion as he is a competent military leader. To be a great king he must be a great conqueror. A record of conquests is substantially the whole story of the royal annals. It is a very sanguinary and inhuman story as we have seen.

The texts of the inscriptions deal with results rather than with methods. We are told the names of peoples against whom warfare was waged; lists of captives and booty are not forgotten, the idea being of course to perpetuate the glory of the conqueror. To that end the name of the conqueror himself is always given, the narrative being usually told in the first person; but one never hears so much as the name of a subordinate. It is the king alone to whom credit is to be given.

What the inscriptions lack in the way of reference to details of the art of warfare is supplied by the Assyrian bas-reliefs. These represent armies in action and enable us to form a very clear picture of the war costumes, the weapons, and to a certain extent of the battle methods of the Assyrians. In particular the details are given of the methods of assault by which the Assyrians were accustomed to break down the walls of a rebellious city. Battering-rams and scaling-towers are depicted in the most realistic manner, and are a favourite subject of the artist—partly, no doubt, because they lend themselves to pictorial presentation; partly, perhaps, because the Assyrians excelled in this particular phase of warfare. But other phases of warfare are by no means overlooked. Even such details as the beheading or flaying alive of captives are presented with gruesome realism.

For the reason already stated, our text will have to do chiefly with the art of war as practised by the Assyrians, rather than by their predecessors. Whether any of the implements or methods employed in this relatively late period originated with the Assyrians themselves, we have no present means of deciding. The presumption is, however, that the Assyrian king pursued the art of war in much the same way it had been practised by the old Babylonian kings from time immemorial.a

As the Assyrians possessed disciplined and organised troops, it is probable that they were also acquainted, to a certain extent, with military tactics, and that their battles were fought upon some kind of system. We know that such was the case with the Egyptians; and their monuments show that amongst their enemies, also, there were nations not unacquainted with the military science. They had bodies of troops in reserve; they advanced and retreated in rank, and performed various manœuvres. Although, in the Assyrian sculptures, we have no attempt at an actual representation of the general plan of a battle, as in some Egyptian bas-reliefs, yet from the order in which the soldiers are drawn up before the castle walls, and from the phalanx which they then appear to form, it seems highly probable that similar means were adopted, to resist the assaults of the enemy in the open field.