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Your series on the Assyrians sparked a real interest in me; went to the British museum and listened to your 'tour' and have bought several books on the matter... thankful for the rich history you've introduced me to over the epochs ;D
I've already listened to the whole series, absolutely loved it. I was never too interested in pre-ancient Greek civilizations before. I guess my early education is to blame for that, because no one even mentioned how brutal it was and what the culture was like. Amazing work.
I think the romans were more pragmatic than the assyrians though. Like you pointed out, the assyrians reveled in how evil they could be to their enemies and the peoples they subjugated. The ancient Romans seemed to have a different approach. They'll punish insurrections and conquer rivals for sure. But they did make a lot of concessions to conquered provinces too in order to smooth over the humiliation of having been defeated by Rome. For one the Romans improved local infrastructure and even built it where there was none before (roads, aqueducts and so on). They also had garrisons of legionaires enforce the law, causing crime rates to drop in the region. They also let conquered barbarians keep their religions and superstitions rather than forcing them to fully adopt the Greco-Roman pantheon. They instead incorporated local gods into their pantheon, while making sure to put local gods below Jupiter to reinforce the Roman hierarchy in spiritual matters. An Assyrian would probably just burn conquered people's towns and urinate on their idols and temples for laughs. So that skit from Life of Brian where the People's Front lf Judea ask "What have the Romans ever done for us?" is somewhat historically accurate. 😄
As you pointed out, Assur was sometimes under the sway of Babylon. It is not only that Babylon was an old peer or somewhat overpowering rival, it is that even when the Assyrians _conquered_ Babylon and made it part of their growing Empire, there still tangibly remained an obvious problem regarding Babylon. Babylon was ancient and glorious long before it became part of the Assyrian Empire, and especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire era Assyrians, had to increasingly face the troubling consequences of a Babylon which was somewhat aloof and thought of itself as too important to be bossed around by the Assyrians. Due to it's Southerly geography and the relative proximity of it's to Ancient Egypt across the Red Sea and the Sinai Desert, into Arabia and beyond, the more Sumerian derived successor population of Babylon, was more willing to break away from the Assyrian Empire, if the opportunity arose. Even when their military had been reorganised once again into a Roman Army-like juggernaut in terms of it's professionalism and the heavy infantry (also using war chariots), the fact remained that as soon as Sennacherib moved his mighty army from Nineveh (Mosul), where he relocated his capital city, things got rowdy again, fast. The status and rebelliousness of Babylonia waxed and waned over the centuries, and sometimes the 'viceroys' (shakkanakku) used there were overthrown or plotted against. Alternatively, attempts to keep the Babylonians happy often resulted in Babylon just rebelling again anyway as soon as a local representative got too big for his boots. Even in the time of the tyrannical Sennacherib (and perhaps _especially_ in such times, because of such levels of tyranny, even for the period in question), the Babylonians seemingly gave not a damn and continued to be rebellious and difficult to control. Even such a mighty army as Sennacherib possessed, still had to be provisioned for and it was true that Babylon was still one of their most venerated and important cities. Much like Assur, it had inherited the legacy of the Sumerian-Akkadian forebears of Mesopotamia, and was a very important place. Religiously, Assur remained important, but it was depressingly often (for the Assyrians) the staging area for some campaign to quell _yet another_ Babylon related uprising (it wasn't always Babylon at the centre of the drama, but even so, it often was and not without reason) Sennacherib had to march his army back into Southern Mesopotamia, and before him, fled many of his enemies like the Chaldeans, whom escaped over the Persian Gulf on ships, to Elam (where Iran is now) harbouring in a city of theirs called Nagitu. Sennacherib had to put down yet another Babylon related uprising. It was as much a political crisis in terms of the rules of inheritance, according to clashing customs, as it was a matter civil strife. After dealing with the 'Babylon Question' (yet again) the Assyrians then rounded on the Elamites, preparing two great fleets and hosts to set out on a campaign of retribution for their interference (yet again; recurring theme being, that the Assyrians liked to wheel their forces around to pick on one enemy with a large host, then swing them back around again) Many Assyrian rulers had also, to deal not just with the hill tribes and kingdoms North and East of their own lands, coming down to raid their lands mostly on the floodplains, they also had to contend with a little place, you know, known as Ancient Egypt. As you correctly pointed out, the Assyrians fought and oppressed just about everyone around them (until, they were the ones being crushed, towards the end) Yet when it came to the Ancient Egyptians, they proved to be an annoying opponent who'd back rebel activity in places just like Babylonia. There was quite the feeling of people never changing and history never repeating but rhyming, when I learned about that particular matter. It feels so relatable to later periods - the geopolitics of powers like Ancient Egypt - and it was an immediate reminder that these people were just as cognizant of the competition, so to speak, as we are in our time. The Ancient Egyptians were often more than happy to cause trouble for the Assyrians. Growing up as a child of the 1990's, you'd barely ever hear about the Babylonians or the Assyrians (and basically never the Sumerians or Akkadians) The obsession with many history sources, films and TV programming, would usually look like a mash-up of the Tudors, Romans, Normans, Vikings, Ancient Egyptians and the Greeks. You'd see the Babylonians more tangentially - such as in Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004) where it featured prominently in the second and third acts. It was probably the best reconstruction of Babylon on the gold screen, that is for sure - albeit, somewhat obsessed with Nebuchadnezzar II's Ishtar Gate, and the cgi Hanging Garden Ziggurats. One touch I appreciated was that the Euphrates river was not only slow-flowing, but green, which is accurate (the Tigris is a faster flowing river and less green - but still green - at a glance than the Euphrates) I mean, yes, it's absolutely magnificent to see the Ishtar Gate, but Babylon would require much more dedicated levels of funding to fully-realise in a better way than the Alexander film from 2004 did; and it's understandable that for their purposes, the mostly studio set shots of interiors with cgi panoramas and controlled camera angles at Ishtar Gate, street-eye-view level, were fair enough for what was a film about his entire story. Babylon was just one part of that. Alexander died in Babylon, of all places. Perhaps a fitting place for him to sadly pass, considering it's seriously transcendent legacy in the history of _both_ the West, and the East. Babylon, decried by the Abrahamic faiths later, as a place of evil and decadence, destroyed by the wrath of God for it's idolatry, perceived darkness and it's alleged depravity. And no, Babylon was not a city of angels or saints. But I think a very hefty level of that disdain was directly from Hebrew originated sources, which informed the Western canon of what globalists often refer to as 'Judaeo-Christian faiths'. I mean, we could also, more fairly, separate the two, and just say that Christianity was inevitably going to be echoing, via Biblical (Jewish/Southern Judean/Northern Israelite originated) sources, the same things they had been saying, primarily about the Assyrians often based in Babylon. It wasn't until the Neo-Babylonian Empire emerged in it's fight against Assyrian oppression, that things did improve at least temporarily with say, Judea and Ancient Egypt. In fairness to the Judeans, Sennacherib had annihilated their second city, Lachish. The triumphalist carvings on the palaces at Nineveh, and in Babylon, show the utter ruthlessness Sennacherib had. However, when Carl mentioned two options for the survival of Jerusalem against the impossible to martially defeat (for the Judeans) Assyrian Army, the truth is probably a bit different. The Assyrian sources go suspiciously quiet about that chapter of Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant and the Near East in general. They had immense success at Lachish and elsewhere, crushing the Judeans and slaughtering Lachish. They made self-congratulatory, boasting reliefs, showing Judeans and Hebrews being brought back to the far reaches of the Assyrian Empire, in chains, on wagons, and they made them play and sing 'happy songs of their people' almost sadistically/perhaps sadistically making them seem upbeat when they were of course enslaved and devastated at being removed from their ancestral land, never to return home. The Assyrians mainly just found it amusing. It was an act of humiliation for the prisoners. The surviving Judeans of Lachish, so proud of their own culture and monotheistic beliefs, thought they were being dragged into a heathen land of evil, where they had to be enslaved to their destroyers. And although the then King of Judea, Hezekiah, did put up a brave fight from Jerusalem, things looked bad for the people of Jerusalem and Asckelon (Ascalon) The Judeans, believing in one God, could not be goaded or made crestfallen by the Assyrians, curiously, by them capturing symbols of their one God. The old way of the (various) Mesopotamians, to capture the idols of their deities and rival city's deities more specifically, to 'prove a point' about their own 'dominance', made the Assyrians somewhat confused when this didn't really work on the Judeans. Not only did the monotheists that they were, have a very different idea about theism and spiritualism alike, in a highly incompatible way for the Assyrians, the Judeans and Israelites effectively looked _down on them_ for having a plethora of, what looked to the Judeans and Israelites, as at best, false Gods, and at worst, even bad spirits aka daemons. The Assyrians had basically crossed swords with a civilisation with even more conviction about their own beliefs, perhaps, than theirs. _All_ faith placed on one God (albeit, with the Jewish/Levantine/Semitic God of Yahweh, being slightly more complicated than just being a single deity to begin with way, way back; see Early Bronze Age versions of Yahweh as a thunder-god, not too dissimilar to Zeus in the Greek Pantheon, likely not being seen _quite_ as the All Father or One God by then, long, long before the time of Sennacherib and Hezekiah; but that is a matter still fiercely debated; and please, ladies - cough Life of Brian - do not stone me for mentioning Jehovah) [part 1/4; parts 2, 3 and 4 in replies below]
[part 2/4] There was an unyielding sense that, the Assyrians were just well-organised barbarians effectively following a false set of Gods, and that they were barking up the wrong Menorah when it came to trying to impose their various Gods on the people of Judah and the Levant. And likewise, the sheer incompatibility of trying to bring a monotheistic God Yahweh (or Jehovah) 'back to Babylon' or 'back to Nineveh', didn't really work conceptually for the Assyrians, either. How could it? How could they bring a deity which was upheld as the only true God, back to shame the Judeans, if it would brook no rival with the 'lesser deities' or the 'false Gods' of the Assyrians (as the Judeans would certainly have adamantly perceived them to be)? It just didn't fit into their perceptions of how these things worked, as a polytheistic culture. It made no sense to them at all - and the stubborn resistance of Jerusalem, was helped by the likely plague which rampaged through the army of Sennacherib outside Jerusalem. Disease, and mortality rates to disease, defeated Sennacherib besieging Jerusalem, far more than the Judeans themselves, in 701 BCE. Although, yes, they did drum up the symbolic and religious version of that, where the angels of the Judean religion had saved Jerusalem. It is very little wonder that by the time of the true rise of Christianity, several centuries later, that there was a long, ingrained resentment for the Mesopotamian invaders, which gleefully celebrated any and all misfortunes of the Assyrians and/or Babylonians. Babylon was painted as a city of evil. The likely origins of the notion of the 'Tower of Babel'. Babylon...Babel. Anyone seeing the resemblance? Basically the Babylonians caught a lot of flak from the Judeans/Israelites/Hebrews for their Assyrian/Neo-Assyrian overlords, causing so much damage all over the map. Everyone - and I do mean, everyone - despised the Assyrians. They were too militant, barbaric and plain unkind for their own good. And yes, they were a well-organised outfit to begin with. Inevitably, the wheels started coming off the war chariot eventually, and when it was time for Babylon to break free, it did, in dramatic fashion. And eventually, Assure itself, now surrounded, was overrun and slaughtered with all the same vim and vigour as the Assyrians had mercilessly massacred many other lands. They did have it coming, although, like when almost any civilisation falls, it would be a rather stone-hearted person whom would not be moved by it's fall from majesty. This, Empire of the Iron Age, straddling the Bronze Age collapse through to the Iron Age, was doomed to be torn limb from limb when it could no longer defend itself. Archaeological remains found at the very gates of Nineveh, show the tragic final fall. They'd have lost Assure, their ancestral city of their ancient Neolithic to Early Bronze Age forefathers, and then they lost Nineveh itself, their new capital. They fought bitterly to defend Nineveh, but were defeated. Comparisons between the Romans and the Assyrians can be made, although I'd argue, that this can mainly be made for the 1st century BCE to 1st or maybe at most 2nd century AD Romans (Republic then/or Empire, both) Not so much the earlier Roman Republic or the ancient Roman origins in say, the 8th century BCE - around the time the Neo-Assyrians were just about coming to their final chapters. Soon the Achaemenid Persian Empire would emerge. Cyrus the Great and all his descendants, were on the way, just after the time of the great King Nebuchadnezzar II came to an end. He lived to about 80 ish; and we know with confidence he died 7th October 562 BCE. And to think, that in Ancient Greece at that time of Nebuchadnezzar II's death (or, as he _really_ knew himself as - not in the Biblical Hebrew of the people of the Levant - in the Babylonian form, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur II), Socrates would not yet be born for about another 92 years. Cyrus the Great of Persia would arise after the heirs of Nabû-kudurri-uṣur II (Nebuchadnezzar II), of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, came and went; until King Nabonidus lost Babylon after a long struggle, by 539 BCE. Cyrus the Great, first Emperor of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, born in about 600 BCE, in what is now Iran of course; somewhat ominously about 5 years after Nebuchadnezzar II's reign began circa ~605 BCE. In his rise to power, he swept West, toppling Neo-Babylonian power across the map, expanding the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and finally capturing Babylon itself. When Alexander the Great marched his Macedonian phalanxes and Companion Cavalry through the gates of Babylon in a triumphant procession in 331 BCE, around 208 years later, little could he have known - even from his teachers, like Aristotle himself, most notably - just how complex the long, winding story of Babylon had been. How, in ancient times even to the days of Alexander the Great, long, long before even the Neo-Babylonian Empire or the Assyrian Empire (Middle to Neo-Assyrian) before it, Babylon was already at least 1,600-1,700 years old when he marched into it in most archaeological and historical sources. However, it had certainly began even further back in time than 4,000 years Before Present (BP) More like >4,150-4,250 BP, at least. That is, as a small town or village. There are Akkadian clay tablet cuneiform records, from the era of King Shar-Kali-Sharri, of Babylon as a small town. Temple foundation construction is known to begin at Babylon, during his reign. It is recounted that temple foundation construction began for temples to the Goddess Annunitum (or Anunītu; their Goddess of War) and the male God Ìl-a-ba (or Ilaba/Aba) This, I believe during King Shar Kali-Sharri's 11th year as King (he reigned from circa ~2,217 BCE to 2,193 BCE) so that would imply it was about 2,206 BCE aka ~4,228 years BP. And, are we not to presume that logically, the town had been around a bit (maybe a lot) longer than this point? It seems relatively insignificant due to how little we have to go on about those very early days, on the fringes of the power centres of Ur, Akkad, Lagash, Ummer, Kish and Uruk key examples of far more prominent, and often much older settlements, back then; and it certainly could not have been the centre of Sumerian or Akkadian activity. Yet, it did at least merit having temples to two deities constructed even so far back as that, so you'd imagine it would at least be a few decades older by absolute oldest origin, than the temples being built there. Or maybe it was all rather sudden and the town was brand new. It's very difficult to tell. Either way, I think an approximation of circa ~4,228 BP by age is fair. There'd be some Sumerian and Akkadian settlements with a history going back over 6,000 BP - if not 7,500 BP in terms of their most primitive villages prior to the rise of Ur by at least 6,000 years ago. By about 5,000-4,900 BP, Ur had a population estimated at 50,000-60,000 people. Incredible for the time, especially considering that in what was ancient Britain at the same time, Stonehenge in it's earliest form, had just begun to be built in the ritual landscape of what was known later as, Wiltshire, England. Now, if Babylon really began closer to when Stonehenge was first begun (as a wooden and earthen monument, until eventually replaced with Sarsen and Blue Lintel stones, a while later) circa ~5,100-5,000 BP, than when Shar-Kali-Sharri was alive and reigning over the Akkadian Empire (about 4,200 BP, 800-900 years after Stonehenge's first phase of construction began in it's wooden form - in a much older, already ritualistic, Neolithic, spiritual landscape, with it's many other ritual monuments and burial sites going back much further than Stonehenge) then the uppermost age of Babylon could be considerably greater than we may realise at least if we just go off the clay tablets. Was Babylon just not mentioned or will there be some substantiating evidence translated from one of the very many untranslated clay tablets (there are tens of thousands) which are yet to be studied properly? Who knows. Suffice it to say, I would argue it could be quite a bit older than 4,200 ish years old. More like 4,500 years old at least, seems logical to me (could it really have been given significant temples just a few years after it was 'founded'? - maybe, but I do not believe that) I am guessing it'd be at least a few generations older than that time, and in it's very most rudimentary phase, likely being a mere cluster of mud-brick nomad's and/or farmer's dwellings by the banks of the Euphrates. Potentially, it'd be a _few centuries_ older than the time of King Shar-Kali-Sharri of Akkad. In any case, Alexander the Great could have never known that. He'd possibly have some vague idea of the ancient civilisations of the East, but most of that context was long lost (see Xenophon's Anabasis, and the story of the 10,000) Few, if indeed, any, could have ever known whom had built those great cities, barren and lifeless, long abandoned and ruined. Few could know precisely whom wrote the clay tablets, in spite of how powerful they had been.
[part 3/4] Xenophon and his men did ask locals in the area, and they merely told the Greeks, whom were far from home as mercenaries, 'it might have been the Medeans'. It wasn't. When Xenophon saw ruins by the banks of the Tigris, he had actually seen Assyrian cities (and some which began as Akkadian or Sumerian cities, even prior to that) This was around 70 years before Alexander the Great entered Babylon, and little had changed in the true knowledge of the region the Greeks had. Even the Greek peoples whom had lived in Ionia in what is now Turkey, could not have known. It was beyond the scholars of the Hellenistic world to understand. Mostly, they made things up to make up for these huge gaps in what they _really_ knew. Nobody even knew, lucidly, the true story, in that region. Not by then. The Babylonians had become part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, as I said, in Cyrus the Great's time, about 140 years _before_ Xenophon and the 10,000 campaigned in the lands of Mesopotamia for those whom hired them on what was a lost cause. The Macedonians knew no better than Aristotle, about what was really going on there. They saw it all as a nebulous Persian territory, though were far removed from the reality of the times and peoples that had wrought those cities in the deserts. They neither, could have known of the shifting of the rivers, and the way it left some once opulent and verdant cities, fed by well dug canals, high and dry, and abandoned. And it may have astonished the Greeks to know many of those cities began at least 2,000 years before this time, itself over 2,420 BP (compared to 2023 AD) When the marching columns of sarissa pikes of Alexander's phalangites of Macedon, up to 21-23 feet long apiece, passed under the Ishtar Gate in 331 BCE - these pikes 2/3 the height of the archway and about 1/2 the height of the entire gate structure - the soldiers carrying them marvelled at the opulence and splendour of what had been a Persian controlled, Babylonian city. The lapis lazuli effect Ishtar Gate, not built from lapis lazuli (that would have been far too expensive and impractical for just about anyone), would have looked dazzling to the Macedonians. They marched through the Procession Way, to the Palaces and Ziggurats of the city, and revelled in what had been a glorious victory over the Persians in multiple battles, to clear the path to Babylon. Darius III, fleeing into the Mountains, soon to be betrayed and murdered by his own men, of whom he could trust few anymore. Imagine if Alexander could have but known what majesty Babylon truly represented. Long before Abrahamic faiths had fully sealed the reputational fate of Babylon, as some depraved Tower of Babel in the desert, destroyed by God's wrath. Think of the Crusades of the 11th century AD onward, and their struggle against Islam, and the retaliation to Islamic invasions going back to the early 7th century AD. Think of all that had gone before. Babylon was at least 3,200, likely 3,500 years old, when Knights of Christendom fought over Jerusalem. Think of the way the Assyrians had left a dark legacy which the Hebrews, Israelites and Judeans had exploited in their own gleeful disdain for the Mesopotamians. Think of how it was their narrative which informed Christian narratives later on, regarding that region. Think of the relative innocence of the Christians in their lack of knowledge on those long lost cultures. How easily they were to follow the same old line about Babylon told in the same old lies. Ancient propaganda, even in the Medieval Crusader period (which was practically 'recent' compared to the Assyrian Empire) Imagine the look on Alexander's face, had he known what we know now. How, when his people were nothing more than goat herders, hunters and hill tribesmen on the 'uncivilised' Northern fringes of the Hellenistic world, centuries before his birth, the city of Babylon had already been around for a thousand years before that again, and then some. Imagine how humbled he would have been, to realise the might and majesty of Mesopotamia as we truly understand it now, through Archaeology. I'm sure he would have been positively spellbound, and genuinely happy to know some of the things we know. It would, I'm sure, have only convinced him further, of the need to build bridges and to try and forge lasting legacies in the region. Alas, for the Wars of the Diadochi, after Alexander's tragically untimely, youthful passing, in 323 BCE in Babylon. Imagine if he had lived twice or thrice as long at least. Imagine had he presided over an Empire of conscience and cultural grandeur. Many monarchs have their expansionist phase. Many war heroes have their glory years, before that time when they turn to peace and city building, the development of the arts and architecture. Even the destroyer of Lachish, the typically - for the Neo-Assyrians - arrogant and obnoxious, bloodthirsty and unimaginably cruel Sennacherib, back in the 690's and 680's BCE, in the latter years of his life, turned away from war as much as he could, and genuinely did make efforts to be remembered for more than just being a larger-than-life conqueror and outright killer. Of course, skewering the defenders of Lachish on spikes and exacting hideous torture and execution on his enemies all over the map, kept him busy for a while. He wasn't what we would call, 'a nice man'. Yet _even he_ had that artisanal streak and desire in later life, to leave different kinds of legacies. He still had a culturally-minded side to him (oh, get Sennacherib the Art student guys lol not exactly what I mean but you get the point) He was still obviously a monster in a lot of ways, but he wasn't just a thug. He did have some belief leaving monuments and buildings, making his cities better than they had been before. His army reforms were one thing yes, but he was still a builder-King as well as a warrior and butcherer of those in his way. And if _Sennacherib_ and odious men like him could be that way, imagine someone as well-rounded and heroic as Alexander the Great. Now, to _his_ enemies, Alexander could be no less a monster than Sennacherib (look at what Alexander did, albeit somewhat reluctantly, to Thebes) He was capable of horror like any conqueror worth their salt. Yet he was not quite as bad as someone like Sennacherib, let's get that damn straight here and now. He was just doing the whole, conquests of Empires thing, better than his enemies. And so came the doom of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. And no, Alexander's Empire didn't last, fracturing into the warring splinter Empires of his generals, whom squabbled over what 'belonged' to them, before Alexander's body even went cold in Babylon in 323 BCE. Nevertheless, can you imagine if Alexander could know what we now know, and looked upon the beauty of Babylon before it was lost in that form forever, before the Rise of Islam (long before) and before the days of holy wars of the Abrahamic faiths in the Near East? Can you imagine that? I can. And it almost brings a tear to my eye just thinking about what could have been. Long before the Roman Empire, and further still before the Byzantine offshoot (aka Eastern Roman Empire aka Romanised Greeks, for the most part) Imagine a timeline where the Greek world keeps it together longer, on a grander scale than say, just the Ptolemaic Dynasty hanging on for dear life in Egypt. Imagine had the Wars of the Diadochi never transpired (damn that Cassander, damn him, damn that man! - Cornwallis, never AD lol) Doubtlessly, their Empir would have fallen apart at some point, but even had it lasted a few generations longer, maybe Macedon would have stood a better chance of standing up to Rome) Or, maybe, as in the actual history, Rome would have eclipsed Macedon in a demonstrable fashion, and crushed the Greeks and/or Macedonians just like they did at places like Corinth and Cynoscephalae. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't even that long after Alexander, that Macedon was crushed by Rome. It's ironic, really. Those damned Romans copied the Greeks and Macedonians (not to mention the Carthaginians and Etruscans) something fierce. In this regard, the comparison with the Assyrians is most apt. They were good at improving on military concepts which long predated them. The Romans copied the phalanx from the Greeks, outright, and originally fought more like any other tribal people, in warbands or in ritualistic or semi-ritualistic single-combat. Yet eventually, the maniples of the Roman Legions would become the infantry equivalent of Kryptonite to the Macedonian and Greek phalanxes. They were made to look dull and sluggish, compared to the Roman legionary infantry weaving past the sarissas and cutting down scores of phalangites. It was a slaughter.
[part 4/4] They made the Macedonians, Epirans and Greeks look really bad. Kind of like how the Neo-Assyrians made the Judeans and Egyptians look bad as well. What is more, the Romans carried forward the continuity of the Greco-Macedonian history, especially the Greek Pantheon of Gods they blatantly copied and renamed (e.g. Zeus = Jupiter e.g. Poseidon = Neptune e.g. Ares = Mars e.g. Aphrodite = Venus etc) Come to think of it, the Greco-Roman pagan Pantheon of Gods, being polytheistic by their very nature, were far more similar to the polytheistic Mesopotamian religions and sects, than they _ever were_ to the monotheistic Abrahamic faiths. And in both cases, monotheism helped not only to destroy and subvert them, but also to leave entrenched misconceptions about them, lasting millennia; the pre-Christianity adopting Romans, spurned by even other Romans (Christian Romans) as 'primitive barbarians', and the Assyrians openly daemonised for many centuries longer than that by the Semitic peoples they openly tyrannised especially in the time of Sennacherib (so, you can't really blame the latter situation unfolding) Part of why there was such a break and gap in our understanding, of those times, should be remembered as the rise of monotheism in the Mediterranean adjacent world (so to speak; i.e. in Europe and the Near to Middle East) Such peoples as the Akkadians and Sumerians, while forgotten, still would have been vaguely more relatable to say, a pagan Roman of the 2nd century BCE, at least on the matter of polytheism. It doesn't mean they'd _like_ them if they knew about them (and they had no clue about them, obviously) But the point is, they'd be more likely able to see eye to eye on certain polytheistic viewpoints. They'd be much more likely to have more of a mental roadmap of lots of different Gods and Goddesses, and see them in a coherent and lucid way. Meanwhile, in the Abrahamic faiths, they spurned the unbelievers of the 'One True God' and would brook no dissidence. In a way, Judaism, Christianity and Islam fighting like cats and dogs for the last 1,400 or so years (although, mostly Christianity VS Islam) could be seen as more the finessing or squabbling of the ideologies and idealism of differing yet vaguely related monotheisms. It's just a more singular form of Akkadians conquering Sumerian cities, and claiming their Gods for their own, or Assyrians openly capturing 'God statues' of their enemies to 'capture the power' of their rival's deities as a common Assyrian flex, back in their day. Now, of course, the Rise of Islam is a (nightmare) subject unto itself, yet the many ups and downs of the past 1,400 years, should show us that it wasn't all as simple as red vs blue, right vs wrong. Christianity was definitely the victim, attacked first by Islam. Nobody can deny that. Yet the 400 years of setbacks for Christianity, as Islam swept up the Middle and Near East, and even Anatolia and North Africa, were to trigger the Crusades. And as we all should know, contrary to modern revisionist lies and propaganda, the Christians weren't doing what they were doing, out of the blue, for singularly barbarous reasons. That is the way revisionist drama queen dingbats like that insufferable know-it-all cheese-ball of a 'historian' Mike Loades likes to overenthusiastically spout off about. That is the low IQ take of weird subversion mouthpieces corrupting extra curricular education, that deceivers like him like to propagate. Heaven forbid we see things from a higher perspective than 'WEST BAD' or 'CHRISTIANS BAD'. Heaven forbid we actually give them a fair appraisal. Were the Crusaders capable of horror? Of course. No less Alexander. Certainly not as bad as the Mongols or the Assyrians, in terms of sheer cruelty (cue revisionists lying about the knee deep boulevards of blood in Jerusalem, during the recapture of Jerusalem in the First Crusade; yes it was horrific, no it wasn't as bad as is often claimed) Ironically, everyone 'just kind of forgets' about the Muslim, Rashidun Caliphate capture of Jerusalem _from the Byzantines_ in 637 AD. In the short-term, the Jews were happy about that, because it allowed them to practice their faith and pilgrimage openly to Jerusalem (the Byzantines had at least temporarily banned them, before they were kicked out of the region by the mercilessly expansionist and unrelenting Muslim tide spreading from Baghdad to begin with) The Byzantines really made a mess of things and got kicked around a lot, sadly for them. They'd fought the Persian Sassanids/Sasanians for 26 years in the Byzantine-Sassanian War. And then Islam just emerged to obliterate both of them (the Zoroastrianism majority Sassanians, were annihilated by the Muslims, and forced to capitulate to the caliphate) The Jews became less happy about Jerusalem being under Islamic rule, when the Dhimmi tax came along. The Christians, in spite of still being a persecuted majority in those lands in the 600's AD, were soon bullied, murdered and discouraged from travelling their enough, that their numbers plummeted. You won't hear about that in any UK schools now, sadly enough. You might just be told about how mean the Crusaders were in Jerusalem, though. Even though, it was a major retaliation to four centuries of humiliation and misery from Iberia to Constantinople. Little wonder perceptions of Babylon were so utterly ruined (much more so than the city itself) long after the time anyone could have defended that image. That is part of why I can't help but dislike the Assyrians. Like the Normans, they were just too destructive and easy to see as villainous presence. Because, they absolutely were. At least the Romans were more of a 'magpie' faction, often bettering things they'd taken inspiration from (cough stolen) from others. They robbed the idea for the arch from the Etruscans; though they eventually took that and turned two overlapping each other, into a vaulted ceiling. They stole the phalanx and the bireme from the Greeks; but they eventually bettered those concepts on land and at sea, with better infantry tactics and far better warships (albeit, learning as many lessons from copying Carthaginian ships; e.g. literally reverse engineering one that ran aground in Sicily during the First Punic War) They liked to call civilisations as disparate as the Britons and the Persians, 'barbarians', even though they had many things which made them just as interesting as the Romans (albeit, just not as advanced for an Iron Age faction) Yet the Romans were repeatedly humiliated by various Persian factions e.g. especially the Parthians, and sometimes got a bloody nose from the Britons (see Julius Caesar's campaign; see the Iceni Rebellion during Emperor Claudius' day - at least, while it was winning battles, before it's abrupt and catastrophic defeat; they wiped out half a Roman legion in one day, lest we forget, in an ambush, before burning Londinium down; it wasn't just the Battle of Watling Street; Rome nearly lost Britannia then; shame Boudicca saw fit to Leeroy Jenkins her whole army into a blatant trap and fight the Roman war machine on their terms on an open field...alas) If one thing let the Assyrians down, it was the fact that they were so dependant on a large standing army to march far and wide and fight one enemy at a time. When things got a bit more hectic, they really started to struggle. Their army ranged between 100,00-200,000 men, usually around 120,000 men. The Roman Empire had up to 450,000 legionaries not including likely fifty to a hundred thousand more irregular troops spread out across the Empire. At least, at it's _very_ height. That would only be for a certain amount of time, though. Towards the end, their peak military numbers were lucky to reach a tenth of that. And when Constantinople fell, so tragically, to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 AD, merely 7,000 or so men defended the gaunt and already crumbling city. Heart breaking. And yet again, geography around the Mediterranean world, makes that world feel small all the time; Alexander the Great had once crossed the Hellespont (Dardanelles) into Anatolia, before rampaging across and rolling up, the entire Achaemenid Persian Empire, and beyond, into the unknown (the subcontinent of India, for instance) Again, I can only imagine Alexander's face, had he known all of that, and realised what had gone before him in so much better clarity than he did in real life. Superstition and make believe, Aristotle style, replaced with hard archaeological evidence. Imagine what Alexander could have done, having awareness of that incredibly ancient past. Had he not died young, he could have spent the rest of his life, consolidating European influence over the region. In the actual history, that later fell to the Romans. Yet, like the Assyrians, they'd veered too often into horror and unyielding smugness, and they made everyone hate them even though they did so much and achieved great things (see Reg's 'What have the Romans ever done for us' scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian, you get the idea lol) If only Alexander could have known.
Barbaric to a modern day Brit? 🧐 Butcher and bolt👈🏻WW2 Commando That is the exact words Churchill used to describe what he expected from the Commando. He knew there was no playing around.
Man, I love these history videos. This one is really, really good. What I find especially interesting is thatyou don't just say, "X happened, then Y happened, then Z happened." Delving into the whys and wherefores of events, ancient philosophies, etc., that's what makes these videos especially interesting, so thank you. :) On a side note, I'm pretty sure the slave clearinghouse island was Delos.
For anyone wondering, there are still about 4 million Assyrians left, mostly Orthodox Christians, living mostly in Iraq and Syria today
May they form their Empire of slaughter again in the likeness of the old days. :,)
“The Assyrians cant be that bad”
The assyrians:
“Here’s my 50 flayed child skulls”
“Praise be to Ashur, here is your gold pieces”
Your series on the Assyrians sparked a real interest in me; went to the British museum and listened to your 'tour' and have bought several books on the matter... thankful for the rich history you've introduced me to over the epochs ;D
Glad to see this. Endlessly fascinating subject area. I'll write a longer comment upon finishing watching this.
That was jus the way of the world we Assyrians were jus.better at it
Long Live Assyrians ♥️💙
Bro I grew up in Assur it really wasn't that bad
I've already listened to the whole series, absolutely loved it. I was never too interested in pre-ancient Greek civilizations before. I guess my early education is to blame for that, because no one even mentioned how brutal it was and what the culture was like. Amazing work.
ancient mad lads
I think the romans were more pragmatic than the assyrians though.
Like you pointed out, the assyrians reveled in how evil they could be to their enemies and the peoples they subjugated.
The ancient Romans seemed to have a different approach.
They'll punish insurrections and conquer rivals for sure. But they did make a lot of concessions to conquered provinces too in order to smooth over the humiliation of having been defeated by Rome.
For one the Romans improved local infrastructure and even built it where there was none before (roads, aqueducts and so on).
They also had garrisons of legionaires enforce the law, causing crime rates to drop in the region.
They also let conquered barbarians keep their religions and superstitions rather than forcing them to fully adopt the Greco-Roman pantheon. They instead incorporated local gods into their pantheon, while making sure to put local gods below Jupiter to reinforce the Roman hierarchy in spiritual matters.
An Assyrian would probably just burn conquered people's towns and urinate on their idols and temples for laughs.
So that skit from Life of Brian where the People's Front lf Judea ask "What have the Romans ever done for us?" is somewhat historically accurate. 😄
Ive really enjoyed the assyrian series
With no media available you had to make sure the stories of your treatment of enemies spread far and wide to intimidate potential invaders
11:20 it's like they Put a noodle in their hat and called it macaroni. lol
As you pointed out, Assur was sometimes under the sway of Babylon. It is not only that Babylon was an old peer or somewhat overpowering rival, it is that even when the Assyrians _conquered_ Babylon and made it part of their growing Empire, there still tangibly remained an obvious problem regarding Babylon. Babylon was ancient and glorious long before it became part of the Assyrian Empire, and especially the Neo-Assyrian Empire era Assyrians, had to increasingly face the troubling consequences of a Babylon which was somewhat aloof and thought of itself as too important to be bossed around by the Assyrians.
Due to it's Southerly geography and the relative proximity of it's to Ancient Egypt across the Red Sea and the Sinai Desert, into Arabia and beyond, the more Sumerian derived successor population of Babylon, was more willing to break away from the Assyrian Empire, if the opportunity arose. Even when their military had been reorganised once again into a Roman Army-like juggernaut in terms of it's professionalism and the heavy infantry (also using war chariots), the fact remained that as soon as Sennacherib moved his mighty army from Nineveh (Mosul), where he relocated his capital city, things got rowdy again, fast.
The status and rebelliousness of Babylonia waxed and waned over the centuries, and sometimes the 'viceroys' (shakkanakku) used there were overthrown or plotted against. Alternatively, attempts to keep the Babylonians happy often resulted in Babylon just rebelling again anyway as soon as a local representative got too big for his boots.
Even in the time of the tyrannical Sennacherib (and perhaps _especially_ in such times, because of such levels of tyranny, even for the period in question), the Babylonians seemingly gave not a damn and continued to be rebellious and difficult to control. Even such a mighty army as Sennacherib possessed, still had to be provisioned for and it was true that Babylon was still one of their most venerated and important cities. Much like Assur, it had inherited the legacy of the Sumerian-Akkadian forebears of Mesopotamia, and was a very important place. Religiously, Assur remained important, but it was depressingly often (for the Assyrians) the staging area for some campaign to quell _yet another_ Babylon related uprising (it wasn't always Babylon at the centre of the drama, but even so, it often was and not without reason)
Sennacherib had to march his army back into Southern Mesopotamia, and before him, fled many of his enemies like the Chaldeans, whom escaped over the Persian Gulf on ships, to Elam (where Iran is now) harbouring in a city of theirs called Nagitu. Sennacherib had to put down yet another Babylon related uprising. It was as much a political crisis in terms of the rules of inheritance, according to clashing customs, as it was a matter civil strife. After dealing with the 'Babylon Question' (yet again) the Assyrians then rounded on the Elamites, preparing two great fleets and hosts to set out on a campaign of retribution for their interference (yet again; recurring theme being, that the Assyrians liked to wheel their forces around to pick on one enemy with a large host, then swing them back around again)
Many Assyrian rulers had also, to deal not just with the hill tribes and kingdoms North and East of their own lands, coming down to raid their lands mostly on the floodplains, they also had to contend with a little place, you know, known as Ancient Egypt. As you correctly pointed out, the Assyrians fought and oppressed just about everyone around them (until, they were the ones being crushed, towards the end) Yet when it came to the Ancient Egyptians, they proved to be an annoying opponent who'd back rebel activity in places just like Babylonia. There was quite the feeling of people never changing and history never repeating but rhyming, when I learned about that particular matter. It feels so relatable to later periods - the geopolitics of powers like Ancient Egypt - and it was an immediate reminder that these people were just as cognizant of the competition, so to speak, as we are in our time.
The Ancient Egyptians were often more than happy to cause trouble for the Assyrians. Growing up as a child of the 1990's, you'd barely ever hear about the Babylonians or the Assyrians (and basically never the Sumerians or Akkadians) The obsession with many history sources, films and TV programming, would usually look like a mash-up of the Tudors, Romans, Normans, Vikings, Ancient Egyptians and the Greeks. You'd see the Babylonians more tangentially - such as in Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004) where it featured prominently in the second and third acts.
It was probably the best reconstruction of Babylon on the gold screen, that is for sure - albeit, somewhat obsessed with Nebuchadnezzar II's Ishtar Gate, and the cgi Hanging Garden Ziggurats. One touch I appreciated was that the Euphrates river was not only slow-flowing, but green, which is accurate (the Tigris is a faster flowing river and less green - but still green - at a glance than the Euphrates) I mean, yes, it's absolutely magnificent to see the Ishtar Gate, but Babylon would require much more dedicated levels of funding to fully-realise in a better way than the Alexander film from 2004 did; and it's understandable that for their purposes, the mostly studio set shots of interiors with cgi panoramas and controlled camera angles at Ishtar Gate, street-eye-view level, were fair enough for what was a film about his entire story. Babylon was just one part of that. Alexander died in Babylon, of all places.
Perhaps a fitting place for him to sadly pass, considering it's seriously transcendent legacy in the history of _both_ the West, and the East. Babylon, decried by the Abrahamic faiths later, as a place of evil and decadence, destroyed by the wrath of God for it's idolatry, perceived darkness and it's alleged depravity. And no, Babylon was not a city of angels or saints.
But I think a very hefty level of that disdain was directly from Hebrew originated sources, which informed the Western canon of what globalists often refer to as 'Judaeo-Christian faiths'. I mean, we could also, more fairly, separate the two, and just say that Christianity was inevitably going to be echoing, via Biblical (Jewish/Southern Judean/Northern Israelite originated) sources, the same things they had been saying, primarily about the Assyrians often based in Babylon.
It wasn't until the Neo-Babylonian Empire emerged in it's fight against Assyrian oppression, that things did improve at least temporarily with say, Judea and Ancient Egypt. In fairness to the Judeans, Sennacherib had annihilated their second city, Lachish. The triumphalist carvings on the palaces at Nineveh, and in Babylon, show the utter ruthlessness Sennacherib had. However, when Carl mentioned two options for the survival of Jerusalem against the impossible to martially defeat (for the Judeans) Assyrian Army, the truth is probably a bit different.
The Assyrian sources go suspiciously quiet about that chapter of Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant and the Near East in general. They had immense success at Lachish and elsewhere, crushing the Judeans and slaughtering Lachish. They made self-congratulatory, boasting reliefs, showing Judeans and Hebrews being brought back to the far reaches of the Assyrian Empire, in chains, on wagons, and they made them play and sing 'happy songs of their people' almost sadistically/perhaps sadistically making them seem upbeat when they were of course enslaved and devastated at being removed from their ancestral land, never to return home. The Assyrians mainly just found it amusing. It was an act of humiliation for the prisoners.
The surviving Judeans of Lachish, so proud of their own culture and monotheistic beliefs, thought they were being dragged into a heathen land of evil, where they had to be enslaved to their destroyers. And although the then King of Judea, Hezekiah, did put up a brave fight from Jerusalem, things looked bad for the people of Jerusalem and Asckelon (Ascalon) The Judeans, believing in one God, could not be goaded or made crestfallen by the Assyrians, curiously, by them capturing symbols of their one God.
The old way of the (various) Mesopotamians, to capture the idols of their deities and rival city's deities more specifically, to 'prove a point' about their own 'dominance', made the Assyrians somewhat confused when this didn't really work on the Judeans. Not only did the monotheists that they were, have a very different idea about theism and spiritualism alike, in a highly incompatible way for the Assyrians, the Judeans and Israelites effectively looked _down on them_ for having a plethora of, what looked to the Judeans and Israelites, as at best, false Gods, and at worst, even bad spirits aka daemons.
The Assyrians had basically crossed swords with a civilisation with even more conviction about their own beliefs, perhaps, than theirs. _All_ faith placed on one God (albeit, with the Jewish/Levantine/Semitic God of Yahweh, being slightly more complicated than just being a single deity to begin with way, way back; see Early Bronze Age versions of Yahweh as a thunder-god, not too dissimilar to Zeus in the Greek Pantheon, likely not being seen _quite_ as the All Father or One God by then, long, long before the time of Sennacherib and Hezekiah; but that is a matter still fiercely debated; and please, ladies - cough Life of Brian - do not stone me for mentioning Jehovah)
[part 1/4; parts 2, 3 and 4 in replies below]
[part 2/4] There was an unyielding sense that, the Assyrians were just well-organised barbarians effectively following a false set of Gods, and that they were barking up the wrong Menorah when it came to trying to impose their various Gods on the people of Judah and the Levant. And likewise, the sheer incompatibility of trying to bring a monotheistic God Yahweh (or Jehovah) 'back to Babylon' or 'back to Nineveh', didn't really work conceptually for the Assyrians, either. How could it? How could they bring a deity which was upheld as the only true God, back to shame the Judeans, if it would brook no rival with the 'lesser deities' or the 'false Gods' of the Assyrians (as the Judeans would certainly have adamantly perceived them to be)?
It just didn't fit into their perceptions of how these things worked, as a polytheistic culture. It made no sense to them at all - and the stubborn resistance of Jerusalem, was helped by the likely plague which rampaged through the army of Sennacherib outside Jerusalem. Disease, and mortality rates to disease, defeated Sennacherib besieging Jerusalem, far more than the Judeans themselves, in 701 BCE. Although, yes, they did drum up the symbolic and religious version of that, where the angels of the Judean religion had saved Jerusalem.
It is very little wonder that by the time of the true rise of Christianity, several centuries later, that there was a long, ingrained resentment for the Mesopotamian invaders, which gleefully celebrated any and all misfortunes of the Assyrians and/or Babylonians. Babylon was painted as a city of evil. The likely origins of the notion of the 'Tower of Babel'. Babylon...Babel. Anyone seeing the resemblance?
Basically the Babylonians caught a lot of flak from the Judeans/Israelites/Hebrews for their Assyrian/Neo-Assyrian overlords, causing so much damage all over the map. Everyone - and I do mean, everyone - despised the Assyrians. They were too militant, barbaric and plain unkind for their own good. And yes, they were a well-organised outfit to begin with.
Inevitably, the wheels started coming off the war chariot eventually, and when it was time for Babylon to break free, it did, in dramatic fashion. And eventually, Assure itself, now surrounded, was overrun and slaughtered with all the same vim and vigour as the Assyrians had mercilessly massacred many other lands. They did have it coming, although, like when almost any civilisation falls, it would be a rather stone-hearted person whom would not be moved by it's fall from majesty.
This, Empire of the Iron Age, straddling the Bronze Age collapse through to the Iron Age, was doomed to be torn limb from limb when it could no longer defend itself. Archaeological remains found at the very gates of Nineveh, show the tragic final fall. They'd have lost Assure, their ancestral city of their ancient Neolithic to Early Bronze Age forefathers, and then they lost Nineveh itself, their new capital. They fought bitterly to defend Nineveh, but were defeated.
Comparisons between the Romans and the Assyrians can be made, although I'd argue, that this can mainly be made for the 1st century BCE to 1st or maybe at most 2nd century AD Romans (Republic then/or Empire, both) Not so much the earlier Roman Republic or the ancient Roman origins in say, the 8th century BCE - around the time the Neo-Assyrians were just about coming to their final chapters. Soon the Achaemenid Persian Empire would emerge. Cyrus the Great and all his descendants, were on the way, just after the time of the great King Nebuchadnezzar II came to an end. He lived to about 80 ish; and we know with confidence he died 7th October 562 BCE.
And to think, that in Ancient Greece at that time of Nebuchadnezzar II's death (or, as he _really_ knew himself as - not in the Biblical Hebrew of the people of the Levant - in the Babylonian form, Nabû-kudurri-uṣur II), Socrates would not yet be born for about another 92 years. Cyrus the Great of Persia would arise after the heirs of Nabû-kudurri-uṣur II (Nebuchadnezzar II), of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, came and went; until King Nabonidus lost Babylon after a long struggle, by 539 BCE. Cyrus the Great, first Emperor of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, born in about 600 BCE, in what is now Iran of course; somewhat ominously about 5 years after Nebuchadnezzar II's reign began circa ~605 BCE. In his rise to power, he swept West, toppling Neo-Babylonian power across the map, expanding the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and finally capturing Babylon itself.
When Alexander the Great marched his Macedonian phalanxes and Companion Cavalry through the gates of Babylon in a triumphant procession in 331 BCE, around 208 years later, little could he have known - even from his teachers, like Aristotle himself, most notably - just how complex the long, winding story of Babylon had been. How, in ancient times even to the days of Alexander the Great, long, long before even the Neo-Babylonian Empire or the Assyrian Empire (Middle to Neo-Assyrian) before it, Babylon was already at least 1,600-1,700 years old when he marched into it in most archaeological and historical sources.
However, it had certainly began even further back in time than 4,000 years Before Present (BP) More like >4,150-4,250 BP, at least. That is, as a small town or village. There are Akkadian clay tablet cuneiform records, from the era of King Shar-Kali-Sharri, of Babylon as a small town. Temple foundation construction is known to begin at Babylon, during his reign. It is recounted that temple foundation construction began for temples to the Goddess Annunitum (or Anunītu; their Goddess of War) and the male God Ìl-a-ba (or Ilaba/Aba)
This, I believe during King Shar Kali-Sharri's 11th year as King (he reigned from circa ~2,217 BCE to 2,193 BCE) so that would imply it was about 2,206 BCE aka ~4,228 years BP. And, are we not to presume that logically, the town had been around a bit (maybe a lot) longer than this point? It seems relatively insignificant due to how little we have to go on about those very early days, on the fringes of the power centres of Ur, Akkad, Lagash, Ummer, Kish and Uruk key examples of far more prominent, and often much older settlements, back then; and it certainly could not have been the centre of Sumerian or Akkadian activity.
Yet, it did at least merit having temples to two deities constructed even so far back as that, so you'd imagine it would at least be a few decades older by absolute oldest origin, than the temples being built there. Or maybe it was all rather sudden and the town was brand new. It's very difficult to tell. Either way, I think an approximation of circa ~4,228 BP by age is fair. There'd be some Sumerian and Akkadian settlements with a history going back over 6,000 BP - if not 7,500 BP in terms of their most primitive villages prior to the rise of Ur by at least 6,000 years ago.
By about 5,000-4,900 BP, Ur had a population estimated at 50,000-60,000 people. Incredible for the time, especially considering that in what was ancient Britain at the same time, Stonehenge in it's earliest form, had just begun to be built in the ritual landscape of what was known later as, Wiltshire, England. Now, if Babylon really began closer to when Stonehenge was first begun (as a wooden and earthen monument, until eventually replaced with Sarsen and Blue Lintel stones, a while later) circa ~5,100-5,000 BP, than when Shar-Kali-Sharri was alive and reigning over the Akkadian Empire (about 4,200 BP, 800-900 years after Stonehenge's first phase of construction began in it's wooden form - in a much older, already ritualistic, Neolithic, spiritual landscape, with it's many other ritual monuments and burial sites going back much further than Stonehenge) then the uppermost age of Babylon could be considerably greater than we may realise at least if we just go off the clay tablets.
Was Babylon just not mentioned or will there be some substantiating evidence translated from one of the very many untranslated clay tablets (there are tens of thousands) which are yet to be studied properly? Who knows. Suffice it to say, I would argue it could be quite a bit older than 4,200 ish years old. More like 4,500 years old at least, seems logical to me (could it really have been given significant temples just a few years after it was 'founded'? - maybe, but I do not believe that) I am guessing it'd be at least a few generations older than that time, and in it's very most rudimentary phase, likely being a mere cluster of mud-brick nomad's and/or farmer's dwellings by the banks of the Euphrates. Potentially, it'd be a _few centuries_ older than the time of King Shar-Kali-Sharri of Akkad.
In any case, Alexander the Great could have never known that. He'd possibly have some vague idea of the ancient civilisations of the East, but most of that context was long lost (see Xenophon's Anabasis, and the story of the 10,000) Few, if indeed, any, could have ever known whom had built those great cities, barren and lifeless, long abandoned and ruined. Few could know precisely whom wrote the clay tablets, in spite of how powerful they had been.
[part 3/4] Xenophon and his men did ask locals in the area, and they merely told the Greeks, whom were far from home as mercenaries, 'it might have been the Medeans'. It wasn't. When Xenophon saw ruins by the banks of the Tigris, he had actually seen Assyrian cities (and some which began as Akkadian or Sumerian cities, even prior to that)
This was around 70 years before Alexander the Great entered Babylon, and little had changed in the true knowledge of the region the Greeks had. Even the Greek peoples whom had lived in Ionia in what is now Turkey, could not have known. It was beyond the scholars of the Hellenistic world to understand. Mostly, they made things up to make up for these huge gaps in what they _really_ knew. Nobody even knew, lucidly, the true story, in that region. Not by then. The Babylonians had become part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, as I said, in Cyrus the Great's time, about 140 years _before_ Xenophon and the 10,000 campaigned in the lands of Mesopotamia for those whom hired them on what was a lost cause.
The Macedonians knew no better than Aristotle, about what was really going on there. They saw it all as a nebulous Persian territory, though were far removed from the reality of the times and peoples that had wrought those cities in the deserts. They neither, could have known of the shifting of the rivers, and the way it left some once opulent and verdant cities, fed by well dug canals, high and dry, and abandoned. And it may have astonished the Greeks to know many of those cities began at least 2,000 years before this time, itself over 2,420 BP (compared to 2023 AD)
When the marching columns of sarissa pikes of Alexander's phalangites of Macedon, up to 21-23 feet long apiece, passed under the Ishtar Gate in 331 BCE - these pikes 2/3 the height of the archway and about 1/2 the height of the entire gate structure - the soldiers carrying them marvelled at the opulence and splendour of what had been a Persian controlled, Babylonian city. The lapis lazuli effect Ishtar Gate, not built from lapis lazuli (that would have been far too expensive and impractical for just about anyone), would have looked dazzling to the Macedonians. They marched through the Procession Way, to the Palaces and Ziggurats of the city, and revelled in what had been a glorious victory over the Persians in multiple battles, to clear the path to Babylon. Darius III, fleeing into the Mountains, soon to be betrayed and murdered by his own men, of whom he could trust few anymore.
Imagine if Alexander could have but known what majesty Babylon truly represented. Long before Abrahamic faiths had fully sealed the reputational fate of Babylon, as some depraved Tower of Babel in the desert, destroyed by God's wrath. Think of the Crusades of the 11th century AD onward, and their struggle against Islam, and the retaliation to Islamic invasions going back to the early 7th century AD. Think of all that had gone before. Babylon was at least 3,200, likely 3,500 years old, when Knights of Christendom fought over Jerusalem.
Think of the way the Assyrians had left a dark legacy which the Hebrews, Israelites and Judeans had exploited in their own gleeful disdain for the Mesopotamians. Think of how it was their narrative which informed Christian narratives later on, regarding that region. Think of the relative innocence of the Christians in their lack of knowledge on those long lost cultures. How easily they were to follow the same old line about Babylon told in the same old lies. Ancient propaganda, even in the Medieval Crusader period (which was practically 'recent' compared to the Assyrian Empire)
Imagine the look on Alexander's face, had he known what we know now. How, when his people were nothing more than goat herders, hunters and hill tribesmen on the 'uncivilised' Northern fringes of the Hellenistic world, centuries before his birth, the city of Babylon had already been around for a thousand years before that again, and then some. Imagine how humbled he would have been, to realise the might and majesty of Mesopotamia as we truly understand it now, through Archaeology. I'm sure he would have been positively spellbound, and genuinely happy to know some of the things we know.
It would, I'm sure, have only convinced him further, of the need to build bridges and to try and forge lasting legacies in the region. Alas, for the Wars of the Diadochi, after Alexander's tragically untimely, youthful passing, in 323 BCE in Babylon. Imagine if he had lived twice or thrice as long at least. Imagine had he presided over an Empire of conscience and cultural grandeur. Many monarchs have their expansionist phase. Many war heroes have their glory years, before that time when they turn to peace and city building, the development of the arts and architecture.
Even the destroyer of Lachish, the typically - for the Neo-Assyrians - arrogant and obnoxious, bloodthirsty and unimaginably cruel Sennacherib, back in the 690's and 680's BCE, in the latter years of his life, turned away from war as much as he could, and genuinely did make efforts to be remembered for more than just being a larger-than-life conqueror and outright killer. Of course, skewering the defenders of Lachish on spikes and exacting hideous torture and execution on his enemies all over the map, kept him busy for a while. He wasn't what we would call, 'a nice man'.
Yet _even he_ had that artisanal streak and desire in later life, to leave different kinds of legacies. He still had a culturally-minded side to him (oh, get Sennacherib the Art student guys lol not exactly what I mean but you get the point) He was still obviously a monster in a lot of ways, but he wasn't just a thug. He did have some belief leaving monuments and buildings, making his cities better than they had been before. His army reforms were one thing yes, but he was still a builder-King as well as a warrior and butcherer of those in his way. And if _Sennacherib_ and odious men like him could be that way, imagine someone as well-rounded and heroic as Alexander the Great.
Now, to _his_ enemies, Alexander could be no less a monster than Sennacherib (look at what Alexander did, albeit somewhat reluctantly, to Thebes) He was capable of horror like any conqueror worth their salt. Yet he was not quite as bad as someone like Sennacherib, let's get that damn straight here and now. He was just doing the whole, conquests of Empires thing, better than his enemies. And so came the doom of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. And no, Alexander's Empire didn't last, fracturing into the warring splinter Empires of his generals, whom squabbled over what 'belonged' to them, before Alexander's body even went cold in Babylon in 323 BCE.
Nevertheless, can you imagine if Alexander could know what we now know, and looked upon the beauty of Babylon before it was lost in that form forever, before the Rise of Islam (long before) and before the days of holy wars of the Abrahamic faiths in the Near East? Can you imagine that? I can. And it almost brings a tear to my eye just thinking about what could have been. Long before the Roman Empire, and further still before the Byzantine offshoot (aka Eastern Roman Empire aka Romanised Greeks, for the most part) Imagine a timeline where the Greek world keeps it together longer, on a grander scale than say, just the Ptolemaic Dynasty hanging on for dear life in Egypt.
Imagine had the Wars of the Diadochi never transpired (damn that Cassander, damn him, damn that man! - Cornwallis, never AD lol) Doubtlessly, their Empir would have fallen apart at some point, but even had it lasted a few generations longer, maybe Macedon would have stood a better chance of standing up to Rome) Or, maybe, as in the actual history, Rome would have eclipsed Macedon in a demonstrable fashion, and crushed the Greeks and/or Macedonians just like they did at places like Corinth and Cynoscephalae. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't even that long after Alexander, that Macedon was crushed by Rome. It's ironic, really.
Those damned Romans copied the Greeks and Macedonians (not to mention the Carthaginians and Etruscans) something fierce. In this regard, the comparison with the Assyrians is most apt. They were good at improving on military concepts which long predated them. The Romans copied the phalanx from the Greeks, outright, and originally fought more like any other tribal people, in warbands or in ritualistic or semi-ritualistic single-combat. Yet eventually, the maniples of the Roman Legions would become the infantry equivalent of Kryptonite to the Macedonian and Greek phalanxes. They were made to look dull and sluggish, compared to the Roman legionary infantry weaving past the sarissas and cutting down scores of phalangites. It was a slaughter.
[part 4/4] They made the Macedonians, Epirans and Greeks look really bad. Kind of like how the Neo-Assyrians made the Judeans and Egyptians look bad as well. What is more, the Romans carried forward the continuity of the Greco-Macedonian history, especially the Greek Pantheon of Gods they blatantly copied and renamed (e.g. Zeus = Jupiter e.g. Poseidon = Neptune e.g. Ares = Mars e.g. Aphrodite = Venus etc) Come to think of it, the Greco-Roman pagan Pantheon of Gods, being polytheistic by their very nature, were far more similar to the polytheistic Mesopotamian religions and sects, than they _ever were_ to the monotheistic Abrahamic faiths.
And in both cases, monotheism helped not only to destroy and subvert them, but also to leave entrenched misconceptions about them, lasting millennia; the pre-Christianity adopting Romans, spurned by even other Romans (Christian Romans) as 'primitive barbarians', and the Assyrians openly daemonised for many centuries longer than that by the Semitic peoples they openly tyrannised especially in the time of Sennacherib (so, you can't really blame the latter situation unfolding)
Part of why there was such a break and gap in our understanding, of those times, should be remembered as the rise of monotheism in the Mediterranean adjacent world (so to speak; i.e. in Europe and the Near to Middle East) Such peoples as the Akkadians and Sumerians, while forgotten, still would have been vaguely more relatable to say, a pagan Roman of the 2nd century BCE, at least on the matter of polytheism. It doesn't mean they'd _like_ them if they knew about them (and they had no clue about them, obviously) But the point is, they'd be more likely able to see eye to eye on certain polytheistic viewpoints. They'd be much more likely to have more of a mental roadmap of lots of different Gods and Goddesses, and see them in a coherent and lucid way.
Meanwhile, in the Abrahamic faiths, they spurned the unbelievers of the 'One True God' and would brook no dissidence. In a way, Judaism, Christianity and Islam fighting like cats and dogs for the last 1,400 or so years (although, mostly Christianity VS Islam) could be seen as more the finessing or squabbling of the ideologies and idealism of differing yet vaguely related monotheisms. It's just a more singular form of Akkadians conquering Sumerian cities, and claiming their Gods for their own, or Assyrians openly capturing 'God statues' of their enemies to 'capture the power' of their rival's deities as a common Assyrian flex, back in their day. Now, of course, the Rise of Islam is a (nightmare) subject unto itself, yet the many ups and downs of the past 1,400 years, should show us that it wasn't all as simple as red vs blue, right vs wrong. Christianity was definitely the victim, attacked first by Islam. Nobody can deny that.
Yet the 400 years of setbacks for Christianity, as Islam swept up the Middle and Near East, and even Anatolia and North Africa, were to trigger the Crusades. And as we all should know, contrary to modern revisionist lies and propaganda, the Christians weren't doing what they were doing, out of the blue, for singularly barbarous reasons. That is the way revisionist drama queen dingbats like that insufferable know-it-all cheese-ball of a 'historian' Mike Loades likes to overenthusiastically spout off about. That is the low IQ take of weird subversion mouthpieces corrupting extra curricular education, that deceivers like him like to propagate.
Heaven forbid we see things from a higher perspective than 'WEST BAD' or 'CHRISTIANS BAD'. Heaven forbid we actually give them a fair appraisal. Were the Crusaders capable of horror? Of course. No less Alexander. Certainly not as bad as the Mongols or the Assyrians, in terms of sheer cruelty (cue revisionists lying about the knee deep boulevards of blood in Jerusalem, during the recapture of Jerusalem in the First Crusade; yes it was horrific, no it wasn't as bad as is often claimed) Ironically, everyone 'just kind of forgets' about the Muslim, Rashidun Caliphate capture of Jerusalem _from the Byzantines_ in 637 AD. In the short-term, the Jews were happy about that, because it allowed them to practice their faith and pilgrimage openly to Jerusalem (the Byzantines had at least temporarily banned them, before they were kicked out of the region by the mercilessly expansionist and unrelenting Muslim tide spreading from Baghdad to begin with)
The Byzantines really made a mess of things and got kicked around a lot, sadly for them. They'd fought the Persian Sassanids/Sasanians for 26 years in the Byzantine-Sassanian War. And then Islam just emerged to obliterate both of them (the Zoroastrianism majority Sassanians, were annihilated by the Muslims, and forced to capitulate to the caliphate) The Jews became less happy about Jerusalem being under Islamic rule, when the Dhimmi tax came along. The Christians, in spite of still being a persecuted majority in those lands in the 600's AD, were soon bullied, murdered and discouraged from travelling their enough, that their numbers plummeted. You won't hear about that in any UK schools now, sadly enough. You might just be told about how mean the Crusaders were in Jerusalem, though. Even though, it was a major retaliation to four centuries of humiliation and misery from Iberia to Constantinople.
Little wonder perceptions of Babylon were so utterly ruined (much more so than the city itself) long after the time anyone could have defended that image. That is part of why I can't help but dislike the Assyrians. Like the Normans, they were just too destructive and easy to see as villainous presence. Because, they absolutely were. At least the Romans were more of a 'magpie' faction, often bettering things they'd taken inspiration from (cough stolen) from others. They robbed the idea for the arch from the Etruscans; though they eventually took that and turned two overlapping each other, into a vaulted ceiling.
They stole the phalanx and the bireme from the Greeks; but they eventually bettered those concepts on land and at sea, with better infantry tactics and far better warships (albeit, learning as many lessons from copying Carthaginian ships; e.g. literally reverse engineering one that ran aground in Sicily during the First Punic War) They liked to call civilisations as disparate as the Britons and the Persians, 'barbarians', even though they had many things which made them just as interesting as the Romans (albeit, just not as advanced for an Iron Age faction)
Yet the Romans were repeatedly humiliated by various Persian factions e.g. especially the Parthians, and sometimes got a bloody nose from the Britons (see Julius Caesar's campaign; see the Iceni Rebellion during Emperor Claudius' day - at least, while it was winning battles, before it's abrupt and catastrophic defeat; they wiped out half a Roman legion in one day, lest we forget, in an ambush, before burning Londinium down; it wasn't just the Battle of Watling Street; Rome nearly lost Britannia then; shame Boudicca saw fit to Leeroy Jenkins her whole army into a blatant trap and fight the Roman war machine on their terms on an open field...alas)
If one thing let the Assyrians down, it was the fact that they were so dependant on a large standing army to march far and wide and fight one enemy at a time. When things got a bit more hectic, they really started to struggle. Their army ranged between 100,00-200,000 men, usually around 120,000 men. The Roman Empire had up to 450,000 legionaries not including likely fifty to a hundred thousand more irregular troops spread out across the Empire. At least, at it's _very_ height. That would only be for a certain amount of time, though. Towards the end, their peak military numbers were lucky to reach a tenth of that. And when Constantinople fell, so tragically, to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 AD, merely 7,000 or so men defended the gaunt and already crumbling city. Heart breaking.
And yet again, geography around the Mediterranean world, makes that world feel small all the time; Alexander the Great had once crossed the Hellespont (Dardanelles) into Anatolia, before rampaging across and rolling up, the entire Achaemenid Persian Empire, and beyond, into the unknown (the subcontinent of India, for instance) Again, I can only imagine Alexander's face, had he known all of that, and realised what had gone before him in so much better clarity than he did in real life.
Superstition and make believe, Aristotle style, replaced with hard archaeological evidence. Imagine what Alexander could have done, having awareness of that incredibly ancient past. Had he not died young, he could have spent the rest of his life, consolidating European influence over the region. In the actual history, that later fell to the Romans. Yet, like the Assyrians, they'd veered too often into horror and unyielding smugness, and they made everyone hate them even though they did so much and achieved great things (see Reg's 'What have the Romans ever done for us' scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian, you get the idea lol) If only Alexander could have known.
The Assyrians seem like if ISIS had an empire.
Will the Lotus Chads cover Irelands and England's history, from Henery II? Please.
Barbaric to a modern day Brit? 🧐
Butcher and bolt👈🏻WW2 Commando
That is the exact words Churchill used to describe what he expected from the Commando.
He knew there was no playing around.
Curly-haired people are sus...
The goats!
iraq is a very ancient arabic names from the antiquity, may be he's is originated from other ancient languages
Why did Assyrians invent writing?
So they can keep track of how many people they butchered.
Delos was the slave island within the Roman Empire.
Man, I love these history videos. This one is really, really good. What I find especially interesting is thatyou don't just say, "X happened, then Y happened, then Z happened." Delving into the whys and wherefores of events, ancient philosophies, etc., that's what makes these videos especially interesting, so thank you. :) On a side note, I'm pretty sure the slave clearinghouse island was Delos.
*Promosm*