Western civilization began on a small plain in southwest Asia. Here 50 centuries ago cities rose, government developed, and great inventions—including writing—were made. The civilization that was born here spread westward to Palestine, Greece, and Rome.

From these Mediterranean lands it entered the mainstream of Western civilization. The Babylonian plain is very fertile. The land was built up of mud and clay deposited by two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. These twin rivers come down from mountains in the north, cut southeastward through hilly grasslands, and finally cross the plain they created to reach the Persian Gulf. The Greeks named the land between them Mesopotamia, “land between the rivers.” Today it is called Iraq. Tradition says the Garden of Eden was here.

Three main peoples contributed to the civilization of Mesopotamia. The earliest group were the Sumerians. They lived in a small county-sized area located around the mouths of the two rivers in a land called Sumer (in the Bible, Shinar). These people, who probably came from Anatolia (Asia Minor) in about 3300 BC, developed a culture that spread to nearby Semitic peoples. By 1800 BC political power had moved north up the Euphrates to the Semitic city of Babylon in Akkad. The entire plain then became known as Babylonia.

Centuries later the center of power moved north once more to warlike Assyria, in the rolling hill country of the upper Tigris Valley. Before the Sumerians appeared on the land, it had been occupied by a non-Semitic people, referred to as Ubaidians. Their name comes from the village of Al Ubaid, in which their remains were first found by archaeologists. The Ubaidians settled the region between 4500 and 4000 BC. They drained the marshes and introduced agriculture. They also developed trade based on small handicraft industries such as metalwork, leather goods, and pottery. Assyrian Empire At Its Height Sargon II Little is known of the course of events in Sargon’s reign after 708 B.C. It is clear, however, that during this period his city and palace of Dur Sharrukin were completed and occupied. The king had lived principally at Kalkhi, where he had restored the famous Ashurnacirpal palace (sect. 170). But his overmastering ambition suggested to him an achievement which had not entered into the minds of his predecessors. They had erected palaces. He would build a city in which his palace should stand. For this purpose, with an eye to the natural beauty of the location, he chose a plain to the northeast of Nineveh, well watered and fertile, in full view of the mountains. A rectangle was marked out, its sides more than a mile in length, its corners lying on the four cardinal points. It was surrounded by walls nearly fifty feet in height, on which at regular intervals rose towers to a further height of some fifteen feet. Eight gates elaborately finished and dedicated to the gods (sect. 204) gave entrance through these walls into the city, which was laid out with streets and parks in a thoroughly modern fashion, and was capable of housing eighty thousand people.

Upon the northwest side stood the royal palace on an artificial elevation raised to the height of the wall. This mound was in the shape of the letter T, the base projecting from the outer wall, the arms falling within and facing the city. An area of about twenty-five acres thus obtained was completely covered by the palace, which consisted of a complex of rooms, courts, towers, and gardens, numbering in all not less than two hundred. The main entrance was from the city front through a most splendid gateway which admitted to the central square. From its three sides opened the three main quarters of the palace, to the right the storehouses, to the left the harem, and directly across, the king’s apartments and the court rooms.

This latter portion was finished in the highest artistic fashion of the period. The halls were lined with bas-reliefs of the king’s campaigns; the doorways were flanked with winged bulls, and the archways adorned with bands of enamelled tiles. In the less elaborate chambers colored stucco and frescoes are found. The artistic character of the bas-reliefs, however, is not distinctly higher than that of previous periods. The variety of detail already noted as appearing in the bronzes of Shalmaneser II. (sect. 175) is the most striking characteristic of these sculptures. It is in the mechanical skill displayed, in the finish of the tiling, in the coloring of the frescoes, in the modelling of the furniture, in the forms of weapons and the like, that the art here exhibited is chiefly remarkable. In addition, the colossal character of the whole design of city and palace, culminating in the lofty ziggurat, with its seven stories in different colors, rising to the height of one hundred and forty feet from the court in the middle of the southwest face of the palace mound, gives a vivid impression of the wealth, resourcefulness, and magnificent powers of the Assyrian empire as it lay in the hand of Sargon, who brought it to its height and gave it this unique monument. Sargon’s administration of the empire reveals a curious mixture of progressiveness and conservatism, of strength and weakness, which makes the task of estimating his ability and achievement not a little difficult. His reign was one series of wars, yet a large number of his campaigns were against petty tribes and insignificant peoples. Over against his good generalship, illustrated in the skilful campaign of 710 B.C. against Mardukbaliddin, must be placed the serious reverse in the same region in 721 B.C. Good fortune did much for him in Babylonia and in the west, where rebellious combinations never materialized. He overthrew his enemies in detail or found them deserted by those who had promised help. It is evident that Urartu itself offered him nothing like the resistance it had shown to Tiglathpileser III. His system of provincial government, involving the exchange of populations, was an inheritance from his predecessors. He carried it out more extensively, establishing provinces on all borders and deporting peoples from one end of the empire to the other in enormous numbers. His new city of Dur Sharrukin was composed almost entirely of the odds and ends of populations from every part of his domains.

So intent on making provinces was he, that he seems at times to take advantage of insignificant difficulties in vassal kingdoms to overturn the government and incorporate them into the empire. Was he wise in this? Or was the policy of Tiglathpileser III. more far-sighted? He, while establishing provinces in important centres, not only permitted vassal kings to hold their thrones, but even encouraged the growth of such states, as in the case of the kingdom of the Mannai. The task of organizing and unifying this mass of provinces and of meeting the responsibilities of their administration was certainly severe. National spirit had disappeared with the deportation of the people, and imperial attachment had to be fostered in its place. All the details of government and administration, left otherwise to local and tribal officials, must be taken over by the imperial administration. Officials had to be obtained and trained. Military forces must be maintained for their protection and authority. If Sargon had before him the vision of a mighty organization like this, he had not wisely estimated the difficulties of its successful maintenance. As ruler of Babylon, he particularly felt the inconvenience of presenting himself yearly at the city to receive the royal office at the hands of Bel, and therefore contented himself with the title of “Governor” (Shakkanak Bel), by which he exercised the power, even if he must forego the honors, of kingship. A severer indictment against Sargon is found by those who hold that he reversed the policy of Tiglathpileser III. relative to the priesthood (sect. 203). An immediate result of this would be the substitution of a mercenary soldiery for the usual native troops. Sargon certainly revived the policy instituted by Shalmaneser II. of incorporating the soldiers of conquered states into his armies. His inscriptions testify to this in the case of Samaria, Tabal, Karkhemish, and Qummukh. But the maintenance of mercenary troops involves their employment in constant wars to keep them active and secure them booty. When these fail, they sell themselves to a higher bidder, or turn their arms against the state. The policy of Sargon also involved the subordination of the Assyrian peasantry to the commercial and industrial interests of the state or to the possessors of great landed estates. The burdens of taxes fell upon the farmers even more heavily. They dwindled away, became serfs on the estates, or slaves in the manufactories, and their places were supplied by aliens from without, transplanted into the native soil. Thus the state as organized by Sargon became more and more an artificial structure, of splendid proportions, indeed, but the foundations of which were altogether insufficient. Whether this judgment is unduly severe or not, it is clear that none of these evils appeared in the king’s time.

Assyria was never so great in extent, never so rich in silver and gold and all precious things, never so brilliant in the achievements of art and architecture, never more devoted to the gods and their temples. Nor was Sargon unmindful of the economic welfare of his country, as his inscriptions testify. He directed his attention to the colonization of ruined sites, to the planting of fields, to making the barren hills productive, and causing the waste dry lands to bring forth grain, to rebuilding reservoirs and dams for irrigation. He sought to fill the granaries with food, to protect the needy against want, to make oil cheap, to make sesame of the same price with corn, and to establish a uniform price for all commodities. When he had settled strangers from the four quarters of the earth in his new city, he sent to them Assyrians, men of knowledge and insight, learned men and scribes, to teach them the fear of God and the king (Cyl. Inscr., ABL, pp. 62 ff.). These were high conceptions of the responsibilities of empire, however imperfectly they may have been realized. Hardly had Sargon been settled in his new city and palace when his end came. A violent death is recorded, but whether in battle or by a murderer’s hand in his palace, the broken lines of the inscription do not make clear. His son and heir, Sennacherib, was summoned from the frontier, where he was acting as general, and without opposition ascended the throne toward the close of July, 705 B.C.