A Companion to Assyria

by Eckart Frahm

  Since the language of the text is Old Assyrian and it was found among a sea of mercantile documents at Kaniš, it is legitimate to include it under the rubric of Old Assyrian literature. Dercksen points out, however, that all the metaphors and similes contained in the text have parallels in Old Akkadian and Neo‐Sumerian royal historical and literary texts, and that its central themes are well founded in the literature that grew up in Mesopotamia around the deeds of Sargon of Akkad. He emphasizes that although we only know the text from the Old Assyrian colony where it was found, it could go back to an original from the heartland of Assyria, or even be an Old Assyrian translation or adaptation of an original Babylonian prototype. Dercksen points out that this background of cultural borrowing also applies to the few Old Assyrian incantations that are known and that, together with the present text, constitute all that is known of literature from the Old Assyrian period.

  Middle Assyrian Period

  Middle Assyrian literature is only slightly more diverse in its content, consisting as so far known only of an epic about Tukulti‐Ninurta I (plus a few fragments of similar epics regarding the reigns of other kings), a short martial poem, dubbed by Foster “The Hunter,” and some royal hymns and associated material.

  The Epic of Tukulti‐Ninurta I (Foster 2005: 298–317) commences with a paean of praise to the king himself and the god Ashur, moving on swiftly to the king’s previous exploits. After a lacuna the main subject of the epic, the wars in Babylonia, is introduced by accusing the Kassite king Kaštiliaš of behavior such as would annoy the gods of Babylonia and make them less likely to protect the land. Following some badly preserved text, captured Babylonian merchants accused of spying in Assyria are brought before the king, who magnanimously releases them. After a warning to Kaštiliaš, the attack on Babylonia proceeds with devastating results and the confiscation of numerous cuneiform texts that are brought to Assyria. The language of the epic is graphic and the course of events recounted in a lively style. The “Hunter” (Foster 2005: 336–7) is a short epic text recounting the violent campaigning of an unspecified Assyrian king, most likely Tiglath‐pileser I, in the mountain lands.

  There is a short hymn to Tiglath‐pileser I celebrating his military prowess, but the best preserved Middle Assyrian hymn is from the reign of Aššurnaṣirpal I, from the mid‐11th century BCE (Foster 2005: 327–30). The speaker and supplicant is the king himself; the goddess invoked at the outset as “she who dwells in the temple Emašmaš” is Ištar of Nineveh. Her divine genealogy is established, and that she exercises all kingship. After additional standard epithets, the king declares that he is to bare his soul to the goddess. The king presents himself as the sustainer of her cult, including making abundant the beer she so loves. There then follows an extensive passage drawing from the righteous sufferer genre of cuneiform literature. In spite of being the chosen one and having been diligent in all his duties the king has become inflicted with disease. He has lost his appetite; alcohol is disgusting to him, and this is only part of his malaise. There is then a final section in which Aššurnaṣirpal implores Ištar of Nineveh to restore him to health and beseeches her to take his part with her beloved Assur, father of the gods. A second poem is also certainly in the voice of Ashurnasirpal I, and probably likewise directed to Ištar of Nineveh (Foster 2005: 331–3).

  Neo‐Assyrian Period

  The Neo‐Assyrian tradition of “literature” in the strict sense begins under Sargon II, who commissioned a hymn to Nanaya with blessings for himself (Livingstone 1989: no. 4). True to type for the warrior king the hymn dwells on the warlike aspect of the goddess’s character as well as the essential nature of her involvement in all human activity.

  The hymn to the city of Uruk (Livingstone 1989: no. 9) and the blessings and celebrations for the Assyrian metropolis towns of Assur and Arbela (Livingstone 1989: nos. 8 and 10) represent a small but distinct genre also known from a few texts from Babylonia. The Uruk hymn takes the form of an address to Uruk and other Mesopotamian cities. The voice of the speaker in the Uruk hymn is not revealed but declaims, “O Uruk! I love Esagil (the temple of Marduk in Babylon), the house of my veiling!” It is therefore a female one and since it also declares that Babylon is her father’s house and cries out: “O Uruk! I love Borsippa, house of my kingship! O Uruk! I love Ezida, along with Nabû!,” it must be the voice of Tašmetu, whose father‐in‐law was Marduk of Babylon. The purpose of the hymn is syncretistic but also political: Tašmetu loves not only Babylon and Borsippa but also the other cult cities of Babylonia together with their respective deities, and the Inner City, that is to say the city of Ashur, together with the god Assur, Nineveh, along with Mullissu, Arbela, also with Mullissu, Kalu along with Ninurta, and arran along with Sîn. The liturgy goes on to explain that the fires of the temples of Uruk and Babylon consume her and that she ponders the affairs of Uruk in her heart. The work as a whole relates to a type of thinking current from the times of the late Kassite dynasty onward that seeks to use one deity as a focal point for others. From a political and propaganda perspective a paean to the city of Uruk such as this one – and in Neo‐Assyrian dialect to boot – can only relate to the pivotal position occupied by Uruk in the Assyro‐Babylonian political quagmire.

  The blessings and celebrations for the other two cities, Ashur and Arbela, are much more straightforward in character as can be seen from some short extracts: “Arbela, O Arbela, Heaven without equal, Arbela! City of festivals, Arbela! … Its foundations are as firm as the heavens. … Tribute from all lands enters into it. …Those who leave Arbela and those who enter it are glad. … The Lady is seated on a lion, on a […]; mighty lions crouch beneath her!” The blessings for Ashur, the only extant manuscript of which belongs to the reign of King Esarhaddon as it mentions his name, are no less exuberant but focus on events within the city that would directly involve the citizens themselves: “May joy of the heart be established; let constant joy come in, come in! Pour oil into skull‐sized containers, pluck countless amounts of wool, increase the bread, make abundant the beer! … Release the hand of the […], draw the weak into the breath of the gods, let the harvest of the land be good! … It is the day of the race of Nabû, it is a day of Ayyar, a favorable month. On your right and on your left, while traversing the streets of his city, while deciding the decisions of the city, wherever we enter there is abundance and prosperity! The city rejoices at the roads that we pass!”

  The remaining hymnic material centers on King Assurbanipal and includes praise poems on Ištar of Nineveh, Nanaya, and the god Assur. The signature pieces however are a coronation hymn to Assurbanipal (Livingstone 1989: no. 11) and an acrostic hymn of the same king to Marduk and Zarpanitu (Livingstone 1989: no. 2). There is no reason to doubt that the coronation hymn was composed on the occasion of Assurbanipal’s accession to the throne and the idea is supported by internal evidence. It is known that 669 BCE coincided with a period of unusual prosperity in Assyria and this is reflected in an exhortation within the hymn that the people of Assur enjoy low prices with specifics given for the three main staple goods, grain, oil, and wool. Although our knowledge of Neo‐Assyrian literature is primarily rooted in the contents of the late libraries, the existence of a centuries‐long tradition is seen once again here, since passages of Assurbanipal’s coronation hymn echo passages in a short Middle Assyrian coronation hymn embedded in a complex and much longer ritual.

  The coronation hymn concludes with an independent, ruled off passage consisting of three sections of text in which “he,” presumably the priest, pronounces blessings as he opens the censer placed before Šamaš. The first is a blessing in which the five male gods Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Nergal and Nusku each give to Assurbanipal an attribute appropriate to his own office. This is followed by a section of curses against those who would harm or threaten Assurbanipal. The third section calls on the “gods of heaven and earth” to gather and bless “king Assurbanipal, the circumspect man,” and to “place in his hand the weapon of war and battle and give
him the black‐headed people, that he may rule as their shepherd.” The first section is closely paralleled by a text on a Babylonian tablet from Assur where it is juxtaposed to another Babylonian text that speaks of the creation of “the king, the circumspect man.” Whether the idea of the separate creation of the king apart from the rest of humanity would have been interesting to Assurbanipal and his scholars must remain a matter of speculation, but the occurrence of the phrase “the king, the circumspect man” in both texts may not be a coincidence. In the main part of the coronation hymn the emphasis is on Assur and Šerua, whereas the Babylonian deities Marduk, Zarpanitu, and Nabû are missing. The ruled off section, however, is a nod to the ancient gods of Babylonia.

  In Assurbanipal’s acrostic hymn to Marduk and Zarpanitu the acrostic reads: “I am Assurbanipal, who has called out to you: give me life and I will praise you!” The hymn is well preserved and the total compass of almost seventy lines gives the author latitude to ring the chains on Marduk’s attributes, achievements, and greatness from a first millennium BCE perspective. Just to give a few examples, post Enūma eliš it is Marduk who is the creator god and it is he who rescued the cosmos from chaos by slaying the Anzû monster‐bird. Tying in with rationalizing trends in first millennium BCE theology, he bears the attributes of the greatest gods of the early second millennium BCE, Anu, Enlil, and Ea, here Ninšiku. Holding fast the tablet of destinies, it is he who has raised Assurbanipal to supreme temporal power. There is also reference to Assurbanipal as the wise king, with an epithet alluding again to the notion of the “circumspect man” known from the coronation hymn. At the end of the text, the king describes himself as a “humble, pious scholar,” reflecting his literacy.

  Neo‐Assyrian literature includes a small amount of elegiac poetry (Livingstone 1989: no. 12–16). There is an elegy in memory of a woman and one mourning over the death of Tammuz, both Neo‐Assyrian in language. Also to be discussed here are three other texts of elegiac type from three other genres well known in Mesopotamian literature, the righteous sufferer, a dialogue, and love lyrics. In twenty lines the elegy in memory of a woman (Livingstone 1989: no. 15; George 2010) is a short but effective piece of literature. The woman, in childbirth, is “cast adrift, like a boat in midstream.” Her crossbars are broken, tows cut, and her face veiled as she crosses a river, probably an allusion to the river of death; she flashes back to her happiness as a young bride but then remembers how her plea to the mother goddess to save her life went unheard so that death slunk into her bedroom and set her feet toward the land of no return. The Tammuz elegy (Livingstone 1989: no. 16) does not actually mention the god but fits into the genre. At fifty‐seven lines it is much longer than the previous text and is also more complicated and obscure in its allusions. The text is divided into eight sections, each of which has its own point of focus within the overall theme of lamentation and despair, and may be a series of excerpts. Parts of the text are poorly preserved. The better preserved sections speak of a faithful Babylonian merchant who has come to grief while other sections chart the destruction of a household, the cutting down of canebrakes, forests, and orchards. Consistently throughout the text the language is striking and abrupt. The love lyrics, between Nabû and Tašmetu (Livingstone 1989: no. 14), are in Neo‐Assyrian dialect but use imagery familiar from older Mesopotamian love poetry: love games precede the entry into the bedroom, Tašmetu’s thighs are a gazelle in the plain, her ankle bones an apple of the month Siman. The righteous sufferer’s prayer to Nabû (Livingstone 1989: no. 12) is also in Neo‐Assyrian dialect and pursues motifs familiar from the genre as known from Babylonia. The dialogue between Assurbanipal and Nabû (Livingstone 1989: no. 13), on the other hand, belongs to those texts that develop themes in the nature of the king’s relationship to his gods, in the present case Nabû and in particular Ištar of Nineveh. It is reasonable to assume that the connection with Nabû is bound up with the god’s role as patron of writing and with Assurbanipal’s own literacy, while references to Ištar of Nineveh and the Emašmaš continue the long tradition of the deity and the Assyrian kings’ patronage of her temple.

  Among the epical poetry in praise of Assyrian kings what might have been the most important text is also the least well preserved one (Livingstone 1989: no. 19). The text speaks in the first person of “treading the road of Tiamat” and “opening a gate of righteousness”; what is particularly significant, though, is the phrase “Assurbanipal opened his mouth (and spoke).” This is followed by reported speech addressing a female, most likely to be a deity and if so then Ištar. This shows unequivocally that at least an attempt was made by the scholars at Assurbanipal’s court to produce an epic poem about his exploits following the muster of the traditional epic verse poetry of Babylonia found in Gilgameš, the Epic of Creation, Erra, and elsewhere. The remaining royal epic texts are in elevated prose. The text Shalmaneser in Ararat (Livingstone 1989: no. 17), stemming from the provincial Neo‐Assyrian library at uzirina, modern Sultantepe, commences with an invocation to Ištar of Nineveh and recounts the events of the campaign in an epic style that differs from the annals, even including orders by the king in the first person to his general and an exhortation of his men to bravery. One poorly preserved text (Livingstone 1989: no. 18) recounts a campaign by Sargon II, and the remaining three texts that are sufficiently preserved to yield connected sense tell of Assurbanipal’s wars in Elam (Livingstone 1989: nos. 20–2).

  The epistolary art was cultivated at the Neo‐Assyrian court; many routine letters addressed by scholars at the court to the kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal demonstrate literary flair as well as erudition. Apart from these, however, there are a number of letters that follow a different format and are best classified as literature. Primacy among these must be attributed to a group of six letters that follow the conceit that they were composed and addressed by the god Assur to specific Assyrian kings (Livingstone 1989: nos. 41–7). In their conceptualization these letters recall the Eighth Campaign of Sargon II, which takes the reverse form of a letter to the god Assur and is written in vivid poetic language. While no letter from Assur to this king is preserved, the six texts referred to above are primarily responses to information received about the kings’ military achievements on campaign. The oldest is a letter from Assur to Šamši‐Adad V of which the extant text is divided into three sections. The first two concern campaigns to Nemetti‐šarri and Der in northern Babylonia, while the third addresses a campaign to Elam. Of the remaining texts three are too damaged to provide much hint to their content, two are responses by Assur to Assurbanipal’s reports on his wars against his brother Šamaš‐šumu‐ukin and against Elam, while in the last Ninurta as Babylonian god of war addresses an indeterminate Assyrian king. The literary pattern of these divine letters is consistent. The god declaims: “As to what you wrote me” and then quotes the king’s report on his activities, while interpolating comments such as “That happened at the command of my great divinity!” The existence of such letters is evidence of the complexity of the relationship between the kings of Assyria and their advisers and scholars, as well as the complexity of their perceived relationship with the gods. Apart from the divine correspondence there is a finely crafted letter to Assurbanipal from one of his sons (Livingstone 1989: no. 25), which includes well known religious motifs such as Šamaš and Ištar going at the king’s right and left. The letter also includes more imaginative imagery: the king’s military success is described in the terminology used for winning tactics in the royal game of Ur or a similar game.

  A final group of Neo‐Assyrian literary texts have previously, and perhaps wrongly, been loosely aligned under the rubric propaganda (Livingstone 1989: nos. 29–33).1 These include two curious pieces of invective concerning a named Babylonian individual, a text about Assurbanipal’s defeat of the Elamite king Teumman and the Assyrian annexation of Elam, and the texts conventionally known as the Underworld Vision of an Assyrian Crown Prince, the Sin of Sargon and the Marduk Ordeal. Within the corpus these ar
e the most difficult texts since their contents are deeply embedded in the complex religion and politics of the period but also the psyche – often convoluted – of rulers who were struggling to hold together a dynasty and an empire.

  The two pieces of invective against the Babylonian, Bel‐eṭir son of Ibaya, a notorious freedom fighter and thorn in the side of the Assyrian crown (Livingstone 1989: nos. 29–30), take the form of literature and are full of scurrilous language. Political references and the mention of the names of Elamite princes who were being educated and indoctrinated at the Neo‐Assyrian court show that these texts belong to the reign of Assurbanipal. The first is presented as belonging to the genre of “narû literature” – taking on the conceit that it was originally written, prophetically, on a stele (narû) – and citing in its opening lines the Cuthean Legend of Naram‐Sîn, the message of which was not to undertake hostilities. The second is presented as if it were an incantation. Here, interspersed with political references, the language is even more vituperative. Bel‐eṭir is not only a raped captive with runny and squinting eyes, he is an “unspecified deadline, shit bucket of a farter, servant of a dead god, house whose star has disappeared from the heavens,” and much more.