The Concubine's Son

by H A CULLEY

  He looked at the demoralised rabble that streamed past him and wondered if they would stop when they reached Upi. He felt certain that a small cities like Tutub and Akshak would keep their gates closed against them. Even if they did reach Upi, could they be remoulded into a fighting force again? He doubted it and didn’t want to risk demoralised men infecting his own army. Perhaps they would settle at Upi and provide the manpower that Ashlatum was desperate for?

  He hoped that he had sent a large enough escort with his wife and son; dispirited and desperate soldiers were capable of any atrocity. He put the thought from his mind and concentrated on the job in hand.

  After about half an hour most of the fleeing Eshnunnans had passed them and the Babylonians could now see the Elamite chariots cutting down the stragglers as they came towards them. Groves of olives and figs grew on either side of the road so the chariots were confined to the road and the narrow strip of land than ran between the fenced groves. The Elamites were disorganised and intent on their prey. They didn’t notice the Babylonians until it was too late.

  Hammurabi spread his chariots across their route of advance with the horse drawn ones in the front rank. The horsemen and the camels broke down the fence at one point and threaded their way through the trees so that they could attack from the flank. The light chariots charged and, as they reached the leading chariots of the enemy, the Babylonians started to pepper them with arrows and javelins. There were perhaps a hundred Elamite chariots and that first charge accounted for fifteen of them: either the onagers were killed or the occupants; sometimes both. As the light chariots wheeled and returned to the rear before they got bogged down in the main body of the enemy, the Babylonian heavy chariots hit the next group of enemy chariots. The Babylonians were outnumbered four to one but, as they struck the Elamites the horsemen and the camels hit them from the flank.

  By the time that they withdrew again another thirty enemy chariots had been put out of action. The Babylonians had suffered casualties too. Five of the onager drawn chariots were out of action and a few horses and camels had been killed or badly wounded.

  Having lost half their number, the Elamites broke off the fight and started to return towards Eshnunna. It was a mistake. Now the light chariots and the mounted men could pick them off as they fled in their much slower heavy chariots. Long before the walls of Eshnunna came in sight they had overtaken and destroyed the last Elamite chariot.

  Hammurabi led his men onto the battlefield a mile in front of the walls of the city. It was a scene of utter devastation. Broken chariots were scattered here and there but the ground was littered with dead and dying infantry from both sides. Elam might have won the battle but they had paid a heavy price. Overhead vultures and buzzards circled calling their protest at being disturbed from the feast that lay below them. Elamite soldiers were busy looting the dead of weapons, armour, coins and anything else of value that they could find. They didn’t trouble the Babylonians; they were in scattered groups and, on foot, they couldn’t have caught the chariots or the mounted men in any case.

  There was no sign of any chariots so it looked as if Hammurabi had destroyed all the enemy ones that had survived the battle. In the distance the king could see a massive encampment. At a rough guess he estimated that it contained about twenty thousand men. They would be infantry and archers so his men were safe from them if they didn’t get too close, but he couldn’t do anything with his small force to help the besieged city.

  His men drove off the looters whilst he searched for Dadusha. Eventually he spotted an overturned chariot that had been flying the royal green banner of Eshnunna embroidered with a rising sun. Adiar’s brother lay a few feet away with three broken arrows protruding from his body. Someone had cut his throat, just to make sure he was dead. The looters had stripped him naked and left him in a pathetic heap. Hammurabi and his driver wrapped him in a cloak and placed him on the floor of one of the large four onager chariots to take him back to Upi for burial.

  Reluctantly Hammurabi gave the order to return to Upi. Arishaka pleaded with him to at least do something to help.

  ‘What do you suggest, brother? My heart is as heavy as yours is at leaving our sister surrounded by the Elamites, but there is nothing we can do with the small numbers we have here. We must return to Upi and muster the army there. All we can do is pray that the city can hold out until we return.’

  Chapter Ten – Conflict in the North – 1781 - 1779 BCE

  Once he returned to Upi, Hammurabi wasted no time in mustering the army of Babylon to relieve the city of Eshnunna. Adiar should have returned to Babylon with Samuditana but she had discovered that she was pregnant again a week after her return to Upi. After the death of her daughter, which she suspected was due to the strain she was under at the time, she was concerned about losing this one too. She was therefore reluctant to travel all that way in a jolting chariot and, in any case, she needed the comfort of her husband.

  Quite apart from the concern that her pregnancy caused her, she had just buried one brother and was worried about the other. Ibal-pi-El was her younger brother and now, presumably, king of Eshnunna. She didn’t know him well; he had only been eight when she left to marry Hammurabi and was still living with his mother. Now he must be seventeen and she regretted not having seen him grow up. She wondered what sort of a man he had become. She just hoped that he didn’t prove to be as reckless and foolhardy as Dadusha had been.

  Hammurabi was insistent that their son should return to the safety of Babylon so he asked Arishaka to take him, with instructions to return to Upi as soon as possible. However, he didn’t need to have rushed. It took a long time for the infantry to mobilise and it wasn’t until early February of the following year that enough men had assembled for him to march on Eshnunna. He had asked Assyria for help and Yasmah-Addu had promised him four thousand men from Mari, but then the stability of the region was further upset.

  Sumu-Epuh, King of Yamhad, had managed to keep his aggressive neighbours to the north and south at bay once he had concluded the treaty with Babylon. However, with the attack on Eshnunna by Elam, Babylon’s ability to come to the aid of Yamhad was negated. Both Qatna and Urshu had seized the opportunity to launch a co-ordinated attack on Yamhad.

  Powerless to intervene, Hammurabi had to wait for news to reach him at Upi. Typically it didn’t come from the north, but from Babylon. Sin-Bel-Alim brought it himself.

  ‘Lord king, I’m not the bearer of good news, I’m afraid,’ the somewhat portly foreign minister began as he climbed back to his feet after making his obeisance to Hammurabi on entering the bare room. The governor’s palace in Upi was still only partially completed, although it was being given priority, after completion of the defensive walls.

  ‘Sumu-Epuh engaged the Qatna army and defeated them a month ago. He then turned around and heeded north to deal with the invasion from Urshu but he was killed and his army fled back to Aleppo.’

  Hammurabi groaned. Not only had he lost an ally but now the idiot who ruled Mari would worry about his northern border. No doubt he would sit on his hands and await instructions from his father before he risked doing anything. Hammurabi could wave goodbye to the four thousand men from Mari.

  ‘Do we know what is happening in Yamhad at the moment?’

  ‘Yarim-Lim, Sumu-Epuh’s son, has been crowned king and is mustering another army to deal with the incursion from Urshu. That’s all I know.’

  Hammurabi thought for a while. ‘I need to resolve the situation in Eshnunna as quickly as possible, otherwise we risk being beset on all sides,’ he said decisively. ‘I can’t wait for more troops to join me. We march tomorrow.’

  It was a difficult decision for him to make. Adiar was near her time and she wanted her husband to stay until the baby was born. However, she understood that he was wracked by anxiety for his sister in Eshnunna, as she was for her surviving brother, and he wanted to relieve the city as soon as possible. Adiar struggled up to the city walls to watch Hammurabi lead the arm
y out of the large encampment that had been set up outside Upi. As she tried to hold back her tears someone came and put a hand around her shoulders to comfort her. She turned to look into the face of Ashlatum. The two women had never got on but, at this moment, she was grateful that Ashlatum was there.

  ‘Would you like to go to the temple with me and make a sacrifice for the gods to look after my sons and daughter; and, of course, Ibal-pi-El.’ Adiar realised that, whilst she was concerned for Hammurabi and her brother, Ashlatum had three of her children at risk. She nodded and the two women took one last glance at the marching army before descending and heading for the ziggurat with its nearly completed temple.

  Eshnunna might be holding out but the Elamites had captured Akshak, as he found out when the vanguard was showered with arrows when it approached the town. He couldn’t leave an enemy held stronghold in his rear so he would have to capture it before moving on. Nevertheless he sent his horsemen and camel riders on to Tutub to confirm that it too was in enemy hands. He also wanted warning of any advance by the Elamite army down the Diyala valley. Rumours were circulating that the Elamites were led by Zuuthusu and Hammurabi was fairly certain that his brother would forget about besieging Eshnunna if there was a chance of capturing him. That gave him an idea.

  ~#~

  Zuuthusu was indeed in command of the enemy forces. He had been given a mixed force of fifteen thousand tribesmen from the Zagros mountains, nine thousand militia from Susa and other Elamite cities and two hundred chariots in order to retake Eshnunna. He had been promised the throne as a sub-king of Elam if he was successful. Unfortunately he had lost half his chariots and five thousand men in the battle with Dadusha, and would have lost the battle as well if the king of Eshnunna hadn’t been so brave and foolhardy. He had led the charge by his chariots himself and, just when the Elamites were about to break and run, Dadusha had been killed.

  Immediately his men had lost heart and the tide of battle swung back in Zuuthusu’s favour. The commander of Eshnunna’s army also fell and his disheartened men had been routed. Zuuthusu had sent his remaining chariots in pursuit to make sure they didn’t rally, but his accursed brother had chosen that moment to turn up. He had lost the rest of his chariots but he still had nineteen thousand men left to besiege the city with. He had sent a request for more men and chariots to Susa but received a pretty blunt message in reply. The King of Elam and the sub-king in Susa were appalled at the loss of so many chariots and neither were about to risk losing more. Zuuthusu would have to make do with what he had.

  Leaving ten thousand men to continue the siege, Zuuthusu led the rest down the Diyala valley to capture Tutub and Akshak. They had both surrendered without a fight and, leaving a garrison of a thousand in each, he had returned to Eshnunna.

  The siege wasn’t going well. The city walls were twenty feet high with square towers every hundred yards. He had tried a direct assault with scaling ladders made from local trees but the defenders had poured pots of oil down them as soon as they had been placed against the wall and then set the oil on fire. After that his tribesmen hadn’t been prepared to try it again.

  His next ploy was to construct a battering ram made from a large tree trunk tied to axles salvaged from the broken chariots. Unfortunately the tree trunk had proved too heavy for the solid wooden chariot wheels and several had broken under the weight. It did, however, give him an idea and he managed to repair and find enough surviving onagers to produce thirty chariots.

  Zuuthusu settled down to starve the city into submission. Meanwhile, he sent out patrols to watch what was happening at Upi. At last, four months after the siege had begun, a patrol returned with news that Hammurabi was on the march.

  ‘How many men, how many chariots,’ Zuuthusu barked at the flustered patrol commander.

  ‘I don’t know, lord. Lots.’

  Zuuthusu gritted his teeth with impatience. ‘Didn’t you attempt to estimate how many? Surely you could see how many chariots he has?’

  ‘Well, there were over a score of riders on strange looking onagers in the lead,’ he began.

  ‘You mean horses.’ Then Zuuthusu realised that the tribesman had probably never seen a horse.

  ‘Then there were a score or more of chariots with funny wheels drawn by more of these, er. . horses,’ he continued uncertainly. ‘Then perhaps three score of normal chariots before the main mass of infantry.’

  ‘How many infantry; were there any archers?’ When the man looked bewildered Zuuthusu continued. ‘Try comparing his army with ours.’

  ‘Oh! Less, perhaps half?’

  ‘And how many archers?’

  ‘I didn’t see any archers, lord. But there could have been some further down the column. But there were about a hundred camels with archers mounted behind the boys controlling them. The camels were placed on each flank of the column,’ he added helpfully.

  Zuuthusu nodded a dismissal to the man, who scuttled out of the room, thankful to escape further interrogation.

  When the man had gone, he turned to his second-in-command. ‘That can’t be his whole army. Is he trying to trick us?’

  Nutesh shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose he trusts Rim-Sin, so he will have left enough behind to defend Babylon and the other cities in case Sumeria invades; and we know that Mari has let him down.’

  ‘Well, if he only has half our numbers he is more foolish than I thought.’

  ‘Don’t forget his men are better trained than our tribesmen, and they make up the bulk of your army. Plus he has many more chariots.’

  ‘But if we can trap him between our army and the walls of Tutub, he won’t be able to manoeuvre his chariots properly and we can destroy him.’

  Zuuthusu’s thinking was based on his own experience and he hadn’t understood either the significance of the light chariots or of the camel archers.

  ~#~

  The night before his army departed Hammurabi sent those of the Eshnunnan army who had survived the rout the previous year out of Upi. He had rearmed them with shields and spears, then Arishaka spent four months training them. Not all the survivors had wanted to fight to regain their city, some preferred to stay at Upi and farm the land offered to them by Ashlatum, but some five thousand had elected to return.

  They weren’t to follow the usual road along the rivers but head for Eshnunnan on a more direct route; one that was unlikely to be patrolled by the enemy. They were led by Arishaka, to whom Hammurabi had given very explicit orders. Unlike the verdant lands along the rivers, the terrain was barren; mainly rocky hills and dry wadis. They were unlikely to find much in the way of water or food, so they took what they would need for a week on the camels. Five more camels with archers accompanied them to act as scouts. Hammurabi had suggested that Arishaka take one to ride as well but he elected to walk with his men.

  Hammurabi was worried that taking Akshak might hold him up so he determined on a direct assault as soon as his army was in position. Chariots, camels and horsemen were useless in this regard so he deployed them as a protective screen and lined his infantry up with scaling ladders. First he sent in his archers, each protected by a spearman holding his shield to cover the archer. The Babylonians were at a disadvantage as they were aiming up at the top of the walls, whereas the Elamites had greater range, due to their elevation, and an easier target. However, the defenders bows weren’t as powerful, nor were the archers as well trained as the Babylonians.

  Hammurabi was just about to sound the recall for the archers and send in the infantry when there was a flurry of activity on the top of the wall. A few of the Elamite archers were pitched over the parapet to fall to their deaths below. Those who didn’t die lay screaming from the pain of broken bones and crushed internal organs. It was plain that the townspeople had risen against their captors.

  Suddenly the main gates swung wide and a party of men beckoned to the Babylonians, inviting them to enter the town and help them to dispose of the enemy. Hammurabi urged his chariot forward and halted in the path of his men,
who were sprinting for the gates.

  ‘Do not harm the people,’ he yelled. ‘Kill the Elamites and do what you will with them but anyone who rapes or pillages the town will be executed. Now, follow me.’ His driver turned the chariot and they raced into Akshak.

  Within an hour it was all over. Of the garrison of a thousand left by Zuuthusu, only two hundred were taken prisoner. A few escaped but the majority had been killed. Inevitably the irate citizens had brought a few Babylonians in front of their king accused of killing citizens, rape or torturing people in an effort to find their valuables. Each one was swiftly tried by their commander and found guilty. They were taken up onto the parapet and, watched by the rest of the army and the townspeople, they were pushed off with a noose tied around their necks. Most died instantly from a broken neck but a few were less lucky than their fellows. They kicked and struggled for a while as their faces went blue and they died of strangulation.

  That night the town threw a feast in honour of their saviours. The Elamite garrison had been Zagros tribesmen in the main and they behaved like animals towards the citizens, stealing, raping and killing so that no-one dared leave their houses. Trade ceased and people began to starve. It was due to the bravery of the chief elder that they had summoned up enough courage to attack their oppressors on the wall. He had gone from house to house gathering all the men capable of fighting. When he had two thousand, he had led them up onto the parapet and, although only armed with knives, they had caught the garrison unawares.

  The chief elder had sent fifty men to overcome the guards at the main gate and, although they had suffered a lot of casualties, sheer weight of numbers and desperation had won the day here too.

  The next day the Babylonians set off again, this time for Tutub. A few nursed sore heads thanks to the hospitality of the people of Akshak, but morale was high and they expected another easy victory at the next town.