Dawn of Empire

by H A CULLEY

  The two chariots stopped and a young man leapt out of the chariot flying the Babylonian banner and strode towards them. Narem-Suen and Mutu-Namaha descended and waited to greet him. At first neither recognised him under his helmet then, with a start, Narem-Suen realised with a start that it was his brother.

  ‘Uktannu? Is that really you? Why are you in a chariot instead of leading your slingers? Whose your commander?’ To Narem-Suen it was incomprehensible that his shy, under-confident little brother could be the man who had defeated the might of Assyria. After they had embraced and Mutu-Namaha had greeted him, Uktannu stepped back and regarded the pair soberly.

  ‘I fear that I have some very bad news. Arishaka is dead, killed by the Sumerians when we destroyed one of their armies north of Nippur.’

  Mutu-Namaha stood there, unable to believe that his uncle and friend; the man who had trained him and to whom he was closer to than he was to his own father, was no more. He felt the pricking of tears in his eyes and he turned away so that the others wouldn’t see a grown man cry.

  He felt a comforting arm around his shoulders and turned his head to look into the sympathetic eyes of Uktannu.

  ‘How? How did he die?’

  ‘He was holding the wall at the end of a valley. We had ambushed the Sumerians and his task was to stop them escaping and Es-Nasir had the same task at the other end of the valley. It was a close fought battle and we won, but not before both had been killed. Hammurabi was distraught and Samsu-Iluna had to take over command whilst your mother took the king back to Babylon to recover. He sent me here to relieve the siege and to bring you back as the new army commander.’

  ‘I don’t want to be army commander, I want Arishaka back again.’ Mutu-Namaha pushed Uktannu’s arm away and walked blindly away from him. It was the behaviour of a child rather than a man, Uktannu thought, but Arishaka and he had been very close. He went to follow him, not sure of what else to say, but Naram-Suen stopped him.

  ‘Let him grieve alone. This will have hit him as hard as it has Hammurabi. I’ll leave my chariot here for him and I’ll come back into the city with you.’

  As they stepped back into the chariot with the blue banner, the king turned to Uktannu.

  ‘I haven’t congratulated you on your two brilliant victories.’

  ‘Three actually; Haban, the commander of my camel archers, routed another army from Nineveh that was about to trap me between it and Ishme-Dagan’s army. I don’t think you need worry about the Assyrians for a while. I would dearly love to follow it up by invading Eshnunna and killing that treacherous rat Sulu-Sin, but Samsu-Iluna wants Mutu-Namaha and my men back to help him with the conquest of Sumeria as soon as possible.’

  Chapter Eleven – Sumeria – 1763 to 1762 BCE

  Hammurabi mourned for his dead brother for three months. Adiar had almost given up hope that he would ever return to his vibrant old self when slowly he started to take an interest in things again. During all that time she never left his side, though he really tried her patience – not her strongest quality at the best of times. When he showed little interest in food she would hand feed him tasty morsels and force him to drink enough not to become dehydrated. Without her he would have allowed himself to starve to death. His melancholia was awful to see in a man who had been so alive.

  Then one day he asked how the war was progressing. Adiar was so overcome with emotion that she couldn’t answer him at first.

  ‘What’s wrong my love?’ Hammurabi was all concern.

  ‘You’ve come back to me,’ she sobbed in relief. ‘We thought we had lost you after the death of Arishaka drove you into such a black despair.’

  ‘Death of Arishaka….’ Hammurabi looked puzzled for a moment then he started weeping for the first time since his brother was killed. Adiar put her arms around him and held him, making soothing noises until he stopped. She handed him a cloth and he wiped his eyes and tear-stained face.

  ‘I’m sorry my love, what must you think of me, weeping like the type of shallow, helpless women you despise.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You needed to grieve properly for Arishaka. But now you need to take up the reins of government again.’

  Hammurabi walked out onto the balcony that led off the room they were in and gazed at the blue Euphrates and the new city that was now nearly completed on the far bank of the river.

  ‘We are going to have to build a new wall if the city carries on expanding,’ he said thoughtfully.

  Adiar joined him and put her arm around his waist, noting with some concern that it reached further round than used to be the case. She wondered how much weight he had lost during the months of depression.

  ‘Tell me about the war. How’s Samsu-Iluna doing without me. Or is Mutu-Namaha now in command?’

  ‘Nippur and Isin surrendered almost immediately after the battle where …’ She was about to say where Arishaka was killed but stopped herself just in time.

  ‘Where my brother died. It’s alright. I’ve reconciled myself to his death now, but I will always miss him dreadfully.’ Suddenly he had a thought. ‘What about Sabitum and the twins? How did she take the news?’

  ‘Badly at first, but she has recovered now and has even talked to me about marrying again.’

  Hammurabi was taken aback. ‘So soon? Who does she have in mind?’

  Adiar laughed. ‘No-one as yet. She’s not that callous, far from it. It’s too soon in any case. I merely sounded her out about her future and she said that she was not averse at the idea, providing it was someone she could grow to love as she had Arishaka.’

  ‘Do you have someone in mind?’

  ‘Uktannu perhaps?’ She suggested. ‘He’s very shy when it comes to girls and needs some help in finding a suitable mate. And it would dispel those nasty rumours about him and his boys. Mind you, I think most people have forgotten all about that since he defeated Assyria.’

  Word had reached Babylon about Uktannu’s success, though he and Mutu-Namaha were still on their way south.

  ‘Defeated Assyria …’ Hammurabi was astounded. ‘What, with a thousand slingers?’

  Adiar laughed. ‘No, with a mixed army of Babylonians and Sumerians who have transferred their allegiance to you. You have a very promising army commander there. He was sent north to relieve Hiritum, which was being besieged by Assyria and Eshnunna. He won a series of brilliant victories and burned Assur to the ground. He is on his way back here now with Mutu-Namaha.’

  ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’ Hammurabi asked angrily.

  ‘Because you were sunk in despondency for three months. I did tell you but you couldn’t take anything in,’ she said gently.

  The king shook his head in disbelief. ‘Thank Marduk I had you and our sons to look after things whilst I was ill.’

  Adiar wasn’t going to contradict him about the illness, if that’s how he preferred to think of it.

  ‘And Uktannu,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yes, it was just as well I decided to spare him and Narem-Suen.’

  ‘Well, I started to tell you about Samsu-Iluna. After Nippur and Isin surrendered without a fight Kissura did the same. Adab decided to defy him though, so he laid siege to it. The trouble is that Rim-Sim managed to raise another army from the southern cities and they marched to the relief of Adab. Two weeks ago there was a major battle outside Adab. It was inconclusive but Samsu-Iluna was forced to withdraw to Kissura.’

  ‘And that’s how thing stand now?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’

  ‘When will Mutu-Namaha and Uktannu get here?’

  ‘In about a week, I should think, but they will need to rest and re-equip ...’ Her voice tailed away.

  ‘We march as soon as they get here.’

  ‘To join your son at Kissura?’

  ‘No, to take Shurruppak. That way Rim-Sim won’t know whether I intend to strike at Adab next or take Umma. Rim-Sim won’t be able to resist the temptation to trap me against the walls of Shurruppak and that’s when Sa
msu-Iluna will turn the tables and corner him between our two armies. Once his remaining field army is out of the way, we can take as long as necessary to reduce the remaining cities, but my guess is that, with no hope of relief, they’ll surrender quickly.’

  Three weeks later Hammurabi and Uktannu laid siege to Shurruppak and Mutu-Namaha joined Samsu-Iluna as his army commander.

  ~#~

  Rim-Sim paced up and down the throne room in his palace in Larsa. The room had been finished twenty years ago but the frescos painted on the white-washed walls looked as fresh as the day they had been painted, mainly because they were touched up every year. The stone flagged floor was covered in rush matting and the throne was positively opulent. It was intricately carved and decorated with lapis lazuli.

  The King of Sumeria was sixty nine years old, a good age for anyone in Mesopotamia and a remarkable age for a king. He had been ten when he succeeded his brother on the throne of Larsa. At that time Larsa was a single city state and his mother had ruled as regent. As soon as he reached the age of fourteen he had tried to seize power but his mother insisted on joint rule. After a few months he tired of her interference and had her quietly poisoned.

  He concentrated on developing the wealth and influence of Larsa, improving trade links within Sumeria and building up her agriculture. He took over Uruk peacefully by marrying the king’s daughter and then Kutallu through subjugation. Over the next few years he made Larsa the centre of Sumeria, conquering a few cities, entering into alliances with some and persuading others to join his kingdom by a subtle mixture of threats and promises. The last two cities he seized were Nippur and Isin after a brief war with Babylon. Thereafter he was too busy dealing with the threat from Elam, putting down revolts in the cities he had already taken control of and countering the threat from the increasingly powerful Babylon under Hammurabi, to undertake further expansion.

  Now he was tired and old and worried about the succession. His one regret was that his sons had pre-deceased him and they hadn’t produced any living grandsons. The sons of his three daughters had all jockeyed for position as his heir but two of them were already dead: one through assassination and the other through poison. He had hesitated to nominate another as his successor as it would be an almost certain death warrant. Such fierce internal strife amongst his family had weakened the kingdom and, in particular, the army. His eldest grandson, Sin-Nasir, was the commander of the Army of the South and another commanded the Army of the North. They were always arguing and their bickering had the inevitable effect on their soldiers’ morale. Another grandson was the governor of Shurruppak.

  Now the Army of the North had been destroyed and the grandson commanding it had been killed. When the news came that Shurruppak was under siege, Rim-Sim decided to commit the Army of the South to relieve it. Sin-Nasir was the cleverest of his grandsons and he trusted him to succeed when his cousin had failed. He briefly considered leading the army himself but reluctantly acknowledged that he was too old for campaigning.

  The Army of the South was thirty-eight thousand strong and Sin-Nasir’s information led him to believe that the besiegers numbered no more than fifteen thousand. Privately he thought that his younger brother, the Governor of Shurruppak, should have been able to manage without his help as he had a garrison of ten thousand, albeit mainly militia.

  He was nervous about the size of the Babylonian force as they were known to have many more than fifteen thousand in their army, though he didn’t know what their losses might have been when they defeated his cousin and the Army of the North or during the relief of Hiritum.

  Sin-Nasir’s men spent the night at Umma, eighteen miles to the south east of Shurruppak, before advancing cautiously towards the city. The ground was mainly flat and open and he sent fifty of his three hundred chariots forward as a screen. About five miles from Shurruppak they encountered a patrol of camel archers who put five chariots out of action by killing the onagers before withdrawing without loss. The Sumerians had heard of this novel use of camels but they had never seen them before. The experience didn’t help morale.

  The next day the screen of chariots was sent out again to discover the disposition of the Babylonians. They returned to say that the estimate of fifteen thousand appeared to be accurate, but only twelve thousand were spearmen. The rest were made up of a thousand archers, a few hundred boys with slings, five hundred camel archers and two hundred chariots. Of these half were similar to the Sumerian chariots but the others were lighter and drawn by a pair of horses.

  The Babylonians were drawn up ready for battle beyond the city, so that the garrison couldn’t attack them from the rear whist they were engaged with the main Sumerian army. The spearmen formed the centre with the archers and the slingers in front of them and the chariots took up position on either flank, those drawn by onagers being on the right. The camel archers were on the far right.

  As the Sumerians took up formation opposite them their spearmen stretched far beyond the Babylonian lines, both to the left and the right. The chariots lined up in front of the massed ranks of spearmen with their archers between the two. As soon as the Sumerians were in position the gates of the city opened and the garrison rushed out to take up position behind the Army of the South ready to take part in looting the dead once the battle was over. The governor rode over in his chariot to where Sin-Nasir stood in his and greeted his elder brother cheerily. Sin-Nasir gave him a brief nod and then ignored him.

  He was just about to give the order to his chariots to open the battle when a cry of alarm went up from the rear ranks of Shurruppak’s garrison. They had just spotted the dust cloud of the main Babylonian army who were three miles away and approaching rapidly from the east. Sin-Nasir realised that he was trapped. His brother recovered from the shock more quickly and, ordering his men to flee back into the city, he led by example.

  It was nearly a mile to the city gates and it would take most of the soldiers a quarter of an hour to reach safety. It didn’t take the Babylonian camel archers nearly as long to skirt the Sumerian army to the north and descend on the fleeing militiamen. Some fifteen hundred of them were killed or wounded before they reached the gates. Once they got there they found that those inside the city were struggling to close the gates whist the many thousands of soldiers still outside were trying to push them open again. The camel archers sent volley after volley into the packed mass of men before someone inside had the sense to deploy those archers who had made it inside onto the walls to drive the camel archers back. After sustaining a few casualties Haban led his men back to re-join the rest of Hammurabi’s army, leaving behind him over a thousand dead Sumerians piled up in front of the city gates.

  The fate of the garrison had further undermined the morale of Sin-Nasir’s men and he realised that standing there waiting for the trap to close would be disastrous. He briefly considered withdrawing into the city but he was far from certain that his brother would open the gates and negotiating the pile of bodies would make entry a slow process, even if he did. He decided that his only hope was to hold off the army facing him with half his men and use the other half to face the new threat.

  ~#~

  Hammurabi was delighted with the success of his plan. The garrison had lost a quarter of its strength and suffered a crushing blow to its confidence and now the enemy commander was dividing his force in half so as to face in two directions.

  ‘Is the man mad?’ Uktannu asked in amazement. The question was rhetorical but Hammurabi asked him what he would have done.

  ‘Moved the army to the south and swung it round so that it was facing north. That way we could have combined our two armies but he would only have faced attack from one direction.’

  The king nodded. ‘Well, luckily for me you are commanding this army and not the Sumerians. Mind you,’ he went on, ‘they would still have been outnumbered and lacking our mobility on the battlefield.’

  Samsu-Iluna and Mutu-Namaha arrived with their men and rapidly deployed into line. The other Babyloni
an army showed no sign of moving.

  ‘When do you want me to start the attack, lord king?’

  Hammurabi looked at Uktannu and smiled.

  ‘I don’t intend to. Our job was to keep the Sumerians here for my sons to deal with. The enemy can’t afford to assume that we won’t attack though, so just the threat keeps them facing in two directions. You might send in the chariots and the camel archers now and again for a pass along their ranks just to remind them that we are still here.’

  Samsu-Iluna was content to let Mutu-Namaha run the battle. All of the Sumerian chariots were facing their army so he decided to deal with them first. The enemy had many more chariots but they were slower than his horse-drawn ones. He sent his slow chariots against the centre whilst the light chariots ran across the left hand side of the enemy line and the camel archers the right hand side. In the centre it came down to a test of skill of both charioteer and archers but on the flanks the slow moving chariots stood no chance against an enemy who literally ran rings round them, pumping arrows into them all the time. Within a quarter of an hour the Sumerian chariots had been destroyed as a fighting force.

  Sin-Nasir realised that the situation was now hopeless. However, if he surrendered his grand-father would never forgive him and would, in all likelihood, execute him. His only chance was to kill Hammurabi. He knew that the King of Babylon was with the smaller army because of the blood red banner flying from his chariot.

  It took a few seconds for Uktannu to realise that all the Sumerians were now charging against him. It took him slightly less time to grasp Sin-Nasir’s intention. The Babylonian archers and slingers were hitting the charging Sumerians hard but there were so many of them that the thousand or so that they brought down made little or no impression on them. Their ranks were twelve deep as opposed to the Babylonians eight and so the weight of their attack forced Uktannu’s men back. They also overlapped the flanks and would have rolled up the ends of the Babylonian lines if it wasn’t for the chariots and the camel archers. The former tore into one flank and scattered them, destroying the cohesion of their formation. Once through the enemy ranks, they wheeled around and attacked them from the flank. They kept up their lightning attacks until the Sumerians had had enough and broke.