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Chapter 3: Ancient Empires
The Middle East
Sources: World History: A Story of Progress. Ed. Terry L. Smart and Allan O. Kownslar. Holt, Rinehart and Winston; New York, 1987. 23-29.
Human Heritage: A World History. F. Kenneth Cox et al. Charles E Merrill Publishing Co. ;Columbus, OH, 1981. 108-118
The Hittites
The Hittites were one of several civilizations that
developed along the borders of the irrigated river
valleys about 2000 B.C. They were probably
nomadic herders in the grasslands north of the
Black and Caspian (KAS-pee-un) seas. About
1650 B.C. they moved south through the Caucasus
(KAW kuh-sus) Mountains and into the area that
is now modern Turkey. By 1600 B.C. the Hittites
had formed a confederation of states with a capital
at Hattusus (HAT-too-shus). As you just read, the
Hittites invaded Babylon about 1600 B.C. but
withdrew to the west of Mesopotamia.
The Hittite Empire
At the height of their power, the Hittites had a
strong army, and their confederation was ruled by
a king. One Hittite king, Suppiluliumas (soo-pee
loo-lee-OO-mus) I, who ruled from 1375 B.C. to
1335 B.C., extended his rule almost to the borders
of Egypt. While problems within Egypt diverted
the attention of its rulers, the Hittites tore away
the region of northern Syria from Egypt.
For many years thereafter, the Hittites and Egyptians often clashed. A peace treaty was finally
arranged after a battle in 1296 B.C. between the Hittite king, Muwatallis (moo-wah-TAHL-iss), and
Ramses (RAM-seez) II of Egypt. Peace then reigned for about seventy years, but the Hittites never fully
recovered from the effects of the wars. By the end of that time, the Hittite Empire had lost much of its
power. About 1200 B.C. the Hittites were overcome by warlike people from southeast Europe and from
the Aegean (ih-JEE-un) Sea region. However, during their reign, the Hittites made important
contributions to the civilization of the ancient Middle East.
Hittite Art and Architecture
The Hittite art that has survived includes primarily
sculpture and architecture. It can be seen in the remains
of huge, squat public buildings, ornamental gateways,
and reliefs. The sculptured reliefs depict gods in the
form of human beings. All Hittite gods are pictured with
sacred animals: for example, the characteristic animal
for the weather god was the bull; that for the sungoddess was a lion.
The architecture of Hittite defense fortifications
was outstanding for its time. The Hittites built their
towns in places where nature provided protection. Their
capital, Hattusas, was located on a peninsula at the
intersection of two deep gorges with sheer cliff faces. Strong fortifications appeared on the side that
allowed easy access. The Hittites built two parallel stone walls with linking cross walls between them and
filled the extra space with rubble. Above this were brick superstructures. The Hittites planned all
gateways, walls, and towers so that any visitors or invaders would be exposed to the Hittite defenders. A
tunnel to permit surprise expeditions against the enemy existed under the wall of one of the gates.
Hittite Law
The legal system of the Hittites was one of their most significant achievements. Their code was less
severe than the Code of Hammurabi. Punishment by death was limited to serious crimes, such as treason,
and the payment of fines was a more common punishment for lesser offenses. Elders served as judges in
local courts and attempted to make unbiased judgments. Persons accused of crimes were allowed to
question their accusers and to defend themselves during their trials.
Commerce and trade were vital to the Hittites, and their laws strictly controlled economic life. Set
prices were established for luxuries and necessities. Wages and fees were also set, and a woman was paid
less than half of a man’s salary.
The Hittites’ Ironworking
Although bronze was in wide use in the ancient Middle East by 2000 B.C., the Hittites were the first
people to successfully use iron for making tools and weapons. Earlier peoples, like the Sumerians, had
known of iron but did not make as much use of it. Some peoples in the Middle East had made a few tools
by hammering iron from fallen meteors. However, such supplies of iron ore were very limited, and the
use of them was very expensive.
Around 1400 B.C. the Hittites developed a new method of ironworking. They invented a furnace
which, by forcing air through it to make the fire burn hotter, could produce enough heat to purify the iron
ore by separating it from other elements. The new process produced strong rust resistant iron tools and
weapons. These tools and weapons gave the
Hittites a great advantage over their neighbors.
For a long time the Hittites kept their method
of making iron a secret, and they would not
trade iron goods with other people out of fear
that their methods of iron production would be
discovered. However, about 1200 B.C. when
the Hittite Empire fell, the metalworkers moved
to other parts of the Middle East, taking their
knowledge of ironworking with them. As a
result, the use of iron tools and weapons spread
throughout the region. Historians mark this time
as the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning
of the Iron Age in the ancient Middle East.
The eventual spread of iron production
throughout the ancient Middle East after 1000
B.C. brought important changes to farming as
well as to warfare. Iron plows and sickles
helped farmers clear more fields and increase
food production. Farmers now had to have
specialists to make their iron tools, so they had
to depend on people in the towns. Thus, ironworking brought about a closer relationship between the
people of the countryside and the towns.
The Assyrian Empire
The fall of the Hittite Empire was, in part, due to a general wave of invaders throughout much of
the Middle East. One of those groups was the Assyrians, who for years had waged wars against the
Babylonians and aggressive mountain people to the north and east of Babylonia. About 1000 years after
Hammurabi ruled, the Assyrians rose to power in Mesopotamia. Their country, Assyria, lay in the upper
part of the Tigris River valley. The Assyrians spoke the same language and used the same writing system
as the Babylonians. The Assyrians built up a powerful army. By 1100 B.C. they defeated their
neighboring enemies. By 800 B.C. they were strong enough to take over cities, trading routes, and
fortresses throughout Mesopotamia. Years of warfare turned these fiercely independent Assyrian farmers
into an efficient military organization. By about 900 B.C. the Assyrians moved into the northern part of
Mesopotamia and built city-states. The first people to use iron widely they expanded their vast empire by
warfare, using iron weapons, chariots, and cavalry.
THE ASSYRIAN ARMY The Assyrians were warriors. Experts believe their liking for war was
influenced by geography. Assyria’s rolling hills and rain-watered valleys did not provide protection
against invaders. Assyrian shepherds and farmers had to learn to fight to survive. In time, fighting became
a way of life.
The Assyrian army was well organized. It was divided into infantries, or groups of foot soldiers
armed with shields, helmets, spears, and daggers. They also had units of charioteers, cavalry, and archers.
At first the Assyrians fought only during the summer months when they did not have to be concerned
about planting and harvesting crops. Later, as they took over more land, soldiering became a year-round
job. When the Assyrians needed more soldiers, they hired them from other places or forced the people
they had conquered to serve.
Assyrian power was due partly to Assyrian weapons. The weapons, which were made of iron, were
harder and stronger than weapons made of copper or tin. Iron had been used in the Middle East for many
centuries. But until about 1400 B.C. it was too soft to be made into weapons. Then a people called Hittites
developed the process of smelting. They heated the
iron ore, hammered out its impurities, and rapidly
cooled it. This made the iron stronger and harder. The
Assyrians borrowed the skill of smelting from the
Hittites.
The Assyrians were cruel warriors. For several
hundred years their armies spread death and
destruction throughout the Middle East. They were
especially skilled in attacking cities. They tunneled
under the walls or climbed over them on ladders. They
used beams mounted on movable platforms to ram
holes through city gates. Once they captured a city,
they set fire to its buildings and carried away its
citizens and goods. Anyone who resisted Assyrian rule
was punished. Those who did not resist had to pay
heavy taxes. The Assyrians also found a way to
conquer people without fighting. They spread stories
about their own cruelty. Their neighbors got scared and
surrendered.
KINGS AND GOVERNMENT:
Assyria’s kings were strong leaders. They had to be to rule an empire
that extended from the Persian Gulf in the east to the valley of the Nile in the west. Assyrian kings spent
much of their time fighting battles and punishing enemies. But they were also involved in such peaceful
activities as building cities and palaces. Nineveh (NIN-uh-vuh), the Assyrian capital, was a large and
prosperous city. It had a continual supply of fresh water that was brought in from mountain streams. It
also had the world’s largest cuneiform library, built on the orders of Assurbanipal (ah-shoor-BAHN-ihpahl), an Assyrian king. The library contained thousands of clay tablets from all over Mesopotamia and,
from these preserved records, scholars have been able to trace how this once peaceful people became a
warrior society. The tablets have also provided information about the Assyrian religion and indicate that
many of the Assyrian religious beliefs were borrowed from the Sumerians. Indeed, Assyrian scribes
copied, studied, and accepted the ideas in many Sumerian and Babylonian texts.
The Assyrian kings had to control many peoples spread over a large area. To do this, they divided
the empire into provinces. They then chose officials to govern the provinces. The officials collected taxes
and made certain the king’s laws were obeyed. The provinces were linked by a system of roads. Although
only the roads near major cities were paved, all were level enough for carts and chariots to travel on. Over
the roads moved the trade of the empire. Government soldiers were posted at stations along the roads to
protect traders from bandits. Messengers on government business used the stations to rest and change
horses.
In time the empire became too large to govern.
After Ashurbanipal died, various conquered peoples
worked to end Assyrian rule. One group was the
Chaldeans. In 612 B.C. they captured Nineveh, the
Assyrian capital. The Assyrian Empire crumbled shortly
after. The Assyrians made great contributions to the
science of warfare and the organization of government.
They divided their army into corps of infantry,
chariotry, engineers, and supply, even using camels for
desert warfare. They organized their empire into
provinces or states, each ruled by a governor and
protected by a military garrison. In order, to control rebellious peoples they even moved entire
populations in some areas, but this was not enough to preserve their empire. There were often revolts by
the people they had conquered and the continual warfare depleted the supply of soldiers. In order to keep
the army at its full strength, soldiers had to be draft from among the defeated enemies. These foreign
soldiers did not fight as willingly as did the Assyrian troops; the capital of the weakened Assyrian Empire
finally fell about 612 B.C.
The Assyrian Empire was defeated by an alliance of Chaldeans (kal-DEE-unz) who came from
Babylon, Medes (MEEDZ) who came from a plateau area in the east called Media, and the Scythians
(S1TH-ee-unz) who came from the area north of the Caspian and Aral (AR-ul) seas. Ironically, it was
these people who had adopted the military innovations of the Assyrians and improved upon them. They
were part of a military revolution that occurred between 850 B.C. and 700 B.C. in the Middle East.
People learned how to handle weapons effectively while mounted on horseback or camelback. The ability
to maneuver quickly gave them a significant advantage over foot soldiers. Soon after the Assyrians were
defeated by this group led by the Chaldeans, the alliance crumbled. The Scythians returned home with
their booty, and the Chaldeans and Medes divided up the conquered territory with the Egyptians, who had
been overrun by the Assyrians about 900 B.C.
The Chaldeans/Babylonians
The Chaldeans combined the remains of the
Assyrian Empire with their own kingdom to
form a new empire ruled by the strong leader
Nebuchadnezzar (neb-uh-kud-NEZ-ur). At its
height, the empire covered most of the Fertile
Crescent.
BABYLON The Chaldeans called themselves
Babylonians. They built a new capital at Babylon
in which nearly 1 million people lived. Babylon
was the world’s richest city up to that time. It
had its own police force and postal system. The
huge brick walls which encircled the city were so
wide that two chariots could pass on the road on top of them. Archers guarded the approaches to the city
from towers built into the walls.
In the center of the city stood palaces and temples. A huge ziggurat reached more than 300 feet, or
over 90 meters, into the sky. Its gold roof
could be seen for miles when the sun
shone. The richness of the ziggurat was
equaled by that of the king’s palace. The
palace had “hanging gardens.” The
gardens consisted of a series of terraces
planted with large trees and masses of
flowering vines and shrubs, all of which
seemed to hang in mid-air.
Nebuchadnezzar built the gardens to
please his wife. To please the people,
Nebuchadnezzar built a special street near
the palace. It was paved with limestone
and marble, and lined by walls of blue
glazed tile. Each spring thousands of
pilgrims crowded into Babylon to watch the gold statue of the god Marduk being wheeled along the
street. The people believed that the procession would make their crops grow and help keep peace in the
empire.
Babylon was a rich and important city in which the arts and commerce were highly developed. In its
schools, scientists made maps of the heavens and also worked out a system for recording the length of the
year, similar to the one we use today. Chaldean astronomers believed that changes in the heavens revealed
the plans of the gods. So they studied the stars, the planets, and the moon. They recorded what they
learned. Once they understood the movement of heavenly bodies, they made maps that showed the
position of the planets and the phases of the moon. They developed one of the first sundials, and they
were the first to have a seven-day week.
Outside the center of Babylon were houses and market places. There craftspeople made pottery,
cloth, and baskets which they sold to passing caravans, or groups of traveling merchants. Traders came to
the marketplace from as far away as India and Egypt. Trade helped make Babylon rich.
Babylon was the center of a great civilization for many years. But as time passed, the Chaldeans
began to lose their power. They found it hard to control the peoples they had conquered. Some years
crops were poor and trade was slow. Then, in 539 B.C., Persians from the mountains to the northeast
captured Babylon. Mesopotamia became just another part of the Persian Empire.
THE PERSIANS
Originally the Persians were part of a people
known as Aryans, who were cattle herders from
the grasslands of central Asia. About 2000 B.C.,
however, the Persians began to separate from
other Aryans. The Persians may have been
searching for new pastures for their cattle. More
likely they were drawn further west by reports of
the rich civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
They finally settled on a high plain between the
Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea where they
established Persia. Today this region is called
Iran, or “the land of the Aryans.” Modern
Persians are Iranians.
The Persians lived peacefully in the highlands for over 1000 years. They divided most of the country into
large farms owned by nobles. The nobles spent most of their time riding horses and practicing archery.
Their farms were worked by laborers. There was little water on the hot plain. Farmers depended on
springs that came dòwn from the mountains. The farmers dug underground tunnels from the springs to the
fields. The tunnels kept the water from evaporating in the hot sun. With the water the farmers were able to
grow wheat and barley and to pasture flocks of fat-tailed sheep.
CYRUS THE GREAT About 600 B.C. the Persians were conquered by
the Medes, a neighboring people. But the Medes were soon overthrown
by the Persians under King Cyrus. Cyrus was one of the greatest
conquerors in the history of the ancient Middle East. In only eleven
years, between 550 B.C. and 539 B.C., he invaded lands from the heart
of India in the east to Babylonia in the west. Cyrus’ armies entered
Babylon in 539 B.C. and, according to his own records, the city
surrendered to his army without a battle. This event marked the end of
the independent political organization of the older civilizations of
Mesopotamia. From this time onward, the cities of the river valleys were
united under one administration with the plateau region of present-day
Iran.
ARMY AND EMPIRE Cyrus then organized an
army to conquer new territory. The army grew until
it numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Its
officers were Persians, while its soldiers were either
Persians or conquered peoples. The best fighters in
the Persian army were the Immortals. They earned
this name because their number never fell below
10,000. When an Immortal became sick, was
wounded, or died, another soldier took his place.
The Immortals had the honor of leading the army
into battle.
Within a short time the Persians ruled an
empire that stretched from Egypt to India. The
Persians were mild rulers who allowed their subjects
to keep their own language, religion, and laws. The Persians believed that loyalty could be won more
easily with fairness than with fear or force. They wanted their
subjects to pay taxes and to produce goods for trade. They felt these things would not be done if those
under their rule were treated badly. One of the strongest Persian kings was Darius. He wanted a
monument to honor his military victories. So he brought craftspeople from many lands to build a grand
palace-fortress-treasury in the capital city of Persepolis. Buildings with many columns were constructed
on giant stone terraces. In the gateways, workers carved figures which were half-human and half-beast.
Persepolis became the most magnificent city in the empire.
The king did not govern the empire alone. There were many officials to carry out his orders. They all
spoke Aramaic, the language used by Middle Eastern merchants. The king chose a governor, a secretary,
and a general for each of the 20 satrapies, or provinces, of the empire. In each province the three officials
collected taxes of gold, silver, sheep, horses, wheat, and spices and sent them to the royal treasury in
Persepolis. The officials also settled local quarrels and protected the people against bandits. Each reported
separately to the king. This forced them to be honest. If one official was keeping taxes or behaving badly,
the others were sure to tell. The king would then remove the dishonest official from office.
Another group of officials was the inspectors. Called “The Eyes and Ears of the King,” they traveled
all over the empire. They decided if people could afford to pay their taxes. They also checked on rumors
of possible rebellion. The inspectors never warned any provincial official they were coming. This made
officials careful about doing a good job. The last group of officials was the judges. They made sure that
the king’s laws were carried out properly.
FAMILY LIFE Persians lived in houses with pointed roofs and porches that faced the sun. Poor families
had one-room houses. Noble families had houses with one set of rooms for men and another for women
and children.
Persian families were large. Fathers ruled their families in much the-same way the king ruled the
empire. A father’s word was law. Poor children worked with their parents. The children of nobles were
cared for by their mothers until they were five years old. Then they were raised by slaves. Often they did
not see their fathers until they reached adulthood. Boys were trained to ride horses, to draw a bow, and to
speak the truth.
Girls were not trained in any skills. Rich women lived very sheltered lives. They spent most of their
time at home apart from the men. If they had to leave the house, they stepped into a closed litter, or a
carriage without wheels that was carried by servants. Poor women had more freedom, but they had to
work hard.
RELIGION At first the Persians worshipped many gods. About 570 B.C. a religious leader named
Zoroaster told the Persians about two gods. One god, Ahura Mazda, was wise and truthful. He created all
good things in the world. The other god,
Ahriman, made all evil things in the world.
Ahura Mazda and
Ahriman were at war with each other all of
the time. Zoroaster said that human beings
had to decide which god they would support.
Zoroaster then listed the good and bad deeds
a person had performed. Good deeds were
keeping one’s word, giving to the poor,
working the land, obeying the king, and treating others well. Bad deeds included being lazy, proud, or
greedy. Zoroaster could tell from the list which god a person had chosen. He believed that in the end
Ahura Mazda would defeat Ahriman. People who supported Ahura Mazda would enjoy happiness after
death. Those who supported Ahriman would be punished.
TRADE The Persians thought they should be warriors, farmers, or shepherds. They refused to become
traders. They believed that trade forced people to lie, cheat, and be greedy. They did, however, encourage
trade among the peoples they conquered.
The Persians improved and expanded the system of roads begun by the Assyrians. One road, the
Royal Road, ran more than 1600 miles, or over 2500 kilometers. A journey that took three months before
the Royal Road was built took only 15 days after it was built. The Persians also opened a caravan route to
China. Silk was first brought to the West along this route.
The Persians spread the idea of using coins for
money. The first known coins had been made in
Lydia, a tiny kingdom in Asia Minor bordering on
the Aegean Sea. After conquering Lydia, the
Persian king decided to use gold coins in his
empire. This helped to increase trade. It also
changed the nature of trade. Merchants who had
sold only costly goods began to sell everyday,
cheaper things as well. They sold chickens, dried
fish, furniture, clothing, and pots and pans. Since
people could get more goods, they began to live better than they had before.
The Persian Empire lasted for more than 200 years, eventually being defeated about 330 B.C. by the
armies of Alexander the Great.