The Practical Dimension of Neo-Assyrian Militarism. Terror of War or an Ideological Path to Power?
War, Peace and Resilience in the Ancient World Narratives - Marinella Ceravolo
Krzysztof Ulanowski
University of Gdańsk
Description
Military conquest was a major part of the ethos of the Assyrian state. War was treated as a never-ending process which served as testimony of who was righteous and who was guilty. The royal scribes emphasised the contrast between the just Assyrian king and the wicked enemy. Assyrian ideology significantly differentiated ‘self’ and ‘other’, the enemy was a part of chaotic power and hence the object of Assyrian punishment. The Neo-Assyrian kings went to war in the name of their gods and with their support, giving its military activities the necessary ideological legitimation. War was ideologically motivated and presumed all possible violence. A direct method of propagating the power of the Assyrian king was through public atrocities. It was a sophisticated method of psychological warfare. Enemies were tortured, violently killed, their bodies were desecrated and denied proper funeral rites. The acts of cruelty were not merely a vindictive means of exacting revenge, but were meant to act as a warning to other subjects who might ponder defying the Assyrian empire. Torture become a conscious and planned act of waging war. These acts of cruelty towards all armies, and indeed all the nations, happened so often, and were practiced with such a detailed plan, that the question naturally arises, was it merely cruelty which accompanied all forms of military activity at all times, or it was something more, a way of conducting realpolitik, i.e., an ideological tool used, extremely successfully, to increase the power of the Neo-Assyrian empire?