Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs

by A. H. Sayce

Long lists of officials have been preserved. Certain of the governors or satraps were allowed to share with the King the privilege of giving a name to the year. It was an ingenious system of reckoning time which had been in use in Assyria from an early period and was introduced into Cappadocia by Assyrian colonists. From Asia Minor it probably spread to Greece; at all events, the eponymous archons at Athens, after whom the several years were named, corresponded exactly with the Assyrian limmi or eponyms. Each year in succession received its name from the eponym or officer who held office during the course of it, and as lists of these officers were carefully handed down it was easy to determine the date of an event which had taken place in the year of office of a given eponym. The system was of Assyrian invention and never prevailed in Babylonia. There time was dated by the chief occurrences of a king's reign, and at the end of the reign a list of them was drawn up beginning with his accession to the throne and ending with his death and the name of his successor. These lists went back to an early period of Babylonian history and provided the future historian with an accurate chronology.

Immediately attached to the person of the Assyrian monarch was the Rab-saki, “the chief of the princes,” or vizier. He is called the Rab-shakeh in the Old Testament, by the side of whom stood the Rab-saris, the Assyrian Rab-sa-risi, or “chief of the heads” of departments. They were both civil officers. The army was under the command of the Tartannu, or “Commander-in-Chief,” the Biblical Tartan, who, in [pg 177] the absence of the King, led the troops to battle and conducted a campaign. When Shalmaneser II., for example, became too old to take the field himself, his armies were led by the Tartan Daian-Assur, and under the second Assyrian empire the Tartan appears frequently, sometimes in command of a portion of the forces, while the King is employing the rest elsewhere, sometimes in place of the King, who prefers to remain at home. In earlier days there had been two Tartans, one of whom stood on the right hand side of the King and the other on his left. In order of precedence both of them were regarded as of higher rank than the Rab-shakeh.

The army was divided into companies of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and ten, and we hear of captains of fifty and captains of ten. Under Tiglath-pileser III. and his successors it became an irresistible engine of attack. No pains were spared to make it as effective as possible; its discipline was raised to the highest pitch of perfection, and its arms and accoutrements constantly underwent improvements. As long as a supply of men lasted, no enemy could stand against it, and the great military empire of Nineveh was safe.

It contained cavalry as well as foot-soldiers. The cavalry had grown out of a corps of chariot-drivers, which was retained, though shrunken in size and importance, long after the more serviceable horsemen had taken its place. The chariot held a driver and a warrior. When the latter was the King he was accompanied by one or two armed attendants. They all rode standing and carried bows and spears. The [pg 178] chariot itself ran upon two wheels, a pair of horses being harnessed to its pole. Another horse was often attached to it in case of accidents.

The chariots were of little good when the fighting had to be done in a mountainous country. In the level parts of Western Asia, where good roads had existed for untold centuries, they were a powerful arm of offence, but the Assyrians were constantly called upon to attack the tribes of the Kurdish and Armenian mountains who harassed their positions, and in such trackless districts the chariots were an incumbrance and not a help. Trees had to be cut down and rocks removed in order to make roads along which they might pass. The Assyrian engineers indeed were skilled in the construction of roads of the kind, and the inscriptions not infrequently boast of their success in carrying them through the most inaccessible regions, but the necessity for making them suitable for the passage of chariots was a serious drawback, and we hear at times how the wheels of the cars had to be taken off and the chariots conveyed on the backs of mules or horses. It was not wonderful, therefore, that the Assyrian kings, who were practical military men, soon saw the advantage of imitating the custom of the northern and eastern mountaineers, who used the horse for riding purposes rather than for drawing a chariot. The chariot continued to be employed in the Assyrian army, but rather as a luxury than as an effective instrument of war.

At first the cavalry were little more than mounted horsemen. Their only weapons were the bow and arrow, and they rode without saddles and with bare [pg 179] legs. At a later period part of the cavalry was armed with spears, saddles were introduced, and the groom who had run by the side of the horse disappeared. At the same time, under Tiglath-pileser III., the rider's legs were protected by leathern drawers over which high boots were drawn, laced in front. This was an importation from the north, and it is possible that many of the horsemen were brought from the same quarter. Sennacherib still further improved the dress by adding to it a closely fitting coat of mail.

The infantry outnumbered the cavalry by about ten to one, and were divided into heavy-armed and light-armed. Their usual dress, at all events, up to the foundation of the second Assyrian empire, consisted of a peaked helmet and a tunic which descended half-way down the thighs, and was fastened round the waist by a girdle. From the reign of Sargon onward they were divided into two bodies, one of archers, the other of spearmen, the archers being partly light-armed and partly heavy-armed. The heavy-armed were again divided into two classes, one of them wearing sandals and a coat-of-mail over the tunic, while the other was dressed in a long, fringed robe reaching to the feet, over which a cuirass was worn. They also carried a short sword, and had sandals of the same shape as those used by the other class. Each had an attendant waiting upon him with a long, rectangular shield of wicker-work, covered with leather. The light-armed archers were encumbered with but little clothing, consisting only of a kilt and a fillet round the head. The spearmen, on the contrary, [pg 180] were protected by a crested helmet and circular shield, though their legs and face were usually bare.

Changes were introduced by Sennacherib, who abolished the inconveniently long robe of the second class of heavy-armed archers, and gave them leather greaves and boots. The first class, on the other hand, are now generally represented without sandals, and with an embroidered turban with lappets on the head. Sennacherib also established a corps of slingers, who were clad in helmet and breastplate, leather drawers, and short boots, as well as a company of pioneers, armed with double-headed axes, and clothed with conical helmets, greaves, and boots. These pioneers were especially needed for engineering the way through the pathless defiles and rugged ground over which the extension of the empire more and more required the Assyrian army to make its way.

The heads of the spears and arrows were of metal, usually of bronze, more rarely of iron. The helmets also were of bronze or iron, a leather cap being worn underneath them, and the coats-of-mail were formed of bronze scales sewn to a leather shirt. Many of the shields, moreover, were of metal, though wicker-work covered with leather seems to have been preferred. Battering-rams and other engines for attacking a city were carried on the march.

Baggage wagons were also carried, as well as standards and tents. The tents of the officers were divided into two partitions, one of which was used as a dining-room, while the royal tent was accompanied by a kitchen. Tables, chairs, couches, and various utensils formed part of its furniture. One of these [pg 181] chairs was a sort of palanquin in the shape of an arm-chair with a footstool, which was borne on the shoulders of attendants.