With Eannatum's victory over Kish we must probably connect the success which he achieved over another northern city, Opis. For towards the end of the text upon the foundation-stone referred to above, these achievements appear to be described as a single event, or, at least, as two events of which the second closely follows and supplements the first. In the course of the formulæ celebrating the principal conquests of his reign, Eannatum exclaims: "By Eannatum was Elam broken in the head, Elam was driven back to his own land; Kish was broken in the head, and the king of Opis was driven back to his own land."[32] When referring to the victory over Opis in an earlier passage of the same inscription, Eannatum names the king who attacked him, and, although he does not give many details of the war, it may be inferred that Opis was defeated only after a severe struggle. "When the king of Opis rose up," the text runs, "Eannatum, whose name was spoken by Ningirsu, pursued Zuzu, king of Opis, from the Antasurra of Ningirsu up to the city of Opis, and there he smote him and destroyed him."[33] We have already seen reasons for believing that the king of Kish took an active part in Umma's war with Lagash, and shared her defeat; and we may conjecture that it was to help and avenge his ally that Zuzu, king of Opis, marched south and attacked Eannatum. That he met with some success at first is perhaps indicated by the point from which Eannatum records that he drove him back to his own land. For the Antasurra was a shrine or temple dedicated to Ningirsu, and stood within the territory of Lagash, though possibly upon or near the frontier. Here Eannatum met the invaders in force, and not only dislodged them, but followed up his victory by pursuing them back to their own city, where he claims that he administered a still more crushing defeat. It is possible that the conquest of Ma'er, or Mari, took place at this time, and in connection with the war with Opis and Kish, for in one passage Eannatum refers to the defeat of these three states at the Antasurra of Ningirsu. Ma'er may well have been allied with Kish and Opis, and may have contributed a contingent to the army led by Zuzu in his attack on Lagash.
PORTION OF A BLACK BASALT MORTAR BEARING AN INSCRIPTION OF EANNATUM, PATESI OF SHIRPURLA.—Brit. Mus., No. 90832; photo, by Messrs. Mansell & Co.
It is interesting to note that Kish and the king of Kish represented the most dreaded enemies of Lagash, at least during a portion of the reign of Eannatum. For on a mortar of black basalt which is preserved in the British Museum,[34] Eannatum, after recording that he has dedicated it to Ninâ, "the Lady of the Holy Mountain," prays that no man may damage it or carry it away; and he then adds the petition, "May the King of Kish not seize it!" This ejaculation is eloquent of the dread which the northern kingdom inspired in the cities of the south, and we may see in it evidence of many a raid during which the temples of Lagash had been despoiled of their treasures. We may well ascribe the dedication of the altar and the cutting of the inscription to the early part of Eannatum's reign; at any rate, to a period before the power of Kish was broken in the south; and, if we are right in this supposition, the mortar may perhaps serve to date another group of Eannatum's campaigns. For in a passage on the second side of this monument it appears to be recorded that he had conquered the cities of Erech and Ur. The passage follows the invocations set forth by Eannatum upon the other side, in the course of which he prays that no one shall remove the mortar, or cast it into the fire, or damage it in any way; and it might be argued that the lines were an addition made to the original text of dedication at a considerably later period. In that case the passage would afford no proof that the conquest of Ur and Erech preceded that of Kish. But both sides of the monument have the appearance of having been engraved by the same hand, and we are probably justified in assuming that the whole of the inscription was placed upon the vessel at the time it was made. We may thus provisionally place the conquest of Ur and Erech before that of Kish. Further, in his foundation-inscriptions, Eannatum groups his conquest of Ur and Erech with that of Ki-babbar, "the place of the Sun-god," a term which may with considerable probability be identified with Larsa, the centre of the cult of the Sun-god in Southern Babylonia. It would thus appear that Eannatum conquered these cities, all situated in the extreme south of Babylonia at about the same period, and probably in the early part of his reign.
An indication that we are right in placing the southern conquests of Eannatum before the war with Umma may, perhaps, be seen in the invocations to deities engraved upon the Stele of the Vultures with which Eannatum sought to protect his treaty. In the course of the invocations Eannatum states that he has made offerings to the goddess Ninkharsag in the city of Kesh, to Enzu, the Moon-god, in Ur, and to Babbar, the Sun-god, in Larsa. These passages we may assume refer to offerings made by Eannatum in his character of suzerain, and, if this view is correct, we must conclude that the conquest of these cities had already taken place. The invocation to Enki perhaps presupposes that Eridu also was in the hands of Eannatum at this time, a corollary that would almost necessarily follow, if the three neighbouring cities of Ur, Erech, and Larsa had fallen before his arms. Accordingly, the list of gods by whom Eannatum and the men of Umma swore to preserve the treaty becomes peculiarly significant. They were selected on political as much as on purely religious grounds, and in their combined jurisdiction represented the extent of Eannatum's dominion in Sumer at the time. That a ruler should be in a position to exact an oath by such powerful city-gods was obviously calculated to inspire respect for his own authority, while the names of the gods themselves formed a sufficient guarantee that divine punishment would surely follow any violation of the treaty. The early successes gained by Eannatum, by which he was enabled to exercise suzerainty over the principal cities of Southern Babylonia, may well have been the cause of his arousing the active hostility of Kish and Opis. When he had emerged victorious from his subsequent struggle with the northern cities, we may assume that he claimed the title of king, which he employs in place of his more usual title of patesi in certain passages in the text of his treaty with Umma.
The other conquests recorded in the inscriptions of Eannatum fall into two groups. In all the lists of his victories that have come down to us—on the Stele of the Vultures, the foundation-stones, and the brick-inscriptions—the defeat of Elam is given the first place. This is probably not to be taken as implying that it was the first in order of time. It is true that the order in which the conquered districts and cities are arranged is generally the same in the different lists, but this is not invariably the case. Apart from differences caused by the omission or insertion of names, the order is sometimes altered; thus the conquest of Arua is recorded before that of Ur on the Stele of the Vultures, whereas on the foundation-stones this arrangement is reversed. It would, therefore, be rash to assume that they were enumerated in the order of their occurrence; it is more probable that the conquered states and districts are grouped on a rough geographical basis, and that these groups are arranged according to the importance attaching to them. That Elam should always be mentioned first in the lists is probably due to the fact that she was the hereditary enemy of the cities of Sumer and Akkad, whose rulers could never be sure of immunity from her attacks. The agricultural wealth of Babylonia offered a tempting prey to the hardy tribes who dwelt among the hills upon the western border of Elam, and the dread of the raider and mountaineer, experienced by the dweller in the plain, is expressed by Eannatum in his description of Elam as "the mountain that strikes terror."[35]
That in their conflict with Eannatum the Elamites were, as usual, the aggressors, is clear from the words of the record upon his longer foundation-inscription—"by Eannatum was Elam broken in the head, Elam was driven back to his own land."[36] In other passages referring to the discomfiture of the Elamites, Eannatum adds the formula that "he heaped up burial-mounds," a phrase which would seem to imply that the enemy were only defeated with considerable loss.[37] It is not unlikely that we may fix the field of battle, upon which the forces of Elam were defeated, on the banks of the Asukhur Canal, which had been cut two generations before by Ur-Ninâ, Eannatum's grandfather; at least, the canal gives its name to a battlefield which is mentioned immediately before the name of Elam in one of the lists of conquests. It would thus seem that the Elamites were engaged in raiding the territory of Lagash when Eannatum fell upon them with his army and drove them northwards and across the Tigris.
Closely associated with Eannatum's success against the Elamites were his conquest of Shakh, of a city the reading of the name for which is unknown, and probably also of a land or district which bore the name of Sunanam. The conquest of this last place is only mentioned in a broken passage upon the Stele of the Vultures,[38] between the names of Elam and Shakh, and that of the unknown city, so that little can be inferred with regard to it. Shakh, on the other hand, whenever it is referred to in the inscriptions of Eannatum, follows immediately after the name of Elam, and it was not improbably a district on the Elamite frontier which Eannatum ravaged during his pursuit of the invaders. The city with the unknown name[39] was evidently a place of some importance, for not only was it governed by a patesi, but when its conquest is mentioned in the lists details are usually given. The interpretation of a phrase recording its patesi's action with regard to the emblem of the city is not quite certain, but it would appear that on the approach of Eannatum he planted it before the city-gate. The context would seem to imply that this was intended as an act of defiance, not of submission, for Eannatum states that he conquered the city and heaped up burial-mounds. The site of the city, like its name, is unknown, but since the records referring to it always follow those concerning Elam, we may provisionally regard it as having lain in the direction of the Elamite frontier.