|
|
At its peak the Neo-Assyrian Empire was the largest Empire the world had ever seen, covering Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine and dominated the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and at its peak also briefly including Egypt.
There are two threads to this book. First is a political history of the Empire, looking at the reigns of each of the Emperors, and their known activities and policies. Second, and more important, is a military history of the Empire, looking at the nature of the Neo-Assyrian army, and how it performed on campaign.
We start with the political and campaign history. The introduction covers the Old Assyrian period and the Middle Assyrian Empire. The main text begins with the slow revival of Assyrian power from 934 BC. This saw a series of Emperors focus on regaining lands that had been either under direct or indirect Assyrian control in earlier periods. We then move onto the Neo-Assyrian period, which saw Assyrian Emperors begin to take direct control of some of the conquered states.
One minor quibble is that some effort goes into examining why the Empire collapsed so quickly. The last major conquest, of Elam, came around 30 years before the collapse of the Empire, but the peak was probably 30 years earlier, so we are looking at a period of 58 years. This isn’t much quicker than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which was largely intact in 400 AD and gone by 476 AD. The British Empire went even more quickly – again, it was intact in 1939 but effectively gone by the 1970s (admittedly in this case Britain survived intact, while Assyria disappeared as an independent kingdom)
One of the most impressive things about this book is just how much detail we have about the history of Assyria. The key to this is the survival of a huge number of cuneiform written on clay tablets, many of which survive because they were partly baked when fires destroyed the building they were in. The most famous example of this is the Library of Ashurbanipal, a collection of texts assembled by the last great Assyrian Emperor, and discovered in the mid 19th century. These tablets give us a wide range of materials, from Government edicts and literary epics to working documents that list the number of horses available on a monthly basis.
These documents are combined with other sources, in particular the monumental wall art created to celebrate the achievements of the Empire to produce an impressively detailed history of the Assyrian Army. We can trace how the armour of the infantry developed over time, the inclusion of non-Assyrians in the army, and the slow switch from chariots to cavalry as larger horses became available. This huge archive of contemporary Assyrian documents also allows the author to counter the picture of Assyrian from other sources, in particular the Old Testement where the Assyrians almost always appear as villains. The Assyrian siege of Jerusalem of 701 BC may be one of the earliest battles where we have sources from both sides.
This is an excellent military and political history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The author makes good use of the varied sources, and the book is as well illustrated as one would expect from Osprey with a good selection of original Assyrian artworks as well as the Osprey interpretations.
Part One: The Empire
1 – Introduction
2 – Assyria, 934-745 BC
3 – Assyria, 745-720 BC
4 – Sargon II, 721-705 BC
5 – Sennacherib, 704-681 BC
6 – Esarhaddon, 680-669 BC
7 – Ashurbanipal, 668-?627 BC
8 – The End of the Assyrian Empire
Part Two: The Army
9 – ‘The Invincibile Weapon’
10 – Aspects of the Neo-Assyrian War Machine
11 – The Assyrian Army at War
Author: Mark Healy
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 304
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2023