Care and Feeding of
the Army
Few studies of ancient military campaigns get into the
nitty-gritty of logistics, partly because so little factual information has
survived about how armies dealt with supply and partly because combat is
generally considered more interesting. But those who confronted the reality of
ancient warfare understood implicitly the principle that “supply is the
basis of strategy and tactics” or their armies suffered the consequences.
In the harsh and unpredictable climate of the ancient Near East, it had always
been the case that logistical requirements-particularly the need for
water-dictated routes of march as much as tactical considerations. For this
reason, successful military operations depended on control of travel routes,
river fords, and mountain passes. Accordingly, the Assyrian Empire spread not
as a “stain” but along communication lines, which sometimes meant
that Assyrian-held territory was not fully contiguous. When moving into a new
area, the Assyrians first took over travel corridors and key cities that they
secured with networks of forts. Rather than attempting to occupy entire
conquered territories, the Assyrians left unproductive tracts of countryside
alone and depopulated trouble zones.
Supplying troops and animals during the muster period posed
a challenge, but provisioning a large army on the march over difficult terrain
in hostile territory took months of careful preparation and organization. It is
generally agreed that active duty soldiers require a minimum of three thousand
calories a day plus two quarts or more of water, although the average Assyrian
soldier, who was shorter, slighter, and more used to heavy labor than his
modern counterpart, probably managed well on fewer calories. Horses and pack
animals needed roughly eight gallons a day of water and ten pounds of straw or
chaff plus another ten pounds of grain to be supplemented by pasturage when
available. For an army of any size, carrying sufficient supplies for an entire
campaign quickly became impossible, since sufficient food and fodder became too
heavy for men and pack animals to carry. To mitigate this problem, the
Assyrians created forward supply depots as part of their provincial system,
while carefully choosing the route outside their territory to maximize client
aid and the availability of forage. At the outset soldiers received small
amounts of barley and oil to be held in reserve as “iron rations,”
but the troops prepared their own victuals. There was neither a food service
nor a central mess in the Assyrian army.
When traveling through the client states bordering Assyria’s
outer provinces, the army could expect to be provided with necessities. In his
Letter to Ashur, for example, Sargon reports approvingly of his Mannean client:
“Like one of my own eunuch governors of the land of Assyria, he made
provisions of grain and wine to feed my army.” The real test began when
the army crossed into enemy territory, where it was sometimes impossible to
find potable water and provisions. Under such circumstances, relief came only
with the capture of enemy food sources. Thus, after Sargon swept through the
district of Wishdish in northwestern Iran, he could celebrate only after he
opened “their innumerable granaries and fe[d] my troops on immense
quantities of grain.” As long as they timed things right, this type of
warfare offered the Assyrians great benefit for minimal risk. Captured
granaries fed Assyrian troops and deprived the enemy of food, while the
application of overwhelming force terrorized locals into submission and served
as an example to neighboring polities that often capitulated without a fight.
From the Assyrian point of view, this sort of operation was the most
cost-effective form of warfare. Hence, food became a weapon. If the king could
control access to it, he could supply his own men and deprive his enemy, who
might well face starvation as a result.
In addition to food, providing soldiers with clothes,
equipment, weapons, and mounts was a tremendously difficult task, involving a
high level of organization and numerous specialized support personnel: craftsmen
to create replacement parts for arms, armor, and vehicles; engineers for
bridges and siege engines; grooms; and mule drivers. The royal campaign retinue
also included scribes, domestics (cupbearers, bakers, confectioners, body
servants, and cooks for the king’s household), scouts, messengers, and scholars
to read the omens and advise the king. The magnates and other high-ranking
officers brought their own household personnel along with them. Except under
extraordinary circumstances-even Sargon had to walk on occasion-the elites
traveled in relative comfort, riding in chariots or on horseback during the day
and spending nights in camps with large, fully outfitted tents where servants
prepared meals and cared for equipment. 100 By contrast, the average Assyrian
soldier walked all day and then constructed a fortified camp, erected a tent,
built a campfire if that was possible, fed himself, and probably looked to his
equipment before turning in for the night. The unlucky ones pulled guard duty.
Very little information has survived regarding the common
soldier’s experience of war, but given the circumstances under which he served,
it was sure to have been taxing. Assyrian soldiers faced many hazards in the
course of their service: disease; the physical and mental stresses of
campaigning; combat injuries; capture; and death. Close-quarter living,
indifferent hygiene, and bad food and water almost certainly caused outbreaks
of those epidemic diseases-typhus, typhoid, dysentery, cholera, influenza, and
diphtheria-that plagued all premodern armies. There was not an official medical
corps in the Assyrian army, though the king and other elites traveled with
their own personal healers (asu and asipu), some of whom might have treated
lower ranks when the need arose. The Assyrian medical literature deals with
both disease and wound treatment, but it contains little (if any) specific
reference to military personnel. Interestingly, the curse formula of a
Neo-Assyrian treaty contains some hint of normal wound treatment: “When
your enemy stabs you, may there be a dearth of honey, oil, ginger, and cedar
resin to put on your stab wounds.” As honey and cedar resin are natural
antiseptics, the wound victim would have stood some chance of recovery.
Normally, regular soldiers probably had to treat each other with whatever
medicaments they carried, without the aid of an expert.
Travel in the ancient Near East was grueling under the best
of circumstances, and several letters attest to unforgiving road conditions
even within Assyria. For example, the governor of Ashur, Tab-sil-esharra,
warned Sargon to send his officer via an alternate route because “the
[roa]
d through the province of Arrapha is very choked; there are gullies
permanently filled with reed and it is getting (worse).” Another dispatch
reported that a proposed campaign itinerary to the east was not feasible
because “the ground is difficult; it lies between the mountains, the
waters are high and the current is strong, not fit for launching either
wineskins or keleks (to cross). The king, my lord, knows that the troops are
unskilled (in swimming).” Similar messages spoke of travel hindered by
swollen rivers, storms, and the devastating impact of snow. In order to explain
his continued absence from court, the magnate Nabu-beluka”in wrote, “We
are clearing the roads, but snow is filling them up. There is very much snow. .
. . The year before last, there was snow like this, the rivers were frozen and
the men and horses with me died in the snow.” By contrast, the Near East’s
extremely hot summer temperatures proved no impediment to the hardy,
well-acclimatized Assyrians, who apparently took it for granted. Debilitating
heat did not get mentioned in letters or inscriptions, though the effects of
drought figured periodically.
Sargon’s Letter to Ashur, the account of his campaign
against Urartu in 714, offers one of the most eloquent descriptions of the
rigors of mountain travel:
As for Mount Simirriu,
a lofty peak that thrusts up sharp as a spear point and whose summit, the
dwelling of the goddess, Belet-ili, rises over the mountains, whose topmost
summits, indeed, reach to the very sky, whose roots below thrust down to the
depths of the netherworld, and which, like the back of a fish, offers no way to
pass on either flank, and the ascent of which, from front to back, is
exceedingly difficult, on the sides of which yawn chasms and mountain ravines,
a fearsome spectacle to behold, discouraging to the ascent of chariotry and to
the high spirits of steeds, the worst possible going for the ascent of infantry
. . . I provided my engineers with heavy copper picks, so they broke up the
sharp peak of the mountain into fragments as if it was limestone, and made good
going.
Even in modern times, the Zagros Mountains present a
formidable challenge to nomads. For example, the documentary film People of the
Wind records the annual Bakhtiari tribe’s migration to upland pasture during
the 1960s. Of particular relevance are the sections that show the crossing of
mountain rivers via inflated goat skins, the recutting of a path after a winter
washout, and an enforced halt after rain has rendered waterlogged woolen tents
too heavy for the pack mules to carry. Each of these problems-and indeed their
solutions-would have been familiar to the Assyrians.
The Order of March
and Battle
Those soldiers who survived the march had to face the rigors
of combat. Campaign season usually began sometime in Nisan (March- April) after
the celebration of the New Year’s festival and lasted until it was time for the
fall planting or, more rarely, until the advent of winter precluded further
action. Expeditions to the Zagros Mountains might start later, since snow could
block passes as late as July. On campaign, the standing army marched in unit
order under the chariot standards of prominent deities such as Nergal, Adad,
Ashur, Ishtar, Sin, and Shamash. Tradition associated particular regiments with
certain gods, as in the case of the royal cavalry guard and the Arbela city
unit, whose patron was Ishtar of Arbela. In royal inscriptions when the king
made statements such as “I prepared the yoke of Nergal and Adad, whose
standards march ahead of me,” he not only referred literally to divine
standards (urigallu) but tacitly indicated which divisions took the lead position.
The order of march, although seldom mentioned in royal inscriptions,
undoubtedly changed to meet the exigencies of war, weather, and terrain, but it
was probably also contingent upon the presence of magnates, who had the right
by privilege of birth, social status, or the king’s favor to travel and fight
near him. While ascending a very steep mountain, for example, Sargon claimed,
“I took the lead position before my army, I made the chariotry, cavalry,
and my combat troops fly over it like valiant eagles, I brought after them the
support troops and kallapani, the camels and pack mules frolicked over its
peak, one after another, like mountain goats bred in the hills. I brought the
surging flood of Assyrian troops easily over its arduous crest and made camp
right on top of the mountain.” Recognizing the possibility of ambush and
harassment attacks as they marched through enemy territory, the king placed
himself with the best troops in the vanguard, put vulnerable baggage and
noncombatants in the well-protected center of the column, and brought up the
rear with the expendables.
Over the course of nearly constant campaigning, the
Assyrians had developed a tripartite offensive strategy of devastation, battle,
and siege. When they entered enemy territory, if an opposing army did not meet
them in battle immediately, then the Assyrians would typically go for easy
targets-small, poorly defended villages and towns-that they would wreck, ruin,
and plunder with devastating efficiency. This technique served several
purposes. First of all it was the easiest way to secure supplies, acquire
plunder, and deny the enemy vital resources. Second, by terrorizing the
countryside, the Assyrians could isolate and then bypass bigger settlements and
cities that might otherwise prove too costly to besiege. Finally, devastation
put pressure on the enemy leader(s) to fight or surrender. If opponents did not
acquiesce quickly enough, then battle or siege would ensue. As we have seen,
the Assyrian army typically consisted of chariot units, cavalry, archers, and
heavy-armed spearmen, but just how they were deployed in battle is not well
known. Sargon’s inscriptions emphasize sieges and mention only those battles
that were particularly significant, omitting smaller or indecisive engagements.
Moreover, the palace reliefs offer little insight into the experience of
battle. They limit the scene to the moment of victory, when the elite chariots
or cavalry trample fallen enemies and chase down those fleeing the field, as
professional infantry dispatch the wounded and round up prisoners. There are
good reasons to suppose that full-scale pitched battles were not a common
occurrence and that most contests-even ones involving substantial forces-were
generally of short duration.
The disposition of Assyrian troops on the battlefield and
the tactics employed would naturally have depended on a number of
circumstances: the morale and fitness of Assyrian troops; terrain and weather;
the size of the enemy army and the unit types it employed; and the assessed
quality of enemy troops and leadership, to name only the most obvious. The
strict social hierarchy in Assyria probably also determined the battle array as
the magnates and their troops claimed field positions by right of rank and
tradition. The king in his chariot, accompanied by his brother’s elite cavalry,
took the center, but just how the other magnates arranged themselves is not
clear. The chariot’s function in battle is still much debated; however, by the
late eighth century it had traded much of its mobility for the added security
of heavier construction, and this in turn may have relegated it to a reserve or
command position on the battlefield. There is no reason to doubt, however, that
Sargon and his nobles actually fought. Recent attempts to reconstruct
Neo-Assyrian battle tactics have had mixed results, although texts indicate
that the army was capable of executing standard maneuvers such as flanking and
envelopment.
Thanks to the detailed depiction of sieges on the palace
reliefs and some fruitful archaeological excavations, we know a great deal more
about how the Assyrians conducted siege operations than we know about how they
fought battles. In the Near East all sizeable cities and towns boasted some
sort of defensive system, though smaller settlements had only simple mud-brick
curtain walls and perhaps a towered gateway. For large cities, however,
defenses could include a sophisticated combination of double walls, moats,
glacis, and towered gates from which defenders could provide enfilading fire.
With stone foundations and mud-brick superstructure, city walls commonly
achieved heights of thirty to forty feet and could be extremely thick-Calah’s
wall was 120 feet (thirty-seven meters) deep in places. Fortification walls
extended for miles in circumference, making full blockade or circumvallation
highly problematic for a besieging army. In all regions of the Near East from
at least the middle of the second millennium b. c., armies practiced standard
siege tactics that included ruse, blockade, escalade, mining, sapping, and
frontal assault using siege engines equipped with battering rams. Common
counter-measures included sorties, the undermining of ramps with tunnels, and
the construction of secondary walls. By the eighth century, the Assyrians had
honed their siege craft to the highest standard, but because sieges could be
time-consuming and result in high casualties, they did not undertake
large-scale operations lightly. For attacking soldiers, a siege promised plenty
of hard work, physical privation, danger, and the more attractive prospect of
loot. Before committing to a siege, the Assyrians encouraged surrender or
attempted to take the city by subterfuge; frontal assault was not usually the
first course of action. In one letter, for example, an official writing from
northeastern Babylonia reported being approached by a local faction plotting to
betray their city to the Assyrians. Another letter writer suggested capturing a
town by tunneling through the mud-brick wall of a house and bringing the soldiers
through the breach secretly at night. One of Sargon’s siege reliefs depicts an
official delivering surrender terms to the defenders from a siege tower.
Sometimes, however, the army had to take a city the hard way.
Siege operations varied in scale and intensity from fast and
dirty frontal assaults to protracted affairs that required ingenuity and a
great deal of coordinated effort. Since most fortified cities were also located
on heights, soldiers had to attack uphill over formidable obstacles. Typically,
large contingents of Assyrian archers provided cover for smaller units-the
Assyrian equivalent of the forlorn hope-who would leapfrog forward to attack
the defenses at multiple points in preparation for a concerted assault.
Assyrian spearmen with tower shields or lighter, more maneuverable bucklers
protected long-range archers from counterfire and enemy sorties. Assault units
operated in a variety of groupings: spearmen with shields to protect archers;
spearmen together; sappers working alone or in pairs to dig through walls; and
archers (usually Itu’eans) shooting without the benefit of cover. Equestrian
forces probably patrolled, foraged, or acted as mobile units that could counter
enemy attacks. The reliefs also depict dismounted officers and magnates-identifiable
by their long robes-discharging arrows from behind covering shields. In the
event that the defenses required siege engines, a ramp had to be built to
bridge ditches and reach the walls. The construction of a siege ramp was not an
easy task, although it did not require advanced engineering expertise or any
mathematical calculations as has sometimes been asserted. Basically, soldiers
got whatever dirt, rocks, wood, and other handy materials they could find,
including building detritus, then piled it all up and tamped it down until they
had a surface sufficient to carry the weight of siege engines. The key
variables included the size of the ramp, the type and disposition of obstacles,
the number of men that could be spared to work, and the abundance of available
materials. All of this occurred under enemy fire, and it is likely that
unburied corpses soon made the killing zone distinctly unpleasant and
unhealthy. Disease posed one of the greatest risks of extended siege work.
If unfavorable circumstances (e. g., high casualties or lack
of food) prevented the Assyrians from taking a city, they could choose the
economical alternative, which was to ravage the countryside, cut down fruit
trees, wreck irrigation canals, and destroy fields in order to cause the enemy
to suffer hardship and prohibit his ability to wage war. Besides the collection
of supplies, one of the main reasons to devastate small cities and towns within
a target area was to reduce the enemy’s resources so that he could not field a retaliatory
army for the foreseeable future. Without the means to rebel against the
Assyrians, many polities had no choice but to submit. Nor did the Assyrians
raze every city they besieged successfully. The fate of a captured city and its
inhabitants depended on a variety of military, political, and strategic
factors. Although looting was inevitable (even necessary), the Assyrians
reserved burning buildings and dismantling defenses for certain circumstances.
Strict attention to the wording of royal inscriptions and the details of relief
sculpture reveals that a lot less violence occurred than is often assumed.
Sometimes the appearance of the army inspired immediate capitulation, thus
saving lives on both sides. As will become apparent in the following chapters,
ancient warfare was not simply about killing as many of the enemy as possible.
The Assyrians did not blindly rape, pillage, and obliterate but followed
whichever course of action (including clemency) allowed them to achieve their
objectives with the least cost to themselves. Whatever they did, however, they
imbued with meaning expressed through religious observation.
Military Ritual
Ritual pervaded every aspect of life in Assyria (and indeed
the ancient Near East in general), including military activities. Soldiers
affirmed their loyalty to the king by swearing allegiance before the gods,
while the king reassured his followers of divine support through constant
public acts of piety (e. g., temple-building and religious festivals), and
naturally everyone attempted to secure divine approval for risky undertakings
such as war. Prognosticating and prophylactic rituals played a prominent part
in all military endeavors. Several sculptured reliefs, for example, depict
religious performance in army camps. Phrases such as “at the command of
the god, Ashur, I mustered my chariots,” so common in royal inscriptions,
testified to the king’s reliance on divination to secure divine approbation.
Although all wars were fought in the name of the gods, they were not holy wars
in the modern sense. The Assyrians did not attempt to eradicate the worship of
foreign gods or impose their own gods on defeated people, though they did
encourage assimilation by conflating local cults with some of their own.
Neo-Assyrian rituals dealt with every aspect of warfare. One
rite called “so that in battle arrows do not come near a man” helped
warriors prepare mentally for approaching combat. A cultic commentary for a
ritual to be performed at the camp (madaktu) after a battle describes a ceremony
in which the king symbolically defeated his enemy with the aid of the gods
Nergal, Adad, and Belet-dunani (“lady of the strong,” the warrior
aspect of Ishtar). During the course of this elaborate multipart ceremony,
officials made sacrifices and rode the sacred chariot, the king carried out a
procedure involving his bow and arrows while driving his own chariot, and
officials performed a “ritual voodoo-like shooting of an enemy or his
image” as onlookers and participants shouted, sang, and chanted the requisite
liturgy. Subsequently the king symbolically captured his enemy, the group
raised shields, and priests made more sacrifices, after which the entire party
processed back to the camp to enjoy a celebratory meal in a portable sanctuary
(qersu).
Religious observance informed everything from symbolic
declarations of war, the surrender or execution of enemies, and the review of
prisoners to the triumphant march home and ensuing celebratory banquet.
Sacrifices carried out when armies mustered and before they crossed into enemy
territory often alerted watchful enemies to impending attack and thus created
the opportunity for legitimate war. The numerous Assyrian intelligence reports
informing the king of enemy rituals almost certainly had significance beyond
mere surveillance. Likewise, the akitu festivals of particular Assyrian gods
have been associated with both pre-campaign ceremonies and post-campaign
triumphs. It is likely that after particularly important wars, such as Sargon’s
victory over Urartu in 714, the king’s representative read or recited publicly
an account of the campaign in the form of a letter addressed to Ashur and the
people of the city. Afterward he dedicated the text at the appropriate temple.
Doubtlessly intended to secure victory as well as the king’s safety, military
rituals served multiple secondary purposes: they promoted the king’s
legitimacy, signaled political action, helped an ethnically diverse army
establish a corporate identity, fostered good morale, and encouraged the public
to view the army favorably.
On another level, all public ceremonies promoted the
ideology of the Assyrian elite and helped that group maintain its hold on
power. That the Assyrians were talented self-promoters is undeniable, but this
should not lead us to dismiss them as cynical posturers. In Assyria, as in
medieval Japan (and most early modern monarchies), pomp and ceremony were
“a visual symbol of the social order and served an important function in
vitalizing and renewing the polity. . . . [F]rom the very beginning, court
ritual and ceremony were politics.” This principle also held true for
international relations, in which every move a king or his representative made,
from gift exchange, dining, and ritual to the mutilation of an enemy, sent a
deliberate message to friend and foe alike. In this light, the bloodthirsty
rhetoric and brutal visual imagery of Assyrian kings and warfare itself were
all part of the political spectacle. Although Sargon wielded formidable
military strength (as this chapter has demonstrated), he had to use it wisely.
For each campaign that he undertook, he had to manage not only immediate
military conditions, but also emerging threats outside the field of operations.
