V - I N A N N A
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Flight and Freedom
books.google.com
Freedom as a value is older than Greece, as evidence from the Ancient Near East shows us through this book. Snell first looks at words for freedom in the Ancient Near East. Then he examines archival texts to see how runaways expressed their interest in freedom in Mesopotamian history.
He next examines what elites said about flight and freedom in edicts, legal collections, and treaties. He devotes a chapter to flight in literature and story. He studies freedom in Israel by looking at Biblical terminology and then practice in narratives and legal collections.
In a final chapter Snell traces the descent of ideas about freedom among Jews, Greeks and Christians, and Muslims, concluding that the devotion to freedom may be nearly a human universal.
***
His work has received support from a number of fellowship granting agencies, including the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Oregon Humanities Center, and two international foundations, the Humanities Research Centre at Canberra and the Institute for Advanced Research in the Humanities at Edinburgh.
He is currently at work on a study tentatively titled Religions of the Ancient Near East that will cover the years from roughly 6000 BCE to 332 BCE. Professor Snell teaches courses at all levels on subjects ranging from the history of ancient Israel to a course on ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to an offering on slavery in world history. Recently, he offered a course titled Religions of the Ancient Near East. Snell received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1975.
He next examines what elites said about flight and freedom in edicts, legal collections, and treaties. He devotes a chapter to flight in literature and story. He studies freedom in Israel by looking at Biblical terminology and then practice in narratives and legal collections.
In a final chapter Snell traces the descent of ideas about freedom among Jews, Greeks and Christians, and Muslims, concluding that the devotion to freedom may be nearly a human universal.
***
Professor Snell was named the L.J. Semrod Presidential Professor in 2001 and is the author of many books, book chapters, and articles. He is an Assyriologist, Ancient Economic Historian, and Biblical Scholar who writes both technical articles and accessible works like his History Book Club selection, Life in the Ancient Near East, 3100-332 B.C. and his recent edited volume, A Companion to the Ancient Near East.
His work has received support from a number of fellowship granting agencies, including the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, the Oregon Humanities Center, and two international foundations, the Humanities Research Centre at Canberra and the Institute for Advanced Research in the Humanities at Edinburgh.
He is currently at work on a study tentatively titled Religions of the Ancient Near East that will cover the years from roughly 6000 BCE to 332 BCE. Professor Snell teaches courses at all levels on subjects ranging from the history of ancient Israel to a course on ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt to an offering on slavery in world history. Recently, he offered a course titled Religions of the Ancient Near East. Snell received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1975.
Daniel C. Snell,
Presidential Professor, Ancient History
History Department at the University of Oklahoma
Presidential Professor, Ancient History
History Department at the University of Oklahoma
Passages from Nels Bailkey, “Early Mesopotamian Constitutional Development”
Religion excepted, few aspects of civilization in the ancient Near East hold the attention of modern students for long as they press on to the serious study of the Greeks…The view that the Greeks “invented politics” is a pardonable exaggeration that effectively points up the difficulty of naming a form of government unknown to this gifted people…
The prevailing view that nothing approaching this rich and varied constitutional development can be dated earlier than the Greeks now needs considerable modification in the light of burgeoning evidence from ancient Mesopotamia. The object of this essay is to demonstrate the extent to which this evidence—chronologically surveyed to the end of the Old Babylonian period (about 1595 B.C.)—warrants the conclusion that, with the important exception of democracy, early Mesopotamia evolved constitutional forms that parallel, in their essentials, those of Greece. Consideration also will be given to a more plausible explanation for the failure of the ancient Mesopotamians to achieve democracy than simply the absence of a “democratic spirit,” an unhistorical begging of the question first resorted to by Greek writers.
[Bailkey then narrates the existence and fall of primitive monarchy in Sumer; its replacement by oligarchy; the rise of the lugal (“great householder” or “powerful man”), as communally owned clan land fell into the hands of private owners; the appearance of strong lugal-tyrants who ruled cities and founded dynasties; and the weakening in power and possessions of the temple priesthoods.]
Within a generation after Urukagina’s failure [Urukagina was a lugal who for a brief period vigorously sought to right abuses and restore egalitarian practices in lands under his control], tyranny was firmly established in Sumer by Sargon (about 2370-2315 B.C.) of neighboring Akkad, whose large standing army enabled him to subdue the Sumerian temple-dominated cities and create an empire in which, he thought it important to record, “natives of Akkad are holding the ensi-ships.” [governorships].
Despite the presence of Akkadian garrisons, what Sargon’s inscriptions call the “rebellious” and “guilty cities” of Sumer organized a series of formidable revolts against him and his successors….At issue was the old question of who would exercise power in the Mesopotamian theocratic state: the priestly oligarchs of the temple-dominated cities or the secular but god-appointed tyrant. …According to the slightly later Sumerian composition know as “The Curse of Agade,”…it was after Naram-Sin [Sargon’s grandson and third successor] had confiscated some temple property that the priests of Enlil’s “holy city” of Nippur proclaimed that the “good sense of Agade [has] turned to folly.” They set up an antiking at Nippur and were joined by the “gods” of eight other Sumerian cities in pronouncing “A curse of destruction upon Agade” and the tyrant “who defied Enlil.” The Akkadian Empire did not recover from the onslaught of this coalition whose more than twenty eventual members included lands stretching from Cappadocia to Magan, which had harbored outposts of Akkadian imperialism.
The next turn in the course of Mesopotamian politics was unwittingly foretold by the author of “The Curse of Agade” in stating that as a consequence of the dire economic aftermath of the breakup of the Akkadian Empire—collapse of trade, inflation and famine-- …the gods of the Sumerian cities were forced to take action to save “all mankind fashioned by Enlil” from want and misery.
[Bailkey narrates the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which produced a highly centralized state. Ur-Nammu, who founded the dynasty, is proclaimed in documents to have “established equity in the land…he made the arrogant have a master. The orphan was not given over to the rich, the widow was not given over to the powerful, the man of one shekel was not given over to the man of one mina.“] The Temple economic organization of the Old Sumerian period was fully revived to function as the state’s economic arm… A gradual revival of private business activity soon began…and reached large-scale proportions…
The fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur abruptly ended a century of economic stability and prosperity… As in Greece after the fall of the Athenian Empire, there now ensued a long period characterized by political instability, chronic depression, and extremes of wealth and poverty commonly but imprecisely called the Old Babylonian period (about 2006-1595 B.C.). During this Era of Contending Kingdoms, as the period is increasingly called, incessant wars to maintain the balance of power, fought by constantly shifting coalitions (“there is no king who is powerful on his own”), beset the land together with resurgent oligarchy…
The predominantly private economic records of the period describe in detail how these ubiquitous rich and powerful “gentlemen” (awelu) invested their accumulated “capital” (qaqqadum, literally “head”) in domestic and foreign commerce and industry, purchased extensive landed estates, and made loans to peasant farmers and sharecroppers at interest rates so excessive as to become proverbial: “The awelum who makes [grain] loans as a creditor—his grain remains his grain, while his interest is enormous” So prevalent was debt slavery that, according to a popular saying, ”The strong man lives off what is paid for his strength, and the weak man off what is paid for his children.” A new term, muskenu (“clients”), was now used for the mass of the population who had been reduced to a state of dependency which, for many if not most, bordered on destitution. Their plight was accentuated by inflation and famine, twin evils of a stagnant economy caused by a sharp decline of foreign and domestic trade and a continuing decrease in agricultural production caused by the gradual salting up of the irrigated land.
That the poor did not always lack protection, however, is the major glory of the Old Babylonian period: the strong rulers who arose made ameliorative state action their main domestic concern. In broad reference to their work as social reformers, these rulers commonly employed the terse expression first used, as we have seen, by Urukagina, “I have established liberty (amargi),” meaning the removal of abuses from the oppressed and, more positively, the restoration and safeguarding of their rights. In part, these Old Babylonain reformers followed their predecessors of the Third Dynasty in viewing social justice as a return to what Urukagina had called “the divinely decreed way of life of former times,” or what as now termed kittum (in Sumerian, nig-ge-na), “truth,” the fixed and invariably body of law upon which society was founded, the creation of the gods who had entrusted it to the ruler’s care.
Increasingly, however, stress was placed on a new, dynamic type of law that had come to the fore during the period of the Third Dynasty as a supplement to kittum. Called misarum (in Sumerian, sig-si-sa), literally “rightings” and hence translated “justice” or “equity,” this new law was clearly of human origin, the work of a true “legislator” (lugal misarum, “master of equity law”). Promulgated as “ordinances of the king” misaru acts sought to alleviate the injustices produced by the extreme economic and social dislocations of the Old Babylonian period for which kittum had no specific remedy.
The evidence that many of the Old Babylonian rulers issued misaru acts ranges from brief phrases in inscriptions and date formulas to extensive collections of remedial legislation: the recovered “codes” of Lipit-Ishtar, Hammurabi, Ammisaduqa, and, earliest of all, an unknown ruler of Eshumma. …[in the Lipit-Ishtar code] debt bondage was limited to three years, …to curb inflation—the price of grain had risen to sixty times its normal level immediately following the collapse of the Third Dynasty--maximum prices were established for basic commodities, including beer. Wages were fixed by law, as were fees charged by housebuilders, physicians, veterinarians, boat caulkers and leasers of work animals, wagons and boats… Much private trade continued, but it was circumscribed by regulations covering weights and measures, partnership and agency, the sale of liquor and the carriage and safe deposit of money and goods…
The success, however sporadic and ephemeral, of the paternalistic Third Dynasty of Ur and Old Babylonian rulers in establishing a social and economic “equilibrium” (another sense of the term misarum) provides a not unlikely explanation of why democracy did not succeed tyranny in ancient Mesopotamia, or put in terms of historical process, why the Mesopotamians did not anticipate the Greeks and other later peoples in reviving their heroic age popular assembly to become the seat of political power. It is generally held that tyranny in Greece ended only after it had lost the support of the people; in Mesopotamia, however, no lengthy abatement of the compelling circumstances behind such support ever was forthcoming. In this land where proverbs noted that “the poor man has no power,” …the only effective spokesman for “the poor [who] are the silent ones of the land” was the powerful enlightened despot who sought “by intelligence and wisdom to protect the people” [inscription of an unknown ruler in the Third Dynasty]
Aristotle’s famous dictum (Politics, 3.14.6) that what kept these “barbarians” from achieving democracy was a defect of character—“the people are by nature slaves”—is surely at best a half-truth. A far more accurate ancient Greek appraisal of the reason behind the continued existence of despotism in Mesopotamia has long lain unappreciated in the work of Herodotus, whose travels and “inquiries” (historia) among the peoples of the ancient Orient made him the least parochial of Hellenistic writers… In a passage [from the Histories 3.82] that purports to record the arguments of three Persian nobles over the best form of government—monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy—to replace the anarchy that followed the sudden death of the unpopular Cambyses, Herodotus ably presents the case for “Oriental despotism” in words that he attributed to Darius:
“One ruler: it is impossible to improve upon that—provided that he is the best man for the job. His judgment will be in keeping with his character; he will act blamelessly as the steward of the people…[He] comes forward as the people’s champion and breaks up the cliques which are out for their own interests. This wins him the admiration of the people, and as a result he soon finds himself entrusted with absolute power . . . To sum up: where did we get our freedom from, and who gave it to us? Is it the result of democracy, or of oligarchy, or of monarchy? We were set free by one man, and therefore I propose that we should preserve that form of government, and further, that we should refrain from changing ancient laws, which have served us well in the past. To do so would only lead to disaster.”
Herodotus’ reference to “freedom” under a monarch touches on a pertinent point. It can be argued that ancient Mesopotamia knew democracy of a sort: the “true democracy” of the Roman Empire (and, as is all too evident, of large parts of our contemporary world) which, its apologists maintained, was achieved only after libertas (that is, individual rights) had been guaranteed by the auctoritas of the emperors. All this was anticipated in the “establishing of liberty” by the ancient Mespotamian “true steward of the assembly.”
________________________________
From:
Nels Bailkey, “Early Mesopotamian Constitutional Development,” The American Historical Review, Vol 72, No. 4 (July, 1967), 1211-1236.
Source:
aliraqi forums > Cultural > History & Heritage >
Happy Birthday Iraq II:
Constitutional Rights in Ancient Mesopotamia
Religion excepted, few aspects of civilization in the ancient Near East hold the attention of modern students for long as they press on to the serious study of the Greeks…The view that the Greeks “invented politics” is a pardonable exaggeration that effectively points up the difficulty of naming a form of government unknown to this gifted people…
The prevailing view that nothing approaching this rich and varied constitutional development can be dated earlier than the Greeks now needs considerable modification in the light of burgeoning evidence from ancient Mesopotamia. The object of this essay is to demonstrate the extent to which this evidence—chronologically surveyed to the end of the Old Babylonian period (about 1595 B.C.)—warrants the conclusion that, with the important exception of democracy, early Mesopotamia evolved constitutional forms that parallel, in their essentials, those of Greece. Consideration also will be given to a more plausible explanation for the failure of the ancient Mesopotamians to achieve democracy than simply the absence of a “democratic spirit,” an unhistorical begging of the question first resorted to by Greek writers.
[Bailkey then narrates the existence and fall of primitive monarchy in Sumer; its replacement by oligarchy; the rise of the lugal (“great householder” or “powerful man”), as communally owned clan land fell into the hands of private owners; the appearance of strong lugal-tyrants who ruled cities and founded dynasties; and the weakening in power and possessions of the temple priesthoods.]
Within a generation after Urukagina’s failure [Urukagina was a lugal who for a brief period vigorously sought to right abuses and restore egalitarian practices in lands under his control], tyranny was firmly established in Sumer by Sargon (about 2370-2315 B.C.) of neighboring Akkad, whose large standing army enabled him to subdue the Sumerian temple-dominated cities and create an empire in which, he thought it important to record, “natives of Akkad are holding the ensi-ships.” [governorships].
Despite the presence of Akkadian garrisons, what Sargon’s inscriptions call the “rebellious” and “guilty cities” of Sumer organized a series of formidable revolts against him and his successors….At issue was the old question of who would exercise power in the Mesopotamian theocratic state: the priestly oligarchs of the temple-dominated cities or the secular but god-appointed tyrant. …According to the slightly later Sumerian composition know as “The Curse of Agade,”…it was after Naram-Sin [Sargon’s grandson and third successor] had confiscated some temple property that the priests of Enlil’s “holy city” of Nippur proclaimed that the “good sense of Agade [has] turned to folly.” They set up an antiking at Nippur and were joined by the “gods” of eight other Sumerian cities in pronouncing “A curse of destruction upon Agade” and the tyrant “who defied Enlil.” The Akkadian Empire did not recover from the onslaught of this coalition whose more than twenty eventual members included lands stretching from Cappadocia to Magan, which had harbored outposts of Akkadian imperialism.
The next turn in the course of Mesopotamian politics was unwittingly foretold by the author of “The Curse of Agade” in stating that as a consequence of the dire economic aftermath of the breakup of the Akkadian Empire—collapse of trade, inflation and famine-- …the gods of the Sumerian cities were forced to take action to save “all mankind fashioned by Enlil” from want and misery.
[Bailkey narrates the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur, which produced a highly centralized state. Ur-Nammu, who founded the dynasty, is proclaimed in documents to have “established equity in the land…he made the arrogant have a master. The orphan was not given over to the rich, the widow was not given over to the powerful, the man of one shekel was not given over to the man of one mina.“] The Temple economic organization of the Old Sumerian period was fully revived to function as the state’s economic arm… A gradual revival of private business activity soon began…and reached large-scale proportions…
The fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur abruptly ended a century of economic stability and prosperity… As in Greece after the fall of the Athenian Empire, there now ensued a long period characterized by political instability, chronic depression, and extremes of wealth and poverty commonly but imprecisely called the Old Babylonian period (about 2006-1595 B.C.). During this Era of Contending Kingdoms, as the period is increasingly called, incessant wars to maintain the balance of power, fought by constantly shifting coalitions (“there is no king who is powerful on his own”), beset the land together with resurgent oligarchy…
The predominantly private economic records of the period describe in detail how these ubiquitous rich and powerful “gentlemen” (awelu) invested their accumulated “capital” (qaqqadum, literally “head”) in domestic and foreign commerce and industry, purchased extensive landed estates, and made loans to peasant farmers and sharecroppers at interest rates so excessive as to become proverbial: “The awelum who makes [grain] loans as a creditor—his grain remains his grain, while his interest is enormous” So prevalent was debt slavery that, according to a popular saying, ”The strong man lives off what is paid for his strength, and the weak man off what is paid for his children.” A new term, muskenu (“clients”), was now used for the mass of the population who had been reduced to a state of dependency which, for many if not most, bordered on destitution. Their plight was accentuated by inflation and famine, twin evils of a stagnant economy caused by a sharp decline of foreign and domestic trade and a continuing decrease in agricultural production caused by the gradual salting up of the irrigated land.
That the poor did not always lack protection, however, is the major glory of the Old Babylonian period: the strong rulers who arose made ameliorative state action their main domestic concern. In broad reference to their work as social reformers, these rulers commonly employed the terse expression first used, as we have seen, by Urukagina, “I have established liberty (amargi),” meaning the removal of abuses from the oppressed and, more positively, the restoration and safeguarding of their rights. In part, these Old Babylonain reformers followed their predecessors of the Third Dynasty in viewing social justice as a return to what Urukagina had called “the divinely decreed way of life of former times,” or what as now termed kittum (in Sumerian, nig-ge-na), “truth,” the fixed and invariably body of law upon which society was founded, the creation of the gods who had entrusted it to the ruler’s care.
Increasingly, however, stress was placed on a new, dynamic type of law that had come to the fore during the period of the Third Dynasty as a supplement to kittum. Called misarum (in Sumerian, sig-si-sa), literally “rightings” and hence translated “justice” or “equity,” this new law was clearly of human origin, the work of a true “legislator” (lugal misarum, “master of equity law”). Promulgated as “ordinances of the king” misaru acts sought to alleviate the injustices produced by the extreme economic and social dislocations of the Old Babylonian period for which kittum had no specific remedy.
The evidence that many of the Old Babylonian rulers issued misaru acts ranges from brief phrases in inscriptions and date formulas to extensive collections of remedial legislation: the recovered “codes” of Lipit-Ishtar, Hammurabi, Ammisaduqa, and, earliest of all, an unknown ruler of Eshumma. …[in the Lipit-Ishtar code] debt bondage was limited to three years, …to curb inflation—the price of grain had risen to sixty times its normal level immediately following the collapse of the Third Dynasty--maximum prices were established for basic commodities, including beer. Wages were fixed by law, as were fees charged by housebuilders, physicians, veterinarians, boat caulkers and leasers of work animals, wagons and boats… Much private trade continued, but it was circumscribed by regulations covering weights and measures, partnership and agency, the sale of liquor and the carriage and safe deposit of money and goods…
The success, however sporadic and ephemeral, of the paternalistic Third Dynasty of Ur and Old Babylonian rulers in establishing a social and economic “equilibrium” (another sense of the term misarum) provides a not unlikely explanation of why democracy did not succeed tyranny in ancient Mesopotamia, or put in terms of historical process, why the Mesopotamians did not anticipate the Greeks and other later peoples in reviving their heroic age popular assembly to become the seat of political power. It is generally held that tyranny in Greece ended only after it had lost the support of the people; in Mesopotamia, however, no lengthy abatement of the compelling circumstances behind such support ever was forthcoming. In this land where proverbs noted that “the poor man has no power,” …the only effective spokesman for “the poor [who] are the silent ones of the land” was the powerful enlightened despot who sought “by intelligence and wisdom to protect the people” [inscription of an unknown ruler in the Third Dynasty]
Aristotle’s famous dictum (Politics, 3.14.6) that what kept these “barbarians” from achieving democracy was a defect of character—“the people are by nature slaves”—is surely at best a half-truth. A far more accurate ancient Greek appraisal of the reason behind the continued existence of despotism in Mesopotamia has long lain unappreciated in the work of Herodotus, whose travels and “inquiries” (historia) among the peoples of the ancient Orient made him the least parochial of Hellenistic writers… In a passage [from the Histories 3.82] that purports to record the arguments of three Persian nobles over the best form of government—monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy—to replace the anarchy that followed the sudden death of the unpopular Cambyses, Herodotus ably presents the case for “Oriental despotism” in words that he attributed to Darius:
“One ruler: it is impossible to improve upon that—provided that he is the best man for the job. His judgment will be in keeping with his character; he will act blamelessly as the steward of the people…[He] comes forward as the people’s champion and breaks up the cliques which are out for their own interests. This wins him the admiration of the people, and as a result he soon finds himself entrusted with absolute power . . . To sum up: where did we get our freedom from, and who gave it to us? Is it the result of democracy, or of oligarchy, or of monarchy? We were set free by one man, and therefore I propose that we should preserve that form of government, and further, that we should refrain from changing ancient laws, which have served us well in the past. To do so would only lead to disaster.”
Herodotus’ reference to “freedom” under a monarch touches on a pertinent point. It can be argued that ancient Mesopotamia knew democracy of a sort: the “true democracy” of the Roman Empire (and, as is all too evident, of large parts of our contemporary world) which, its apologists maintained, was achieved only after libertas (that is, individual rights) had been guaranteed by the auctoritas of the emperors. All this was anticipated in the “establishing of liberty” by the ancient Mespotamian “true steward of the assembly.”
________________________________
From:
Nels Bailkey, “Early Mesopotamian Constitutional Development,” The American Historical Review, Vol 72, No. 4 (July, 1967), 1211-1236.
Source:
aliraqi forums > Cultural > History & Heritage >
Happy Birthday Iraq II:
Constitutional Rights in Ancient Mesopotamia
Passages from Thorkild Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia”
Jacobsen traces his inquiry backward in time, in a hunt for the oldest sources of Mesopotamian justification for democratic assembly.
Only recently [in history] has it been stressed that what is deeply valued will be discovered and is attainable in the future.
The great ancient civilizations tended to think otherwise, expecting to discover the good most fully in the continuous, sacred dimensions of life, and in origins.
In this article, Jacobsen is not making a reactionary case that the best democracy was in the oldest stages of Mesopotamian civilization. Instead, he’s up to something else: by working with his evidence in reverse chronological order, he is encouraging his reader to try on the point of view of Mesopotamians, to search back in time to the origins of the most powerful articulation of ancient Mesopotamian belief in democratic action.
We shall use “democracy” in its classical rather than its modern sense as denoting a form of government in which internal sovereignty resides in a large proportion of the governed, namely in all free, adult, male citizens without distinction of fortune or class. That sovereignty resides in these citizens implies that major decisions—such as the decision to undertake a war—are made with their consent, that these citizens constitute the supreme judicial authority in the state, and also that rulers and magistrates obtain their positions with and ultimately derive their power from that same consent…
We should perhaps add that the contrast with which we are primarily concerned is the one between “democracy” as defined above, on the one hand, and “autocracy,” used as a general term for forms which tend to concentrate the major political powers in the hands of a single individual on the other. “Oligarchy,” which so subtly merges into democracy and which so often functions in forms similar to it, can hardly, at the present stage of our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia, be profitably distinguished….
[In the first centuries of Mesopotamian history] the country formed a mosaic of diminutive, self-sufficient, autonomous city-states, and in each such state one individual, the ruler, united in his hands the chief political powers: legislative, judiciary, and executive. Only he could promulgate and carry into effect new law; he alone was personally responsible by contract with the city-god for upholding justice and righteousness; as supreme commander of all armed forces, he led the state in battle; and as administrator of the main temple complex, he controlled the most powerful single economic unit within the state…But the momentum of the autocratic idea was still far from spent with the realization of this idea within small separate areas. …From before the dawn of history through the soldier-kingdoms of the Lugalzagesi and the early Sargonids to the highly organized bureaucratic state of the Third Dynasty of Ur, we watch these efforts toward ultimate centralization steadily grow in power, in intensity, and in efficiency.
To find in a world so singularly autocratic in outlook, propelled in its domestic and foreign policies by the one urge for concentration of power, institutions based on diametrically opposite concepts is somewhat unexpected. Yet in the judiciary branch of the government, as a heterogeneous, unassimilated block, appear, even in the latest period of Sumero-Akkadian civilization, features of a distinct and democratic character. [Jacobsen thereafter provides examples of judicial proceeding by assembly in Assyrian colonies in Asia Minor and in Hammurabi’s Babylonia]
It is worth noting that alongside of, and integrated with, this judiciary organization centered in the king stands another having its center in the Babylonian city. The city as such deals out justice according to its own local ideas of right and wrong. …That the Old Babylonian assembly comprises, as already mentioned, the citizens of a given town or village is apparent from the use of “town” or “assembly” as alternatives in our documents…In interpreting this evidence, there is naturally some danger of going too far. Though citizens, and therefore part of the alum, “the town,” women are not likely to have participated in the assembly. Even the men may not always have put in an appearance in numbers which we should consider adequate representation of the citizenry. One inference, however, may be drawn from the fact the puhrum can alternate with the highly comprehensive term alum: participation in the puhrum and in the judicial functions which it exercised did not constitute the prerogative of some small favored class or group; it must have been open to the citizenry at large…
Judicial powers are vested in the community as a whole, in an assembly open to all citizens. Such institutions are manifestly not of a piece with the period in which they are found—a period dominated by the very opposite principle: that of concentration of powers in the hands of one single individual. The question then arises whether these institutions represent new ideas which are just beginning to gain momentum or something old which has been retained from earlier times.
The first alternative seems not very plausible, since the entire drift of Mesopotamian political life and thought in the historical periods is wholeheartedly in the other direction. Throughout we find no signs of growing democratic ideas. The second alternative, therefore, seems the more likely: these judiciary institutions represent a last stronghold, a stubborn survival, of ideas rooted in earlier ages.
This inference is confirmed when we turn to the material which bears on earlier periods, for as we go back in time, the competence and influence of the “assembly” appears to grow and to extend from judiciary functions to other, even more vital aspects of government.
Tradition relating to times no farther back than those of the kings of Akkad already shows that the assembly deemed it within its authority to choose a king…[these, or some of these, were required to] obtain the consent of assembly in matters of peace and war [The author supplies documentary examples such as Gilgamesh’s appeal to the assembly of Uruk for license to go into battle against the ruler of Kish] …Here then, we seem to have portrayed a state in which the ruler must lay his proposals before the people, first to the elders, then to the assembly of the townsmen, and obtain their consent, before he can act. In other words, the assembly appears to be the ultimate political authority.
[Projections of the old assembly into the world of the gods.] …The Sumerians and Akkadians pictured their gods as human in form, governed by human emotions, and living in the same type of world as did men. In almost every particular the world of the gods is therefore a projection of terrestrial conditions. Since this process began relatively early, and since man is by nature conservative in religious matters, early features would, as a matter of course, be retained in the world of the gods after the terrestrial counterpart had disappeared….
[T]he gods are organized politically along democratic lines, essentially different from the autocratic terrestrial states which we find in Mesopotamia in the historical periods. Thus in the domain of the gods we have a reflection of older forms, of the terrestrial Mesopotamian state as it was in pre-historical times.
The assembly which we find in the world of the gods rested on a broad democratic basis; it was, according to the Adad myth n CT, XV, 3, an “assembly of all the gods.” Nor was participation limited by sex: goddesses as well as gods played an active part in its deliberations.
The assembly was usually held in a large court called Ubshuukkina. As the gods arrived, they met friends and relatives who had similarly come from afar to participate in the assembly, and there was general embracing. In the sheltered court the gods then sat down to a sumptuous meal; wine and strong drink soon put them in a happy and carefree mood, fears and worries vanished, and the meeting was ready to settle down to more serious affairs….
The leadership of the assembly belonged by right, it would seem, to An, god of heaven and “father of the gods”; but with him or alone appears also Enlil, god of the storm. An or Enlil usually broached the matters to be considered; and we may assume—our evidence does not allow us to decide the point—that the discussion which followed would be largely in the hands of the so-called ilu rabiutum, the “great gods” or, perhaps better, “the senior gods,” whose number is said to have been fifty. In this discussion it was the intrinsic merit of a proposal which gave it weight: wise council, testifying to “intelligence, profundity, and knowledge” is much admired; and ability to make the others listen to one’s words is a prized gift. Through such general discussion—“asking one another” as the Babylonians expressed it—the issues were clarified and the various gods had opportunity to voice their opinions for and against…
A group of seven powerful gods, “the seven gods who determine the destinies”—that is, whose words is decisive—had, it would seem, the final say, and when an agreement had at last been reached in this manner—voting is a technique of much later origin—it was announced by An and Enlil as “the verdict, the word of the assembly of the gods, the command of An and Enlil.” The executive duties, carrying into effect the decisions of the assembly, seem to have rested with Enlil.
The functions of this divine assembly were in part those of a court of law…But the functions of the divine assembly which go beyond those of a court of law are the ones that command our greatest attention: the assembly is the authority which grants kingship. [Here follow the legends of the Enuma Elish, in which the gods appoint Marduk king so that he may battle Tiamat.] As the assembly is the authority which grants kingship, it can also take it back…
________________________________
From:
Thorkild Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (July, 1943, 159-172).
More:
Geoffrey Evans, “Ancient Mesopotamian Assemblies,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 78, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1958), pp. 1-11.
Geoffrey Evans, “Ancient Mesopotamian Assemblies-An Addendum,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1958), pp. 114-115. Evidence showing that ancient Mesopotamians voted in their assemblies.
Abraham Malamat, “Kingship and Council in Israel and Sumer: A Parallel,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Oct., 1963), pp. 247-253.
Marc van de Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Source:
aliraqi forums > Cultural > History & Heritage >
Happy Birthday Iraq I:
Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia
Jacobsen traces his inquiry backward in time, in a hunt for the oldest sources of Mesopotamian justification for democratic assembly.
Only recently [in history] has it been stressed that what is deeply valued will be discovered and is attainable in the future.
The great ancient civilizations tended to think otherwise, expecting to discover the good most fully in the continuous, sacred dimensions of life, and in origins.
In this article, Jacobsen is not making a reactionary case that the best democracy was in the oldest stages of Mesopotamian civilization. Instead, he’s up to something else: by working with his evidence in reverse chronological order, he is encouraging his reader to try on the point of view of Mesopotamians, to search back in time to the origins of the most powerful articulation of ancient Mesopotamian belief in democratic action.
We shall use “democracy” in its classical rather than its modern sense as denoting a form of government in which internal sovereignty resides in a large proportion of the governed, namely in all free, adult, male citizens without distinction of fortune or class. That sovereignty resides in these citizens implies that major decisions—such as the decision to undertake a war—are made with their consent, that these citizens constitute the supreme judicial authority in the state, and also that rulers and magistrates obtain their positions with and ultimately derive their power from that same consent…
We should perhaps add that the contrast with which we are primarily concerned is the one between “democracy” as defined above, on the one hand, and “autocracy,” used as a general term for forms which tend to concentrate the major political powers in the hands of a single individual on the other. “Oligarchy,” which so subtly merges into democracy and which so often functions in forms similar to it, can hardly, at the present stage of our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia, be profitably distinguished….
[In the first centuries of Mesopotamian history] the country formed a mosaic of diminutive, self-sufficient, autonomous city-states, and in each such state one individual, the ruler, united in his hands the chief political powers: legislative, judiciary, and executive. Only he could promulgate and carry into effect new law; he alone was personally responsible by contract with the city-god for upholding justice and righteousness; as supreme commander of all armed forces, he led the state in battle; and as administrator of the main temple complex, he controlled the most powerful single economic unit within the state…But the momentum of the autocratic idea was still far from spent with the realization of this idea within small separate areas. …From before the dawn of history through the soldier-kingdoms of the Lugalzagesi and the early Sargonids to the highly organized bureaucratic state of the Third Dynasty of Ur, we watch these efforts toward ultimate centralization steadily grow in power, in intensity, and in efficiency.
To find in a world so singularly autocratic in outlook, propelled in its domestic and foreign policies by the one urge for concentration of power, institutions based on diametrically opposite concepts is somewhat unexpected. Yet in the judiciary branch of the government, as a heterogeneous, unassimilated block, appear, even in the latest period of Sumero-Akkadian civilization, features of a distinct and democratic character. [Jacobsen thereafter provides examples of judicial proceeding by assembly in Assyrian colonies in Asia Minor and in Hammurabi’s Babylonia]
It is worth noting that alongside of, and integrated with, this judiciary organization centered in the king stands another having its center in the Babylonian city. The city as such deals out justice according to its own local ideas of right and wrong. …That the Old Babylonian assembly comprises, as already mentioned, the citizens of a given town or village is apparent from the use of “town” or “assembly” as alternatives in our documents…In interpreting this evidence, there is naturally some danger of going too far. Though citizens, and therefore part of the alum, “the town,” women are not likely to have participated in the assembly. Even the men may not always have put in an appearance in numbers which we should consider adequate representation of the citizenry. One inference, however, may be drawn from the fact the puhrum can alternate with the highly comprehensive term alum: participation in the puhrum and in the judicial functions which it exercised did not constitute the prerogative of some small favored class or group; it must have been open to the citizenry at large…
Judicial powers are vested in the community as a whole, in an assembly open to all citizens. Such institutions are manifestly not of a piece with the period in which they are found—a period dominated by the very opposite principle: that of concentration of powers in the hands of one single individual. The question then arises whether these institutions represent new ideas which are just beginning to gain momentum or something old which has been retained from earlier times.
The first alternative seems not very plausible, since the entire drift of Mesopotamian political life and thought in the historical periods is wholeheartedly in the other direction. Throughout we find no signs of growing democratic ideas. The second alternative, therefore, seems the more likely: these judiciary institutions represent a last stronghold, a stubborn survival, of ideas rooted in earlier ages.
This inference is confirmed when we turn to the material which bears on earlier periods, for as we go back in time, the competence and influence of the “assembly” appears to grow and to extend from judiciary functions to other, even more vital aspects of government.
Tradition relating to times no farther back than those of the kings of Akkad already shows that the assembly deemed it within its authority to choose a king…[these, or some of these, were required to] obtain the consent of assembly in matters of peace and war [The author supplies documentary examples such as Gilgamesh’s appeal to the assembly of Uruk for license to go into battle against the ruler of Kish] …Here then, we seem to have portrayed a state in which the ruler must lay his proposals before the people, first to the elders, then to the assembly of the townsmen, and obtain their consent, before he can act. In other words, the assembly appears to be the ultimate political authority.
[Projections of the old assembly into the world of the gods.] …The Sumerians and Akkadians pictured their gods as human in form, governed by human emotions, and living in the same type of world as did men. In almost every particular the world of the gods is therefore a projection of terrestrial conditions. Since this process began relatively early, and since man is by nature conservative in religious matters, early features would, as a matter of course, be retained in the world of the gods after the terrestrial counterpart had disappeared….
[T]he gods are organized politically along democratic lines, essentially different from the autocratic terrestrial states which we find in Mesopotamia in the historical periods. Thus in the domain of the gods we have a reflection of older forms, of the terrestrial Mesopotamian state as it was in pre-historical times.
The assembly which we find in the world of the gods rested on a broad democratic basis; it was, according to the Adad myth n CT, XV, 3, an “assembly of all the gods.” Nor was participation limited by sex: goddesses as well as gods played an active part in its deliberations.
The assembly was usually held in a large court called Ubshuukkina. As the gods arrived, they met friends and relatives who had similarly come from afar to participate in the assembly, and there was general embracing. In the sheltered court the gods then sat down to a sumptuous meal; wine and strong drink soon put them in a happy and carefree mood, fears and worries vanished, and the meeting was ready to settle down to more serious affairs….
The leadership of the assembly belonged by right, it would seem, to An, god of heaven and “father of the gods”; but with him or alone appears also Enlil, god of the storm. An or Enlil usually broached the matters to be considered; and we may assume—our evidence does not allow us to decide the point—that the discussion which followed would be largely in the hands of the so-called ilu rabiutum, the “great gods” or, perhaps better, “the senior gods,” whose number is said to have been fifty. In this discussion it was the intrinsic merit of a proposal which gave it weight: wise council, testifying to “intelligence, profundity, and knowledge” is much admired; and ability to make the others listen to one’s words is a prized gift. Through such general discussion—“asking one another” as the Babylonians expressed it—the issues were clarified and the various gods had opportunity to voice their opinions for and against…
A group of seven powerful gods, “the seven gods who determine the destinies”—that is, whose words is decisive—had, it would seem, the final say, and when an agreement had at last been reached in this manner—voting is a technique of much later origin—it was announced by An and Enlil as “the verdict, the word of the assembly of the gods, the command of An and Enlil.” The executive duties, carrying into effect the decisions of the assembly, seem to have rested with Enlil.
The functions of this divine assembly were in part those of a court of law…But the functions of the divine assembly which go beyond those of a court of law are the ones that command our greatest attention: the assembly is the authority which grants kingship. [Here follow the legends of the Enuma Elish, in which the gods appoint Marduk king so that he may battle Tiamat.] As the assembly is the authority which grants kingship, it can also take it back…
________________________________
From:
Thorkild Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (July, 1943, 159-172).
More:
Geoffrey Evans, “Ancient Mesopotamian Assemblies,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 78, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1958), pp. 1-11.
Geoffrey Evans, “Ancient Mesopotamian Assemblies-An Addendum,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1958), pp. 114-115. Evidence showing that ancient Mesopotamians voted in their assemblies.
Abraham Malamat, “Kingship and Council in Israel and Sumer: A Parallel,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Oct., 1963), pp. 247-253.
Marc van de Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Source:
aliraqi forums > Cultural > History & Heritage >
Happy Birthday Iraq I:
Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia
The Sumerian Roots of the American Preamble
The Prologue to the Law Code of Lipit-Ishtar (1934-1924 B.C.) sets out the purposes of the Sumerian King's Administration and resembles, in form and substance, the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States more closely than any document produced during the centuries that separate the two.
The Sumerian Prologue
When An (and) Enlil
Had called (on) Lipit-Ishtar,
The Wise Shepherd,
Whose name had been pronounced by Nunamnir,
To the Princeship of the Land,
In order to:
Establish Justice in the Land,
To Banish Complaints,
To Turn Back Enmity (and) Rebellion
By the Force of Arms, (and)
To Bring Well-being to the Sumerians and Akkadians, . . .
Then I, Lipit-Ishtar . . . procured . . . Amargi (Liberty)
Of the sons and daughters of Sumer and Akkad
Upon whom ... Slaveship had been imposed.
The American Preamble
We The People of the United States,
In order to form a more perfect Union,
Establish Justice,
Insure Domestic Tranquility,
Provide for the Common Defence,
Promote the General Welfare and
Secure the Blessings of Liberty
To Ourselves and Our Posterity,
Do Ordain and Establish
This Constitution for the United States of America.
From:
(James T. McGuire, The Sumerian Roots of the American Preamble, Lough Erene Press, 1994, pp. v, 3, 5; contributor: Kramer, Samuel N.; illustrator: McGuire, Cecilia.)
First Known Word For Freedom
Urukagina, the leader of the Sumerian city-state of Girsu/Lagash, led a popular movement that resulted in the reform of the oppressive legal and governmental structure of Sumeria. The oppressive conditions in the city before the reforms is described in the new code preserved in cuneiform on tablets of the period: "From the borders of Ningirsu to the sea, there was the tax collector."
During his reign (ca. 2350 B.C.) Urukagina implemented a sweeping set of laws that guaranteed the rights of property owners, reformed the civil administration, and instituted moral and social reforms. Urukagina banned both civil and ecclesiastical authorities from seizing land and goods for payment, eliminated most of the state tax collectors, and ended state involvement in matters such as divorce proceedings and perfume making. He even returned land and other property his predecessors had seized from the temple. He saw that reforms were enacted to eliminate the abuse of the judicial process to extract money from citizens and took great pains to ensure the public nature of legal proceedings.
In this important code is found the first written reference to the concept of liberty (amagi or amargi, literally, "return to the mother"), used in reference to the process of reform. The exact nature of this term is not clear, but the idea that the reforms were to be a return to the original social order decreed by the gods fits well with the translation.
Additional information: The translation of the inscription literally means “return to the mother,” but why this should be a reference to liberty has always been a matter of some interest.
Subsequent work to Kramer’s History Begins at Sumer (1958) has shed further light on the context in which amar-gi was used.
J. N. Postgate’s Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (1992), reveals that early Mesopotamians used the expression when referring to the freeing of one for debt. Early monarchs used indebtedness for taxes as a means of binding the people for service to the king. To release one back to one’s family was often literally to be returned to one’s mother.
When Urukagina assumed power in the Lagash region, following a revolt over the massive increases in taxes, he released large segments of the population from such compulsory service. The entire reform was designated as “amar-gi,” meaning that they were at liberty to return home, but it also included elimination of many unpopular restrictions and the return of seized property.
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