Sargon

Miscellaneous History
1

Lilburne: Now I’m going off from memory on this, so I could be wrong, but I don’t think that epithet has anything to do with any intellectual revolution. Sargon of Akkad, according to legend, was a royal cupbearer who became king (possibly by killing the former king). “New man” might refer to his being an upstart king. It also might have to do with him being a Semite. The Sumerians were a non-semitic people, but for centuries before Sargon’s rise, Semites were becoming integrated into Sumerian society. It would make sense for these Semites to be called “new men”, and especially for Sargon, the first Semite to rule over Sumerians, to be called a new man.

  1. I may have made an induction (at this writing I am going from memory as well, if I must I will try to dig up sources at a more convinent time for me) considering a new era of self promoting art and the “ruling the four coners” philosophy that seems prevelant after Sargon, as well as later dynasties using Sargon as an example of a “new man” of non-royal blood who could make his own empire. I am almost certain there are a relativly decent amount of paleo-babylonian inscriptions indicating new ideological ideals of royalty.

  2. I believe some of the more humble origins of him are from later sources (?), as I do not think any Paleo-Babylonian inscription mentions it.

  3. The Semetic theory seems plausible as well, as Akkad was semetic. I suppose I was never exposed to that theory (or do not recall it anyway). I did think the Semites were in Mesopotamia (and with some prominence) well before Sargon, though with much less of a conquering spirit.

2

Also, while highly speculative (I certainly have my doubts) and centuries removed, if you think Nimrod and Sargon are one and the same, the account in Genesis may show how the Ancient Mid East viewed a shift in thought with the comming of Sargon.

3

“A Jewish legend of the birth of Abraham, drawn from a late Midrash…”* by Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, translated by Henrietta Szold (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913) has the story of Abraham’s birth when Nimrod was king, “Abraham’s birth had been read in the stars by Nimrod; for this impious king was a cunning astrologer, and it was manifest to him that a man would be born in his day who would rise up against him and triumphantly give the lie to his religion. In his terror of the fate foretold him in the stars, he sent for his princes and governors, and asked them to advice him…”

Here’s one legend that might help draw some insight in correlating timelines.

*Occidental Mythology by Joseph Campbell

4

here’s another quote from Campbell’s book:

“The great Semitic monarch Sargon of Agade (c. 2350 B.C.), whose birth story we have read, ahad been succeeded by a dynasty of ten descendants, which, however, was overthrown c. 2150 B.C. by an incursion of barbarians from the northeast. 'The dragons from the mountains,'they were called, ‘who ravished the wife from her spouse, children from their parents, and the kingdom from the land of Sumer.’”

also this:

"The peace and bounty of the goddess, based upon the rites of her temple groves of sacrifice, spread from teh nuclear Near East in a broad swathe, eastward and westward, to the shores of the two seas; but many of the arts and benefits of her reign were scattered also among the wild peoples northward and southward, who became not settled farming folk but semi-nomadic herders of cattle, or of sheep and goats. These, by c. 3500 B.C., were becoming dangers to the farming villages and towns, appearing suddenly in raiding bands, plundering and departing, or more seriously, remaining to enslave. They stemmed, as we have seen, from two great matrices: the broad grasslands of the north and the Syro-Arabian desert. By 3000 B.C. power states were being established by such invaders, and by c. 2500 B.C. the rule in Mesopotamia had passed decisively to a series of strong men from the desert, of whom Sargon of Agade (c. 2350 B.C.) was the first importan example and Hammurabi of Babylon (c. 1728-1686 B.C.) the second. These were contemporaries, approximately, of the sea kings of Crete but with a radically different relationship to the goddess.

'Sargon am I, the mighty king, Monarch of Agade, My mother was of lowly birth; my father I knew not; the brother of my father is a mountain dweller; and my city, Azupiranu, lies on the bank of the Euphrates. My lowly mother conceived and bore me in secrecy; placed me in a basket of rushes; sealed it with bitumen, and set me in the river, which, however, did not engulf me. The river bore me up. And it carried me to Akku, the irrigator, who took me from the river, raised me as he son, made of me a gardener; and while I was a gardener, the goddess Ishtar loved me. Then I ruled the kingdom…" [Leonard William King, chronicles Concerning Early Babylonian Kings (London: Luzac and Co., 1907), Vol. II, pp. 87-91]

5

Wow… I honestly I have no idea what this thread is about

6

I haven’t read on what they are debating, but Sargon of Akkad is attributed with having creating the first real Empire, or at least large multi-city State. He was also one of the first “great” strategicians and tacticians of ancient warfare.

7

Yes, Sargon, iirc, is likely the first Mesopotamian ruler to actually have ruled from the levantine coast to the persian gulf, and from the syrian-arabian desert to the zagros mountains. Although the legends also give gilgamesh such an honor.

I know there was a not-perfectly-delineated distinction between a lugal (“big man”) who lorded it over several city-states and an ensi (“lord”) who was a limited royal of a single city-state, under the thumb of a lugal. In either case, the king was a representative (perhaps even a living embodiment) of a god. I’m sure there were new ones after Sargon too, but there were definitely pre-Sargonic royal ideals that surrounded such rulers as Bligames (Sumerian for Gilgamesh, which was the later Akkadian derivation of his name) and rulers from the Ur II period (which preceded Sargon), back to the Uruk period, and perhaps even all the way back to the Eridu period, which I wrote about in my old post Cradle of the State.

8

Ah yes, the original “Moses birth story”: one of many Mesopotamian precursors to Biblical stories.

9

This is actually a common misconception: that Sargon was a desert potentate, just because he was Semitic. It ignores the facts that many Semites had been civilized, especially along the upper Euphrates, long before Sargon, and that Sargon himself lived in the ancient city of Kish, not the desert, before setting up the center of his empire in Agade.

Hammurabi was no desert strongman either, although he descended from Amorite stock, and so his ancestors likely were desert folk. But he himself was a scion of a Babylonian dynasty, not some desert usurper.

10

I thought the story I provided from the historical record said he didn’t know where his father was from, but his father’s brother was a mountain dweller so he may well have been from the mountains. The author may have pointed out where he was orginally from in those quotes I provided. It later said he was raised by somebody that lived in the desert as his mother gave him up.

Those quotes didn’t say these two were necessarily “wild men” as it was pointing out other people’s beforehand. That which I quoted was a general lead in to the larger context of the passages in the book. That story of his from the records has Sargon stating he was from the city of Azupiranu, but I don’t know at what point in time he refers to that being his city. It could have meant after his mother let him go and he grew up with other parent(s). There was this also in that same book:

“Elamites and Semites, each found their greatest warrior-statesmen: respectively, The Elamites Rimsin and the Semites Hammurabi… Hammurabi’s dynasty in Babylon survived until c. 1530 B.C…”

The author points out that Hammurabi was already a warrior-statesman before he rose to his power and established his dynasty.

11

I know this is a little off subject, but does anyone know the level of statehood that was prevalent in the Indus Valley civilization?

12

There was this in wiki so I’m wondering if we are all on the same page as to the Sargon we are referring to:

"Sargon II ( Akkadian Šarru-kên “legitimate king”, reigned 722 – 705 BC) was an Assyrian king. Sargon II became co-regent with Shalmaneser V in 722 BC, and became the sole ruler of the kingdom of Assyria in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V. It is not clear whether he was the son of Tiglath-Pileser III or a usurper unrelated to the royal family. In his inscriptions, he styles himself as a new man, rarely referring to his predecessors; however he took the name Sharru-kinu (“true king”), after Sargon of Akkad — who had founded the first Semitic Empire in the region some 16 centuries earlier.[1] Sargon is the Biblical form of the name."

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I was referring to Sargon of Akkad. But Dondoolee seems to have been referring to Sargon II due to referring to him as “a new man” as said in the quote.

Also in wiki it refers to Sargon of Akkad being born in Azupiranu as the orginal historical record I quoted noted (which as I said in the previous post I didn’t know if that was his birth place or place of origin noting when he began to live with his ‘second’ parent as the record says). What source states it’s a misnomer about Sargon and he was actually born in Kish, Lilburne? But maybe we are talking about different Sargon’s? Or there are some pieces still missing as to the whole picture we are each trying to put together.

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I think this is a ripe area for revisionist scholarship. Most things you’ll read state that the Indus Valley civilization had a central government. They largely infer this from the fact that their towns were well-ordered, of course assuming that propitious order can only be a gift from a centralized state. They also infer it from the existence of citadels, as if the project of creating a protective building can only be conducted by a centralized state. But some sources, even though they promote the central-state theory, admit that there is NO firm evidence of palaces or authoritarian temple-complexes like the ones you find in ancient, historical Mesopotamia. The state of affairs in the Indus Valley, with diversity, but no evident rigid social stratification, seems rather more analogous to pre-Sumerian Mesopotamia, which, as I argue in my old post Between the Rivers, Before the State was a pre-state agricultural and commercial civilization which underwent enormous strides in prosperity.

14

I’m talking about Sargon of Akkad.

That story you cited is generally considered to be legend, as one might expect given its fanciful nature.

In his book Ancient Iraq, Georges Roux, writes of that story:

“This is, at best, strongly fictionalized history, though we learn from more reliable sources that the man who was to call himself Sharru-kin, ‘the righteous (or legitimate king’, was of humble origin. The cup-bearer of Ur-Zabab, King of Kish, he managed - we do not know how - to overthrow his master and marched against Uruk, where reigned Lugalzagesi, then over-lord of Sumer.”

The “more reliable sources” of which Roux speaks are copies found of inscriptions which date to Sargon’s own time. The origin story you find in Wikipedia is from over a millenium and a half after Sargon died.

15

I know there was a not-perfectly-delineated distinction between a lugal (“big man”) who lorded it over several city-states and an ensi (“lord”) who was a limited royal of a single city-state, under the thumb of a lugal. In either case, the king was a representative (perhaps even a living embodiment) of a god

So far as I am aware, Naram-Sin was the 1st king to claim to be a living embodiment of a god (and not a decedent), a claim that seems to have been poorly received. In Mesopotamian history and lit he seems to be seen as an example used as to how not to be a king. Sin, did seem (to me) to only be keeping in line and expanding the trend which Sargon started in a shift to a more self-promoting king-centric form of ideology.

The most famous of sources being "The Curse of " / "The legend of Naram-Sin" : http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sitchin/guerradioses/guerradioses01a.htm

I’m sure there were new ones after Sargon too, but there were definitely pre-Sargonic royal ideals that surrounded such rulers as Bligames

As far as I am aware, the trends of a pre-Sargon were still distinctly different. I do not think there was an ideal of a universal empire, the art and architecture takes a strong break from the past, and the thought of a man of non-royal blood can now make his own destiny.

Even the epic of Gilgamesh seems to have a different ideal than what comes through post-Sargon. Gilgamesh was not so much a conqueror, nor was the myth a myth of hero worship the way Sargon set himself up (and Sin attempted to expand on). In the end Gilgamesh is kind of a tragic hero, like an Achilles or Oedipus. Sargon is seen as much more of a conquering hero

PS. Awesome and enlighting article you wrote. It demands of me to re-read it in the near future to give it more thought.

16

I was referring to Sargon of Akkad. But Dondoolee seems to have been referring to Sargon II due to referring to him as “a new man” as said in the quote

I too am talking about Sargon of Akkad. Sargon II was a Neo-Assyrian usurper. He had, and did attempt to create many parallels with Sargon I, so they can be easily confused.

What source states it’s a misnomer about Sargon and he was actually born in Kish, Lilburne?

If it isn’t in the previousl linked “Curse of Akkad” check out “The Battle King”. Here is a wiki link stating he was a cup bearer for Ur-Zababa king of Kish:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Zababa

17

The Jewish traditions of pitting Nimrod against Abraham are interesting, but very late in Jewish mythological tradition

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Interesting. The story I quoted wasn’t from wikipedia, to clarify, that was referred to by me only to show that the same birth place of Sargon is also noted in wiki. I take wiki, as a source, with a grain of salt. The source I orginally referred to did say it was a legend, as you say. The inscriptions dating of Sargon’s own time are a helpful insight.

19

Ok. thanks for the link.

Would Sargon be near in mythic imagery as that which happened at Lake Nemi, Italy with the priest-king (the overt killing of the priest-king was a ritual to the death) as discussed in Frazier’s ‘Golden Bough’ by chance? Curious if there is a cultural connection.

20

indeed