Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Ancient History - Part 23: Say You Want A Revolution



In the seventh year of Assyria's rule over Babylonia (est. 1233) a revolution took place. This spawned out of the mixed Assyrian-Kassite nobility who were beginning to hold an interest in Ashur-nadin-apli, the son of king Tukulti-Ninurta, rather than the retired king himself. Ironically, the king who'd taken on the mantle of "King of Sumer and Akkad", faced open rebellion that emerged from those very new places he'd forcefully taken. His lack of leadership and failure to select worthy proxies were the key factors of this civil unrest.

Offered the kingship, Ashur-nadin-apli, with a limitless number of violent revolutionaries, joined their cause in surrounding Assyria's new capital city, Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta, laying it to siege, before murdering his own father in order to become the next king. Once news of this royal patricide spread across the Near East, the Kingdom of Elam seized the opportunity, with its king, Kidin-Khutrutash, mustering an army to carry out a second raid.

The Elamites attacked Babylonia at Ishin, among other smaller cities. The foreign raiders carried off many ancestral treasures, treasures that have since been rediscovered and recovered by modern day historians in today's Iran, specifically the ancient ruins of Susa. These relics trace back to the lineage of 16th to 15th century Babylonia.

Unfortunately, history was not kind to Ashur-nadin-apli. History has recorded little in the father-killing king's reign, other than the actual revolution itself, but the events surrounding this act and the aftermath were. In the destruction that Elam's soldiers left behind following their plunder of Babylonia's eastern lands, the Kassites overthrew the Assyrian occupation, reclaiming their country once again as their own.

One could easily conclude that there is an important lesson to take away from king Tukulti-Ninurta's error in judgement in appointing weak governors to rule in his stead in Babylonia. At first glance the lesson might be that if you want something done right you must carry out the duty yourself. That is the simple and most reasonable conclusion, though impractical, and to dig a little further, the true lesson is more akin to: 

If a leader wishes to delegate his power to another individual, he must be very cautious in selecting the rightful person for the job.


[SUSA - The site of the recovered Babylonian relics]


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