War, Peace, and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions.

• Author: Galter, Hannes D.

By BUSTENAY ODED. Wiesbaden: DR. LUDWIG REICHERT VERLAG, 1992. Pp. xxiv + 199. DM 98 (paper).

This book tries to investigate the justifications for going to war as stated in the Assyrian royal inscriptions, to look for internal and external reasons, and to study the "Assyrian war mentality." It is pointed out in the introduction that the work represents only the first part of a comprehensive study on casus belli in the royal inscriptions from the ancient Near East.

In trying to understand the psychological and sociological mechanisms leading to the approval of armed conflict and of war we face the same fundamental question Richard Ostling posed concerning the second Gulf war: "A Just Conflict or Just a Conflict?" (Time, February 11, 1991, 36f.). What makes any war more special, just, or necessary than another? Why did it seem certain that this war could not be lost? The answers given in the Assyrian royal inscriptions differ in two ways from modern justifications. First the explanations were given after the conflict and in almost all cases after an Assyrian victory. As a rule defeats were not recorded and therefore the Assyrian royal propaganda never found itself compelled to account for a lost war. Second the Assyrian royal inscriptions were in most cases written with a future audience in mind. For that reason the task of the war reports was not so much to record reality as to reflect the leading principles of Assyrian political ideology and to pass comparison with the reports of earlier kings.

Oded's investigation focuses on three principal issues: the political, ideological, and legal principles behind the justifications of war that might shed some light on Assyria's ethic of war and the Assyrian approach to foreign relations; the Assyrian religious ideas that are reflected in the proclaimed explanations; and the historiographic argument for going to war.

Assyrian royal inscriptions give the impression that warfare was the dominant concern in Assyrian political life. It is true that the Assyrian empire was essentially created and maintained through military suppression; but it must be asked if this belligerent image is one that the Assyrian royal propaganda wanted primarily to create. It was certainly part of the "calculated frightfulness" for which the Assyrian rulers reached (A. T. Olmstead, "The Calculated Frightfulness of Ashur Nasir Apal," JAOS 38 [1918]: 209-63). However, when one looks into the economic and administrative texts a...