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The deportees, their labour and their abilities were extremely valuable to the Assyrian state, and their relocation was carefully planned and organised. Writing on this, the historian Karen Radner states: This should not be understood, however, as a cruel treatment of captives. With Mitanni under Assyrian control, Adad Nirari I decided the best way to prevent any future uprising was to remove the former occupants of the land and replace them with Assyrians.
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(185-186)Īdad Nirari I completely conquered the Mitanni and began what would become standard policy under the Assyrian Empire: the deportation of large segments of the population.
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Yet this officially sanctioned cruelty seems to have had the opposite effect: though the Assyrians and their army were respected and feared, they were most of all hated and the subjects of their empire were in an almost constant state of rebellion. Furthermore, inscriptions recording these vicious acts of retribution were displayed throughout the empire to serve as a warning. I built a pillar at the city gate and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins some I walled up inside the pillar, some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes." Such punishments were not uncommon. One inscription from a temple in the city of Nimrod records the fate of the leaders of the city of Suru on the Euphrates River, who rebelled from, and were reconquered by, King Ashurbanipal: It was Assyrian policy always to demand that examples be made of those who resisted them this included deportations of entire peoples and horrific physical punishments. This was held together by two factors: their superior abilities in siege warfare and their reliance on sheer, unadulterated terror. The Assyrians created the world's first great army and the world's first great empire. The Assyrian kings were not to be trifled with and their inscriptions vividly depict the fate which was certain for those who defied them.
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A phrase oft-repeated by Assyrian kings in their inscriptions regarding military conquests is "I destroyed, devastated, and burned with fire" those cities, towns, and regions which resisted Assyrian rule. The secret to its success was a professionally trained standing army, iron weapons, advanced engineering skills, effective tactics, and, most importantly, a complete ruthlessness which came to characterize the Assyrians to their neighbors and subjects and still attaches itself to the reputation of Assyria in the modern day. The Assyrian war machine was the most efficient military force in the ancient world up until the fall of the empire in 612 BCE. While the Assyrians' administrative skills were impressive, and they could be adept at diplomacy when necessary, these were not the means by which the empire grew to rule the ancient world from Egypt in the south, through the Levant and Mesopotamia, and over to Asia Minor it was their skill in warfare. Assyria began as a small trading community centered at the ancient city of Ashur and grew to become the greatest empire in the ancient world prior to the conquests of Alexander the Great and, after him, the Roman Empire.