Page 31 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

The Cities 13

ship over the others. Some of the governors even begin to call
themselves kings. Finally, three hundred years before the Second
Millennium opens, the son of an official in Kish, the largest of the
Semitic cities, usurps power in the north and rechristens himself
the True King, Sargon. In 2289 he defeats the leader of the south­
ern confederacy, and for the first time the whole of southern
Mesopotamia is united under a single rule.
In the memory of the Mesopotamians of 2000 b.c. the reign
of Sargon of Akkad three hundred years ago is their period of

SUMERIAN WAR CHARIOT DEPICTED ON THE SO-CALLED “STANDARD
OF UR.” IT WAS A SLOW AND CUMBERSOME VEHICLE, WITH FOUR
SOLID WHEELS, AND WAS DRAWN BY ASSES. BUT IT WAS THE FIRST
MECHANIZATION OF ANY ARMY, AND WAS THE BEGINNING OF FAR-
REACHING CHANGES IN THE CONDUCT OF WARFARE.

glory. During his fifty-six-year reign he campaigned to the ends
of the earth. He conquered northern Mesopotamia and followed
the Euphrates westward and on over the mountains until his
armies stood on the shores of the Mediterranean. To the south he
claimed dominion over the gateway to the Persian Gulf. “From
the lower sea to the upper sea,” they boast, his dominions spread.
It was an empire such as the world had never seen before,’ and
it was to be a standing challenge to future conquerors.
Sargon, and his equally great grandson Naram-Sin, who
after a period of revolts restored his grandfather’s empire and
held it for thirty years, are much clearer figures to the Meso-