Sargon The Grea

SARGON OF AKKAD was an ancient Mesopotamian ruler who  reigned approximately 2334-2279 BC, and was one of the earliest of the world's great empire builders, conquering all of southern Mesopotamia as well as parts of Syria, Anatolia, and Elam (western Iran). He established the region's first Semitic dynasty and was considered the founder of the Mesopotamian military tradition.

Sargon is known almost entirely from the legends and tales that followed his reputation through 2,000 years of cuneiform Mesopotamian history, and not from documents that were written during his lifetime. The lack of contemporary record is explained by the fact that the capital city of Agade, which he built, has never been located and excavated. It was destroyed at the end of the dynasty that Sargon founded and was never again inhabited, at least under the name of Agade.

According to a folktale, Sargon was a self-made man of humble origins; a gardener, having found him as a baby floating in a basket on the river, brought him up in his own calling. His father is unknown; his own name during his childhood is also unknown; his mother is said to have been a priestess in a town on the middle Euphrates. Rising, therefore, without the help of influential relations, he attained the post of cupbearer to the ruler of the city of Kish, in the north of the ancient land of Sumer. The event that brought him to supremacy was the defeat of Lugalzaggisi of Uruk (biblical Erech, in central Sumer). Lugalzaggisi had already united the city-states of Sumer by defeating each in turn and claimed to rule the lands not only of the Sumerian city-states but also those as far west as the Mediterranean. Thus, Sargon became king over all of southern Mesopotamia, the first great ruler for whom, rather than Sumerian, the Semitic tongue known as Akkadian was natural from birth, although some earlier kings with Semitic names are recorded in the Sumerian king list. Victory was ensured, however, only by numerous battles, since each city hoped to regain its independence from Lugalzaggisi without submitting to the new overlord. It may have been before these exploits, when he was gathering followers and an army, that Sargon named himself Sharru-kin ("Rightful King") in support of an accession not achieved in an old-established city through hereditary succession. Historical records are still so meager, however, that there is a complete gap in information relating to this period.

Not content with dominating this area, his wish to secure favorable trade with Agade throughout the known world, together with an energetic temperament, led Sargon to defeat cities along the middle Euphrates to northern Syria and the silver-rich mountains of southern Anatolia. He also dominated Susa, capital city of the Elamites, in the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, where the only truly contemporary record of his reign has been uncovered. Such was his fame that some merchants in an Anatolian city, probably in central Turkey, begged him to intervene in a local quarrel, and, according to the legend, Sargon, with a band of warriors, made a fabulous journey to the still-unlocated city of Burushanda (Purshahanda), at the end of which little more than his appearance was needed to settle the dispute.

As the result of Sargon's military prowess and ability to organize, as well as of the legacy of the Sumerian city-states that he had inherited by conquest and of previously existing trade of the old Sumerian city-states with other countries, commercial connections flourished with the Indus Valley, the coast of Oman, the islands and shores of the Persian Gulf, the lapis lazuli mines of Badakhshan, the cedars of Lebanon, the silver-rich Taurus Mountains, Cappadocia, Crete, and perhaps even Greece.

During Sargon's rule Akkadian became adapted to the script that previously had been used in the Sumerian language, and the new spirit of calligraphy that is visible upon the clay tablets of this dynasty is also clearly seen on contemporary cylinder seals, with their beautifully arranged and executed scenes of mythology and festive life. Even if this new artistic feeling is not necessarily to be attributed directly to the personal influence of Sargon, it shows that, in his new capital, military and economic values were not alone important.

Because contemporary record is lacking, no sequence can be given for the events of his reign. Neither the number of years during which he lived nor the point in time at which he ruled can be fixed exactly; 2334 BC is now given as a date on which to hang the beginning of the dynasty of Agade, and, according to the Sumerian king list, he was king for 56 years.

2334 BC is now given as a date on which to hang the beginning of the dynasty of Agade, and, according to the Sumerian king list, he was king for 56 years.  

The latter part of his reign was troubled with rebellions, which later literature ascribes, predictably enough, to sacrilegious acts that he is supposed to have committed; but this can be discounted as the standard cause assigned to all disasters by Sumerians and Akkadians alike. The troubles, in fact, were probably caused by the inability of one man, however energetic, to control so vast an empire without a developed and well-tried administration. There is no evidence to suggest that he was particularly harsh, nor that the Sumerians disliked him for being a Semite. The empire did not collapse totally, for Sargon's successors were able to control their legacy, and later generations thought of him as being perhaps the greatest name in their history.  

Attributing his success to the patronage of the goddess Ishtar, in whose honor Agade was erected, Sargon of Akkad became the first great empire builder. Two later Assyrian kings were named in his honor. Although the briefly recorded information of his predecessor Lugalzaggisi shows that expansion beyond the Sumerian homeland had already begun, later Mesopotamians looked to Sargon as the founder of the military tradition that runs through the history of their people.

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Sargon of Akkad (also known as Sargon the Great and Sarru-Kan, meaning 'True King’) reigned in Mesopotamia from 2334 to 2279 BCE. He is equally famous today as the father of the great poet-priestess Enheduanna. He was born as an illegitimate son of a Temple priestess of the goddess Innana and, according to the Sargon Legend (a Cuneiform clay tablet purporting to be his biography) was set adrift by her in a basket on the Euphrates River where he was found by a man named Akki who was a gardener, perhaps in the Kingdom of Kish. He followed in his father’s Trade and somehow became appointed Cup Bearer to Ur-Zababa, the King of Kish, who sent him to work for Lugalzagesi of Uruk, whom Sargon promptly overthrew. He then conquered Kish, became king and founded the City of Akkad (Agade). Sargon conquered the dominant Sumerians to forge the first great Semitic kingdom, the Akkadian Empire. His story was long known throughout Mesopotamia and he was considered the greatest man who had ever lived, celebrated in glorious tales down through the Persian Empire.

Ancient Mesopotamia (like Ancient Greece) was dotted by many small city-states all of whom fought one another over fertile territory and water. Lugalzagesi of Uruk had marched through the land and conquered the city-states one by one, uniting all of them under his authority. When Sargon overthrew Lugalzagesi and seized power he gained an already united kingdom which he could use to advantage in military campaigns to, finally, establish the first Empire over all of Mesopotamia.

After the defeat of Lugalzagesi, however, the city-states hardly accepted Sargon with grace and submission; they rebelled against their new ruler, and forced him to prove his legitimacy as king through military might. He traveled throughout Mesopotamia conquering one City-state after another and expanded his empire as far as Lebanon and the Taurus mountains of Turkey. He built the first city of Babylon and instituted military practices of combining different types of fighting forces which became standard down through the time of Alexander the Great.

Throughout his life Sargon would continue to encounter uprisings as city-states asserted their autonomy and rose against the empire. For the next three-thousand years the Babylonians would tell tales of the kings who rose against Sargon of Akkad and of his glorious victories, citing Sargon’s own words from his purported autobiography, “In my old age of 55, all the lands revolted against me, and they besieged me in Agade ‘but the old lion still had teeth and claws’, I went forth to battle and defeated them: I knocked them over and destroyed their vast army. Now, any king who wants to call himself my equal, wherever I went, let him go!”

According to the Sumerian king list, Sargon reigned for fifty-six years and was considered a popular and successful king. After his death, the empire passed to his son Rimush, who was forced to endure what his father had and put down the rebellions which contested his legitimacy. Rimush reigned for nine years and, when he died, the kingship passed to Sargon’s other son, Manishtusu. Though both sons ruled well, the height of the Akkadian Empire was realized under Sargon's grandson, Naram-Sin. During his reign, the empire grew and flourished beyond the boundaries even Sargon had envisioned. After his death, his son Shar-Kali-Sharri became ruler and, at this time, the empire began to unravel as city-states broke away to form their own independent kingdoms. Further, it has been suggested that climate change weakened the empire, already reeling from rebellions within and attacks by the Elamites and Ammorites from without, to the point of collapse. Soon after, the Gutians, an invading tribe from the Zagros Mountains, destroyed Akkad and toppled the teetering Akkadian Empire, ushering in a dark age for Mesopotamia.