Enemies of Assyria

The purpose of this book is to present the image and role of enemy in the Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions as well as in selected textual sources of other kinds, including literary, magical and religious texts, along with some administrative or even economic sources. In contrast to other publications, where all mentions of military opponents (or, more broadly, of non-Assyrians) are treated as mentions of enemies, I will focus here only on those fragments where such opponents are clearly and unambiguously described as enemy, and that means that specific expressions are used to define individuals, peoples and lands as hostile to Assyria. five such terms will be discussed in detail in this book, namely aiiābu(m), gērû(m), nakru(m), zāʾeru(m) and zāwiānu (zāmânu) as well as epithets regarding them. This book is divided into six parts. The First of these is a short historical background to the described issue, with special regard to royal inscriptions and changes in their composition. The Second part is devoted to textual sources of different kinds, which are useful for studying the matter of enemy in the Neo-Assyrian period. The third part contains a short description and characteristics of Assyrian rulers, as can be found in textual as well as pictorial sources. The fourth part is the main one and consists of detailed descriptions of terms used to describe enemies of Assyria, and epithets that can be presented as being related to these terms. the fifth part is a short summary of the issues discussed in this book, while the last part is a list of textual fragments, containing terms and epithets that concern peoples and forces inimical to Assyria.