II. A Disruption in the Late Bronze Age

During fifteenth century bc, an international political system was fully established in the Near East. Each of the major players was dependent on its decisions on those of the others. Mitanni, Hatti, Egypt, and Babylonia fought for survival and dominion in the system. Military clashes, diplomatic enterprises, and trade networks bounded this states together, as never before in history.

This “Great Powers’ Club” was the top of the distribution of power, dominating over lesser kings and small cities and often fighting open and proxy wars for them; nevertheless, despite the continuous attempts by the great kings to achieve hegemony, the distribution of power between them was balanced. “[…] [N]one ha[d] yet reached the military, technological, or organizational level that [would] make a further step possible: that of an ‘imperial’ unification of the Near East.”[1] They were equals in power; they were “brothers.”

In the late fifteenth century bc, Mitanni expanded its dominion in the region under the rule of king Saushtatar; thus, Assur lost its independence and became a conquered state. Nevertheless, after more than a century under Mitannian rule, the invasion of Mitanni by the Hittite king Shuppiluliuma I and the assassination of its king brought the opportunity to Assur to arise against its former oppressor and to achieve its independence and expand its dominion over part of the Mitannian empire, such as the grain-growing areas of Nineveh, Kilizi and Arbela;[2] resulting this in an accelerated increase of the Assyrian power. Thus, a new great power had arisen within the international political system of the Near East; “Assyria, reduced to its historical core, encircled by the Mitanni kingdom […], acquire[d] under Ashur-uballit I a position of ‘great kingdom’ that her neighbors [were] reluctant to acknowledge.”[3]

The newcomer in the club of the great powers meant a disruption in the status quo. With another power eager and able to expand its dominion over the region, the opportunities of Assyria’s neighbors were increasingly limited and their relative power was diminished. As Assyria was located between the growing Hatti empire in the north and a weakened Babylonia in the south, the latter feared a possible Assyrian expansion over its borders, as in the north there was no real option to expand for the disruptive rising power. Hatti did not fear the Assyrians as much; nevertheless, it acknowledged the potential threat they posed to its dominion in the Levant. “[T]he Hatti kings demonstrated that they were good prophets in fearing that the ‘last rival’ would not be satisfied with merely having entered the circle of great kings […].”[4] The less threatened player was the Egyptian empire which competed over Syria and Palestine against Hatti but whose interests did not collide with those of Assyria; therefore, at the same time, this power posed the greatest opportunity for Assyria to overcome the political isolation of its rising.