Western Civ Doc Essay

Submitted By margurite1
Words: 517
Pages: 3

Discuss each of the following empires: the empire of Sargon the Great, the Assyrian, and the Persian. What were the major characteristics of each empire?

Throughout the centuries several empires emerged and had very similar characteristics which evolved and grew as time went on. The Empires of Sargon the Great, the Assyrian, and Persian were three such empires.
The world’s first empire was that of Sargon the Great. “About 2350 B.C. , the people of Akkad, led by Sargon the Great, the warrior king, conquered the Sumerian cities (Perry, 10).” Establishing a baseline for which future empires would follow Sargon the Great would station garrisons in the lands he would conquer and self-appointed governors to oversee the territories and take account of all the commodities that were accumulated from the conquered lands. He also kept a very large army in the event of any revolts.
Many centuries later in the ninth century the Assyrians would resume empire building. The Assyrians made use of carefully planned military attacks and became a ruthless military power that conquered Babylonia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. They believed that gods ordered them to conquer these lands and their empire grew to cover the Iranian Plateau in the east to the Egyptian city of Thebes. Similar to Sargon the Great, their empire was led by one absolute king. The king then appointed nobles to keep order in the provinces and collected tribute which was used to build up the empire. The Assyrians also improved roads, established messengers, and provided large scale irrigation projects to promote prosperity throughout their conquered lands. The Assyrian kings kept their subjects loyal through fear and were known to be ruthless to anyone rebellious. The Assyrians were consumed by the concerns of war. “The king knows that all lands hate us” wrote and official to King Esarhaddon (680-669 B.C) and this eventually led to many wars and revolts which led to the fall of the empire