extispicies!’ ” Zimri-Addu then sent Ibal-Pi-El more lambs to be sacrificed for
more extispicies. “Have extispicies done and do what is necessary [according
to] sound, faultless, extispi cies, and (what is necessary) to safeguard the troops.’
This I wrote to him.”
It is fairly obvious from Zimri-Addu’s letter that the 5000 troops under Ibal-Pi-
El did not go out into the country in order to bring their Elamite and Eshnunakean
enemies to battle. They went out to plunder, and were prevented from doing so
because an Elamite force appeared on the scene. In attempting to carry out their
mission they had apparently been careful to stay out of harm’s way. How many
of the 5000 carried arms we do not know (my guess is that most did not).
In his next letter Zimri-Addu reported to his king that in a “battle” Mariote troops
who were stationed opposite the enemy’s tower and siege ramp succeeded, with
help from their Babylonian allies, in pushing the Elamites off the siege ramp:
The day when battle was done, Dagan-Mustesir distinguished himself very
[much]. [ ] fire [ ] and was kept burning in front of the tower. And of the
troops of my lord, many troops distinguished themselves.^49Evidently some combat had occurred, probably at long range, but it must have
made no difference. The next day, the enemy was back on the ramp but had
difficulty with it and with the fire burning near the remaining siege tower. When
the Elamites realized that their ramp would never reach the crown of the wall
because the earthen pack was sinking as the lower end was washed into the Irnina
river, they abandoned their siege. So ended “the Battle of Hiritum.”
Other letters from Zimri-Addu followed from the camp at Hiritum, and in one
of them he reported that according to Hammurabi’s men “the Vizier of Elam
dispatched 20 thousand Eshnunakean troops and 10 thousand Elamites—30
thousand troops—to the land of Subartum.”^50 That news—which to us sounds
ominous—does not seem to have been of great concern to either the sender or the
recipient of the letter, because Zimri-Addu’s troops, after some travelling around,
returned to Mari. We note that the troops sent from Mari and Babylon to disrupt
the Elamite siege of Hiritum did not confront the Elamite troops on a battlefield.
More importantly, from his letters it appears that Zimri-Addu and his Babylonian
colleague never had any intention to bring their Elamite opponents to battle.
An especially consequential “battle” fought during Hammurabi’s reign took place
in his thirty-third year, when he took troops north from Babylon in order to make
the city of Mari his vassal. The date-formulae for his reign identify the thirty-
third as the year in which Hammurabi “overthrew the armies of Mari and Malgium
in battle. Mari and its villages and the many towns of Subartu submitted peacefully
to (Hammurabi’s) authority.”^51 Perhaps some Mari archers and slingers tried and
failed to prevent the progress of Hammurabi’s troops, but whatever battle took
place is likely to have ended in the “negotiated surrender” that Stephanie Dalley
often found in the tablets. The date-formulae identify the thirty-fourth as the year
in which Hammurabi destroyed Mari’s fortifications and its palace, an action that
provided us with 20,000 clay tablets.
Warfare in Western Eurasia 69