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3.1.5 As the case of allegiance pacts exemplifies, it is not always
possible to assign Assyrian treaties neatly to a specific category. Ter-
minologically, there was no difference between the four types of
treaty distinguished above: all of them were called adê, a loan word
from Aramaic which could denote any kind of binding political agree-
ment.^36 The fact that alliance pacts could be referred to as “treaties
of peace and vassalage”^37 illustrates the fluid borderline between the
different categories. (Cf. the usual designation of non-aggression
pacts in the royal inscriptions, “treaty of friendship and peace.”)
To the Empire, which mostly dictated the terms of the treaties, all
treaties ultimately served the same purpose, namely, the expansion
of the Empire, and thus did not call for more nuanced terminolog-
ical distinctions.3.2 General Structure of a Treaty Document
While all extant Assyrian treaties differ somewhat from one another,
they also display structural and formal similarities implying a long
tradition in the drafting of such documents.^38 Every treaty opened
with a preamblespecifying the parties (“Treaty of A with B”), which
was usually followed by an adjuration formula and/or a list of gods
presented as witnesses of the treaty. A short historical introductionsome-
times, but by no means always, then introduced the actual treaty
terms, which were followed by a long curse sectiondetailing the pun-
ishments resulting from broken treaties. The texts appear to have
been normally closed by a colophonspecifying the purpose and date
of the treaty. Some of the extant treaty tablets, though not all of
them, bear impressions of royal seals (see 3.3.2).3.3 Formulation and Phrasing
3.3.1 General
In most texts, individual treaty sections are divided by rulings into
separate units corresponding to modern treaty articles. The phras-
ing is legally accurate and the order of the individual sections gen-
erally yields a well-thought-out logical scheme. For example, the(^36) See Tadmor, “Assyria and the West,” 42–43, and the discussion in Parpola,
“Neo-Assyrian Treaties.. .,” 180–83.
(^37) Piepkorn Asb., 85, referring to an alliance sought for by Natnu, king of “dis-
tant Nabatea.”
(^38) For details, see SAA 2, xxxv–xlii.
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