depict a situation where officials charged excessive fees, appropriated labor, and
diverted temple resources to the palace (see Cooper 1986 : 70 – 78 for a translation).
Urukagina reduced fees, established proper rewards for services, forced powerful people
to pay fair prices to weaker ones, and abolished debts. However varied these pro-
clamations are and however perplexing they remain, Urukagina’s and Ur-Namma’s
statements, as well as those of Lipit-Eshtar, Dadusha, and Hammurabi, all seem to
desire the same outcome: they want to create conditions that are correct and just.
Hammurabi states repeatedly that he established kittam u mÏåaram, “truth and jus-
tice.” These actions were not purely altruistic, but sought to strengthen the ideological
foundations of the kings’ powers.THE SOURCES OF ROYAL POWER
We tend to call men like Urukagina, Ur-Namma, Lipit-Eshtar, Dadusha, and
Hammurabi “kings,” a term that most modern readers associate with a type of rule
characterized by the concentration of power in the hands of one man. These five
actually all used the same title in their own inscriptions, Sumerian lugaland/or its
Akkadian equivalent åarrum. Those are not the only designations that rulers of the
states in third millennium Babylonia used, however. Three Sumerian titles were the
most common: lugal, en, and ensik. The details of when and where they appear are
complicated, but it seems that each one had specific connotations. Scholars quite often
consider the ento have more of a priestly role than the lugal, whose powers seem
primarily based on his military functions – something that is suggested by the
etymology of the word lugal, literally meaning “big man.” Only rulers of Uruk, like the
famous Gilgamesh, seem to have used enas a royal title, while lugal at first was always
associated with the city Kish. The term ensikindicated a local governor when the
dynasties of Akkad and Ur III held hegemony over Sumer and Akkad, but also
independent rulers, especially in the city-state of Lagash, employed the title. Urukagina
started his career as ensikof Lagash and changed his title to lugalafter a few years. The
evidence allows for many reconstructions (Edzard 1972 – 1975 : 335 – 338 gives a sober
survey; Steinkeller 1999 proposes an evolution of Early Dynastic kingship, which
Westenholz 2002 rejects outright). The variety of titles should warn us that the
ideological foundations of rule were not always the same. Moreover, we cannot forget
that there was historical change: just as we do not imagine that the king of Spain today
has the same powers as Philip II did in the sixteenth century, we should not equate the
status of the first men attested with the title lugalaround 2600 with that of the last
one of the third millennium, Ibbi-Sîn of Ur. If we abandon the search for definitions
of individual Sumerian terms, I think we can sketch the broad outlines of an evolution
in how rulers established their authority throughout the third millennium.
In the creation of the city-state in southern Mesopotamia of the mid-fourth
millennium, the temple played a critical role. The layout of Uruk, the first city in world
history, was dominated by the religious structures in its midst, and in every other
Sumerian town the temple was pre-eminent. It is thus no surprise that the head of the
temple organization was the head of state. His powers extended into the economy and
probably other aspects of life, but his authority derived from his association with the
city’s patron deity. The Uruk vase (Orthmann 1975 : pl. 69 ) portrays the ideology
visually: the city ruler acts as the intermediary between the people bringing agricultural
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