of Horus. Recent excavations in the western Nile delta have
identifi ed a parallel chain of forts that were presumably
constructed to protect the Egypt’s northwestern frontier,
which began at Zawyet Umm el-Rakham, about 200 miles
west of Alexandria, where Ramses II built his substantial
citadel. Th ese forts were surrounded by massive enclosure
walls and sometimes ditches. Fortifi ed gateways, watchtow-
ers, loopholed ramparts on the inside, and covered glacis
on the outside made them almost impregnable. Granaries
and cisterns were attached to the forts. Probably 50 to 300
soldiers were stationed in one fort at a time, depending on
its size, which implies that small military units were able to
hold their positions.
THE MIDDLE EAST
BY CARYN E. NEUMANN
Th roughout the ancient Near East, war made and unmade
political and cultural worlds. Th e social orders of the time
were formed and maintained by brute force and compulsion.
Long royal reigns produced and were reproduced by military
stability. Short reigns refl ected weakness in war. As a result,
the military played a crucial role in the lives of the ancients.
Th e fi rst literate civilizations and the fi rst organized
armies appear almost simultaneously in the river valleys of
the Tigris and the Euphrates. Th e Sumerians invaded south-
ern Mesopotamia in about 3100 b.c.e. and subjugated the
inhabitants, the Subarians. As the Epic of Gilgamesh, an
epic poem recounting the deeds of the mythical hero-king
Gilgamesh, indicates, rulers were chosen by the army from a
hereditary and divinely approved list. Th e ruler represented
a god, and his job was to ensure that the god was satisfi ed.
Rulers fi elded armies of 5,000 to 10,000 men who fought in
a phalanx, shoulder to shoulder. Th e Sumerians used copper
weapons, spear, and ax. Phalanx tried to break phalanx by
shoving, jabbing with the spear, and hacking with the ax. At
fi rst, the Sumerians dominated Mesopotamia because their
opponents had ill-disciplined, stone-armed forces. In time,
however, the Akkadians, Gutians, and Elamites adopted cop-
per weapons and organized tactics. About 1950 b.c.e. a coali-
tion of Subarians, Gutians, and Elamites ravaged Sumer and
led the last ruler off as a prisoner.
At the beginning of the second millennium Indo-Euro-
peans tribes invaded the Near East. Th ese tribes had devel-
oped the chariot and combined it with the composite bow
to produce a highly mobile platform from which they could
deliver accurate, rapid fi re. Th e Hittites, the fi rst of these
invaders, used the mountains by the Halys River to protect
themselves from their enemies before they fanned out to con-
quer the rest of Anatolia. Th ey viewed war as the only honor-
able calling for a man. Th e Aryans formed the military into a
separate class, led by the nobility. Th ey organized their army
by tribe, clan, and family in units of 180 men. Chariots led
the charge and guarded the rear. Th e chariots did not rush
into battle but organized to give each other protection, with
the least experienced charioteer encouraged to learn from the
more seasoned soldiers.
Th e Assyrians dominated Mesopotamia in the ninth,
eighth, and seventh centuries. Th ey possessed the largest
army in the Near East with perhaps 200,000 Assyrians and
another 800,000 men draft ed from conquered territory. Th e
Assyrians hired mercenaries, replaced the annual call up of
militia with a standing army, and organized their kingdom
to ensure a suffi cient agricultural base to support the chariot
and cavalry units on a permanent basis. Th ey were the fi rst
to organize regular cavalry units and to use transportation
as a tactic. Th e Persian army was organized, like the Assyr-
ian army, into regiments of 1,000 men further divided into
hundreds and 10s. Th e 10 would form in fi le, the leader armed
with a lance while the other men had bows or swords. Th e
shields were placed in front as wall behind which all could
fi re their arrows.
Th e balance of evidence suggests that in premodern war-
fare the mobilization of manpower mattered more than any
other factor in the long run. To get enough men to win com-
bat that was oft en hand-to-hand fi ghting, nations recruitedDetail of a Persian soldier from the stairway of the palace of Darius,
king of Persia, at Persopolis (modern-day Iran) (Courtesy of the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)728 Military: The Middle East