112 paolo merlo
4.1 The Ideal King: Pious, Victorious, Just, and a Builderthe first literary pattern of the royal inscriptions is the stereotypical
description of the king. ancient Near eastern royal inscriptions always
praise the king, his piety, righteousness, and virtues, so that the real figure
of the king is regularly replaced by a fictional representation presenting
an ideal image to the reader.
in order to justify a king’s sovereignty many ancient royal inscriptions
say that the gods grant their divine assistance to the pious king “stand-
ing beside” him, or “granting the legitimate scepter” to him, among other
expressions.11 the opening section of the panamuwa inscription also
corresponds to this literary pattern, stating that “the gods hadad and
el... stood beside me... and gave the scepter of domination into my
hands” (Kai 214: 2–3). Zakkur, King of hamath, in the memorial section
of his inscription, also presents himself as a king chosen by the gods, mak-
ing use of the same themes: “Baʿalšamayin stood beside me and made me
king” (Kai 202 a: 3). Similar expressions, in reverse order, are found in the
(anonymous) tel Dan inscription: “hadad made me king... and hadad
went before me... .” (Kai 310: 4–5).
another ideological account used to justify a king’s sovereignty is a
description of kingship as the divine reward for the king’s pious behavior.
this narrative pattern is clearly attested in the Bar-rakkab inscription:
“Because of... my own righteousness, my Lord rakkabʾel... seated me
upon my father’s throne” (Kai 216: 4–7).
the figure of the king as just and a builder is best found in the Bar-
rakkab inscription (Kai 216). this inscription first presents the king Bar-
rakkab as a loyal servant of the assyrian king tiglath-pileser iii and then
describes his building of the new royal palace. in the first part of this
inscription we find the literary motif of the king’s (and his father’s) loy-
alty to the assyrian sovereign, with stereotypical expressions found also
in some other fragmentary inscriptions of Bar-rakkab.12
the last section of this inscription uses many hyperboles to depict the
royal palace such as “i made it better than the palace of any great kings”
(lines 12–13) or “there was no beautiful palace for my fathers, the kings of
Samʾal” (lines 16–17). Despite these magniloquent expressions of praise,
11 akkadian and other examples in tawil 1974: 44–46.
12 “Because of the loyalty (ṣdq) of my father and because of my own loyalty (ṣdqy), my
lord rakkabʾel and my lord tiglath-pileser seated me upon my father’s throne” (Kai 216:
4–7; cf. also Kai 217: 3–5; 219: 4–5).