Skill or Circumstances

Ronak Patel

Near Eastern Studies R1B

Response Paper; Hammurabi of Babylon (Ch 1-3)

Marc Van De Mieroop begins by describing the early years of Hammurabi’s rule in Hammurabi of Babylon. He mentions how Hammurabi focused on internal growth for almost the first three decades of his rule. His conquering adventures did not begin until he defeated the people of Elam who came to invade Babylon. After that he decided to invade Larsa to the south because its leader did not send troops to help Hammurabi when he was fighting the invaders from Elam. Hammurabi had other allies in both fights. Some may suggest that it was Hammurabi’s personality, authority, and diplomatic skills that allowed him to succeed to this point, but I argue that at least to this point it was more favorable circumstance then personal skill sets that allowed Hammurabi to survive and succeed.

One circumstance that benefitted Hammurabi was Rim-Sin’s willingness to “compare notes, (in which) they saw Elam’s duplicity and decided to join forces” (Van de Mieroop 18). If Rim-Sin had, instead, decided to take the king of Elam’s offer and not side with Hammurabi, there is a chance that Hammurabi could have been attacked by both the people of Elam and the people of Larsa. Also, the alliance with Zimri-Lim of Mari was also circumstantial because both had a common enemy in the king of Elam. Later on this alliance also benefitted Hammurabi in taking over Larsa. Furthermore, the king of Elam stopped pushing forward after laying siege to the city of Upi. If he had continued there is a chance that Hammurabi may have lost because Rim-Sin did not send any help. Also, his annexation of Larsa was only possible because he also had the support of Zimri-Lim’s soldiers. He was quite lucky that Zimri-Lim had not called them back to Mari right after the king of Elam was defeated. If Hammurabi had been marginalized by a troop reduction he may not have been able to defeat Rim-Sin and could have been conquered by him in the future.

The following chapters may weaken this argument, but up to this point this seems to hold true.