Some Costs to Human Booty

In the sixth chapter of Zainab Bahrani’s book entitled Rituals of War, she points out that one of the war tactics that Mesopotamian empires utilized, especially the Assyrians, was the collection of human beings. Not only did victorious kings proudly display severed heads at the gates of conquered cities, but they also acquired people and incorporated them into their inventories of booty. These acquired “citizens” were essentially in the same boat as inanimate objects of material wealth. By deporting these people from their homelands, Assyrian kings were able to terrorize these people into subjugation, as well as to expand the empire’s control territorially. Although Bahrani claims that having this mass of newly acquired people was beneficial for the kingdom, there might be some reason to believe that this practice wasn’t as safe-proof as she makes it out to be.

Firstly, although it is true that the empire gained a “means of increasing the army’s numbers [and] laborers … for construction” (180), I can’t help but think of the extra funds that the empire needed to put in to not only transport this bulk of people to a new country, but also to keep them “healthy and well fed” (179). After all, these people were not regarded as slaves, for they didn’t “march [around] in shackles as prisoners” (179), but were pretty much deemed citizens who were “treated in the same way as the local population” (180). The cost of maintaining this new populace must have been some burden to the kingdom. Also, keeping in mind that the power of Mesopotamia was constantly shifting hands, I wonder whether sometimes this practice was pointless due to the need to transport these people once again.

On a side note, I question the practice of making some of these new citizens into “the king’s personal bodyguards” (180). Even though there might not have been a documented case of betrayal, I’m alarmed at the notion that a king would entrust a deportee of a conquered nation to serve as one of his protectors. If anything, I would think that having a deportee in a king’s trusted circle would grant opportunity for him to strike the king when he least expects it.