The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch

Author:David Damrosch [Damrosch, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epic, history, Archaeology, Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780805080292
Amazon: 0805087257
Goodreads: 8141444
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Published: 2007-12-25T21:00:00+00:00

Shamash, great lord, give me a definite answer to what I ask you! … Will any of the eunuchs and the bearded officials, the king’s entourage, or any of his brothers and uncles, or junior members of the royal line, or any relative of the king whatever, or the prefects, or the recruitment officers, or his personal guard, or the king’s chariot men, or the keepers of the inner gates, or the keepers of the outer gates, or the attendants and lackeys of the stables, or the cooks, confectioners, and bakers, the entire body of craftsmen … or their brothers, or their sons, or their nephews, or their friends, or their guests, or their accomplices … make an uprising and rebellion against Esarhaddon, king of Assyria? … Will they act in a hostile manner against him and kill him?

The god’s reply is not recorded.

Esarhaddon held off for several months before acting, and then finally instituted a major purge. It is unknown whether Kudurru survived it, though the overseer Sasî is still listed several years later as holding an important post. One recent analyst of this conspiracy has speculated that “in reality Sasî was there as a fink, keeping the king informed about their actions,” in which event informers were informing on informers.

However he arrived at his decisions, Esarhaddon had to execute a number of once-trusted palace officials. In the ancient equivalent of a security clearance check, a series of oracle requests in 670 asked Shamash if people being promoted into the newly vacant positions could be trusted not to rebel in turn. These requests urged the sun god to consider the full range of possibilities: “While he is in the entourage of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, will he plan something bad, an evil plan of sedition, rebellion, and insurrection, against Esarhaddon, king of Assyria? Will he instigate it, or cause others to instigate it? Will he plot it, or cause others to plot or undertake it, or will he turn to his enemy? Does your great divinity know it?”

Plots and rebellions were so common that many kings must have accepted them as disagreeable facts of royal life, but Esarhaddon took these disturbances deeply to heart. A letter to the king from his chief physician, Urad-Nanaya, offered a diagnosis of the lingering psychological effects of the 671 conspiracy: “Ashur and the great gods bound and handed over to the king these criminals who plotted against his goodness…. The goodness of the king caught them up. However, they made all other people hateful in the eyes of the king, smearing them like a tanner with fish oil.”

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In principle, the king’s anxieties should have been allayed by his inquiries to the gods, enabling him to know who to trust. Esarhaddon didn’t rely on the ambiguous reports of his human intelligence agents alone; he could write letters to Shamash, the all-seeing sun god, as well as to Assyria’s patron god Ashur, and to Nineveh’s protective goddess Ishtar, all of whom had his kingdom’s interests deeply at heart.

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