Conquest in human history
On the dialectic of domination and development
To identify any particular “race” or particular individuals with conquest, settlement, colonialism, and their racist justifications misses the point and distracts from the issue that we must address as a precondition for further human economic, scientific, and moral progress. The essential point is twofold. First, conquest has been central to human history for the past 5,000 years, and it has been an important motor for human economic and moral development. Secondly, conquest leaves persistent structures that generate inequalities, and it is these structures that must be intelligently transformed by cooperative human activity.
The recently released fourth edition of the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests aids our understanding of the issue. To be sure, it has limitations that reflect the limitations of human knowledge. First, we know a whole lot more about the pre-modern history of conquest in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe than we know about conquest in Africa and America during the same period, although we know enough to know that conquest was present as an important dimension in the history of pre-modern Africa and America. Secondly, we know much more about the military and political dimensions and much less concerning the economic dimensions in the empires that emerged through conquest.
Still, in spite of its limitations, the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests is a useful tool in elevating consciousness with respect to the historic human phenomenon that I call the dialectic of domination and development. With this notion, my intention is to stress that conquest provided the conquering power with the economic and human resources that enabled the development of a class liberated from food gathering or food production, freed to pursue not only advances in the art of war, but also advances in commerce, science, technology, philosophy, literature, and art. Thus, conquest is the foundation for the great advances in civilizations. See my May 21, 2021, commentary, “The dialectic of domination and development: The role of conquest in human history.”
In my commentary today, I review conquests in ancient history, drawing upon the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests. In subsequent commentaries, I will discuss the Islamic conquests that created the Muslim world and the European conquests that established the modern capitalist world-economy.
The Assyrian Empire
The dialectic of domination and development is illustrated by the Assyrian Empire, which established itself as a strong state under Ashururballit, who led his people in a territorial expansion in the fourteenth century B.C.E. The Assyrians arrived to control the upper arch of the Fertile Crescent for a century. Subsequently, with a strong and experienced army, Assyria arrived to be the dominant power of the Near East by the 900s B.C.E. In 732 B.C.E., they captured the major city of Damascus, and subsequently launched attacks against Egypt.
Assyria acquired the formal characteristics of empire under the leadership of Sargon II, who ruled form 722-705 B.C.E., in that it established political control over conquered lands by appointing governors, as against the previous tendency to make war for loot and tribute. By the end of the reign of Esarhaddon (681–668 B.C.E.), the last of great emperors, Assyrian territory stretched from the Persian Gulf across the Fertile Crescent and halfway down the Nile River in Egypt. The Assyrian Empire ended abruptly in 612 B.C.E., when a coalition of rebel forces took the capital city. This finale was as a consequence of three hundred years of continuous war, taking the form of conquests and the suppression of constant rebellions. The Empire had been increasingly unable to enforce agreements made with subordinate provinces.
The Assyrian Empire was characterized by economic and cultural development. It developed a road system that facilitated freer trade and a postal system. It developed the world’s first aqueducts. It adapted cuneiform script from Babylonia, making possible the emergence of the world’s first historians. It established a number of libraries, in which were recorded Assyrian scientific knowledge as well as the knowledge of Babylon. In addition, Assyrian artists are considered masters, having produced realistic and emotional portrayals of kings at war and sport.
The Assyrians were the first to utilize iron on a wide scale. As more iron-producing territory came under Assyrian control, iron became the most common metal in tool production, superior in performance to tools made from bronze. Assyria was especially accomplished at warfare, using iron weapons and chariots in combination with army cavalry.
The Babylonian Empire
Located in Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers above the Persian Gulf, some 200 miles to the south of the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian empires were centered in the spectacular city of Babylon. Driven by hatred of the Assyrians, the Chaldeans—the second Semitic group to come to prominence in Babylon—and their allies from Persia destroyed the Assyrian capital at Nineveh in 612 B.C.E. With the fall of Assyria, the Chaldean empire had to contend with the ignited expansionist tendencies of Egypt, which formed alliances with Judah and Phoenicia. But the Chaldean Empire, led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, was able to sustain itself, famously capturing Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, and taking a large part of the population of Judah into captivity in Babylon in 597 B.C.E. A subsequent effort by Egypt provoked another taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, who removed the remainder of the population.
Although the Chaldean (or neo-Babylonian) Empire was not as large as the Assyrian Empire, the former was more widely known as the great conquering power of the ancient Middle East, because its exploits were documented in the sacred texts of Jews and Christians. Having destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple of Solomon, and hauled the people into captivity, Nebuchadnezzar earned his reputation as a conqueror. But he also illustrates the dialectic of domination and development. Nebuchadnezzar was famous for transforming Babylon into the cultural and economic center of its time, with sophisticated, multistory housing and paved streets and with architectural marvels and huge temples. Babylon was the trading center of the Middle East, with imported goods from India and Arabia. And it was the center of learning and literature of the Mesopotamian region.
The Chaldean Empire was short-lived. It fell in 539 B.C.E. to the Persian king Cyrus, who attacked from the east, overwhelming the Chaldean military, which had been neglected in favor of greater attention to science and the arts.
Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire
History records Cyrus as a military and political genius. He inherited from his father the leadership of a small Persian tribe in the Southern Tigris-Euphrates area. He quickly united all the Persian tribes under his rule in 559 B.C.E. He conquered neighboring kingdoms, and he extended the boundaries of the emerging Persian Empire to the Indus River in the East and the Babylonian Empire in the west, subsequently entering the city of Babylon in 539 B.C.E., proclaiming himself liberator. The Persian Army was composed of different tribal and ethnic groups, and Cyrus unified it by organizing the troops by tribes, often allowing tribesmen to lead them under Cyrus’ authority.
Cyrus permitted conquered vassal states to preserve their customs and their national identities. This policy of openness and tolerance contrasted with the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, which practiced the displacement of peoples and the destruction of their cultures. When Cyrus conquered Babylon, he permitted the captured peoples to return to their homelands, including the Hebrew people, who had been prisoners in Babylon for seventy years, allowing them to carry with them the sacred elements of their religion, and even funding the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Cyrus became known as “Cyrus the Great” not only because of his conquests but also because of his enlightened policies and tolerance of cultural diversity. By 500 B.C.E., the Persian Empire extended from the border of India to Egypt, and from the Caspian Sea to the Hellespont. The Persian Empire fell to the conquests of Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great
Alexander was the son of the great military and political leader Philip of Macedon and his first wife, Olympia, who would play a pivotal role in his emergence to power. Philip, operating originally from the remote province of Macedon, built a well-trained army to beat back neighboring tribes and to defeat the more developed city-states of Greece, which were disadvantaged by their lack of organizational unity. Alexander first distinguished himself as a military leader at the age of 18, when he commanded troops in a victorious battle over Athens in 338 B.C.E. When Philip was murdered in 336 B.C.E., Alexander assumed the throne of Macedonia.
Alexander commenced a series of conquests, marching to the Hellespont and to Asia Minor with a force of 35,000 men, liberating coastal provinces from Persian rule. He confronted Persian Emperor Darius III in northeastern Syria, attaining a celebrated victory. He proceeded South to capture coastal cities and then to Egypt, establishing the city of Alexandria. From Egypt, he marched into Persia, again encountering and defeating Darius, and subsequently occupying the Persian capital at Babylon. He then proceeded eastward to Afghanistan and India, where his victories were costly, leading him to return to Persia.
Alexander was a brilliant statesman. He envisioned a world empire guided by a synthesis of the cultures of Greece and the East, encouraging his veterans to intermarry. Although ruthless in battle, he was forgiving in victory, thus forging wide support. According to the Encyclopedia of Invasions and Conquests, Alexander’s vision of blending the cultures of East and West was successful for some centuries, with the creation of “a Greek-like society called Hellenism, which blended the perspective and scientific bent of the Greeks with the beauty and grace of Eastern philosophies.” The Encyclopedia maintains that the intellectual and artistic achievements of the Hellenistic societies surpassed anything that had emerged previously.
The benefits and contradictions of empire
In the unfolding story of conquest, we can discern the advantages of empire. The conquering power maintains political control over an extended territory, using the exacted tribute to create the infrastructure for commercial and technological development and for the development of science, literature, and the arts. The more the empire can maintain peace, the more it can provide the conditions for commercial expansion and technological development. Thus, empires establish possibilities for regional peace, commerce, and development, standing in contrast to the limited possibilities of local tribes.
However, the empires confronted inherent contradictions. The greater the territory under its jurisdiction, the harder it is to maintain control. There is the constant threat of rebellion, as vassal states resent the tribute. And there is the threat of attacks from external forces, which often makes internal rebellion more possible, as the center becomes preoccupied with external threats. And there is the persistent tendency toward corruption at the center, undermining the political and economic efficiency of the empire. Because of these dynamics, empires often do not last long, especially the period of peace, commerce, and stability.
These destabilizing dynamics, along with internal political intrigues at the center of the empire, were important in the development of the Roman Empire. For this reason, the Pax Romana was short-lived.
As we will see in the next commentaries, the modern European-centered world-economy would attain greater stability by transforming the economies of the conquered societies and forging a colonized elite class to represent the interests of the conquering power in the colony. However, this more sophisticated form of domination began to crumble during the twentieth century, and it today is collapsing under the impact of the persistent resistance of the conquered peoples. These contemporary dynamics teach an important lesson: further human progress today requires proceeding not on the basis of domination but on a foundation of cooperation and mutually beneficial trade.
The concept of the dialectic of domination and development is not intended to justify conquest. Rather, it intends to remind us of the complexity of the human story, in which the most beautiful things that human beings have created are built on a foundation of force and violence. Even more, the most beautiful human beings that the world has known have had their being as a result of the privileges and opportunities that were created on a foundation of conquest. If we were to grasp that the human condition is tainted by force and violence, from which none of us is removed, we might be less inclined to simplistic moral outrage toward those human individuals who at determined points in human history were associated with the human tendency toward conquest and violence. We might be more inclined toward a common human quest to forge development on a foundation of cooperation.
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