Compare And Contrast The Kingdoms Of Assyria And Persia

Kingdoms of Assyria and Persia were the precursor to the great Roman Republic and eventual Roman Empire. The values that both held were different in that the Romans had more time to develop a sophisticated law to control their population, however, there are still many similarities in the core values that both upheld. For example, they similarly treated people that they conquered and the refusal to accept bribes for positions of power. They differed in the way that the Gods were used to create law and instituting punishment. Over the time that these Kingdoms and Republic ruled as different people came to power the values that the government upheld would shift so that the core was the same but some aspects gradually changed. For instance

A value against unnecessary violence taken by the Romans, applied when they conquered an area. In “Res Gestae Divi Augusti” Augustus describes how he treated citizens with mercy and preserved them if at all possible. The Romans would bring the elites of a conquered people to Rome and make them Romans there in order to facilitate the best relations possible. The Romans were also okay with conquered people worshiping their own Gods as long as those people also worshiped Rome’s main God. The Persians had first used a procedure that was similar to Rome’s when addressing a conquered people. They allowed them to keep their local traditions but had to submit to a centralized authority, the Persian administration also worked with local elites to foster cooperation. However, the Assyrians which were a precursor to the Persian government were harsh to the people that they conquered. They often destroyed the capital of the region they conquered and moved people from that region to another in order to integrate them into the Kingdom. This, however, was their downfall, because of rebellions the state eventually dissolved. The transition from the Assyrians to Persians exhibits a change in the Southeastern part of Asia’s Kingdoms. The Persians learned from the mistakes of the Assyrians and while largely using their administrative model they changed the

In the Hammurabi Code, which was the first lawful code put in place by a kingdom, stated the famous quote of, “If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye,” that turned into the common colloquial of, an eye for an eye. An eye for an eye has become synonymous for revenge, however, the original intent of the law was to prevent unnecessary violence that caused a man to lose his eye in the first place. This type of law is harsher than most governments that came about later, but it served the purpose of establishing authority and legality. With the Assyrian Kingdom, through the “Advice to a Prince” that themes present in the “Hammurabi Code” in the violence consequences for doing immoral things are present. For example, “If citizens of Nippur are brought to him for judgement, but he accepts a present…Enlil…will bring a foreign army against him…” The theme of a harsh punishment for a crime is present but a change starts to occur, the punishment is infected by the Gods. This is an important development because that affects the way that Kings have to be in tune with the weather and other uncontrollable phenomena that could be interpreted as a God communicating with them. It also gives the King more power to operate outside the law if the Gods are on the King’s side. This change in law was a tool by the ruler to consolidate more power. That situation is