The Near Eastern Political Landscape during the Second Millennium BCE: Multipolar Perspectives

Ever since the writings of Herodotos and Aristotle during the classical period, the Western imagination of the ancient Near East has been shadowed by myopic stereotypes of the supposedly despotic nature of political power. This against the background where the battle lines between liberal and authoritarian forces continue to resonate in the contemporary world. Yet in the ancient Near East, the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2004−1595 BCE) and the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600−1200 BCE) provide us with rich textual material, which indicate power rivalries between territorial states, gatherings of assemblies, and complex interdependence. Contrary to idées reçues, international systems did not inevitably disappear with the emergence of empires and reappear when empires crumbled as being an empire did not exclude the possibility of acting like a great power instead of a universal empire. Consequently, empires can be and often have been territorial in the past. This chapter suggests that it is more edifying to approach the ancient Near Eastern history through multipolarity rather than the stereotypical appellation of the “age of empires”.