Simon Elliott, Old Testament Warriors (Casemate, 2021)
In Old Testament Warriors, the prolific Simon Elliott surveys the civilizations of the Ancient Near East with his focus on military systems and developments. He covers almost all the bases and introduces readers to a fascinating list of characters and peoples.
BUY NOW
Elliott begins ‘in the beginning’ with the first attempts at organized warfare, going back into the neolithic period then stressing the importance of the city of Jericho’s defences as an evolutionary step in warfare. That leads him into the Sumerian civilization and growing evidence for warfare and armies. Then came Sargon the Great from Kish who brought Sumerian dominance to a violent end before a resurgence then a final demise in 2004 BCE. That led to the rise of Assyria and Babylon. However, it is to the Egyptians that Elliott turns next. He works through the Old Kingdom and into its neighbours, Nubia, Canaan, and Libya, but eschews later developments to avoid a collision with a companion volume on the later Egyptians.
Chapter 3 introduces the weapon synonymous with this era of warfare: the chariot. Elliott places the chariot military revolution in around 1690 BCE. The Hurrians and Hyksos were the first serious users of chariots in the Bronze Age, and Elliott goes into more detail on the Kingdom of Mitanni, the leading Hurrian kingdom. Coming away from the Near East, Elliott moves into Europe with the Minoans and Mycenaeans. It was the demise of the Mycenaeans among others that led to the mass migration of destructive groups known as the Sea Peoples from around 1230 BCE. They linked Europe to the Near East, and it is to there that Elliott returns to discuss the small but influential Hebrew Kingdoms and the Philistines.
One curious aspect of Hebrew warfare was the lack of chariots, which they made up for with surprise assaults often at night. The Hebrews joined together under the United Monarchy of the Israelites – Saul, David, and Solomon – who fought the Philistines with varied success. The Divided Monarchy followed in the first millennium BCE with war between Israel and Judea. It didn’t matter too much because both would fall, squashed between the rising and ruthless Assyrians and the powerful Egyptians. The Babylonians came next in a winner takes all battle at Carchemish in 605 BCE. They then dismantled Judea.
Elliott closes out his survey with a deeper look at the Hittites, Assyrians, and Babylonians, which were the major powers during the biblical period. He includes here the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE, involving 6,000 chariots! The book ends with the defeat of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE. Elliott concludes with observations on the evolution of warfare in the biblical period and the importance of literacy in cultivating civilizations.
Old Testament Warriors is a solid survey of this period. Each chapter begins with an introduction, which is old-fashioned and a bit wasteful for a book this short, but the narrative and analysis flows quite seamlessly for the most part. Elliott’s writing is clear, as we have come to expect, and his text is supported by photographs of wargames figures, some general landscapes, and archaeological artefacts. The civilizations under Elliott’s gaze are viewed primarily through their military organisations, and we can follow the development of weapons and armour, though that may also be a product of greater archaeological evidence. I would have liked to have seen more references to the Holy Bible and a better bibliography for further exploration, but as a general introduction to this fascinating era of warfare, Old Testament Warriors will do the job.
