Who Was the First Great Emperor in World History? What Did He Do and How Did He Do It?

The first of the great conquerors the world has ever known was Sargon of Akkad, in the late 3rd millennium BC.  Sargon of Akkad dominated the civilization of Mesopotamia in such a way as to leave an awe-inspiring legacy which future ambitious kings attempted but usually failed to emulate.  

 The Akkad region was an area inhabited Semitic people in the north-west of Sumer. Whereas historical the Semites are associated with a nomadic style of life (characteristic of Bedouin Arabs, for example), there is no evidence for this in this era of history and the Semitic people of Akkad shared the Sumerian civilization to the south throughout the Early Dynasty. The people lived in city states, used similar artistic and architectural styles, used the same cuneifrom script and worshipped the same gods as the Sumerians. However, they did speak a different language, which became Akkadian. 

The Sumerian city of Kish occupied the centre of the Semitic area which in c. 2334 BC was seized by a Semitic official, Sargon, who became its official ruler. Basing his control on the Semitic people, he used them to defeat the Sumerians and become overlord of both Sumer and Akkad. 

What Sargon did next was an unprecedented move to consolidate his power by founding a new capital city - Agade. The term Akkad comes from this city, but the precise location of the city is as yet unknown. Distributing his officials as governors of the defeated Sumerian city-states, he confiscated large swathes of land, often from the temples and palaces, to turn them into royal domains under the authority of his own officials to support his hoards of personal wealth and power; turning Akkadian into the royal language for official business. 

Having secured control over southern Mesopotamia, the Sargon of Akkad went on a mission of expansion on a scale never before attempted. His dominion expanded to take in Elam in the east and Mari in the north; to Ebla and other Syrian cities, and as far as the Mediterranean sea in the west and the Taurus mountains in the east.

Jonathan Britton

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