Rome vs. Assyria
SharpBlue on Rome vs. Assyria. Interesting fact, the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, could read and write (remember, this is before widespread use of phonetic script, so this was no mean feat). Thanks to Ashurbanipal’s library much of the corpus of Sumerian and Akkadian literature came down to us.
The composition of Ashurbanipal’s library is interesting too. The literary texts are vastly outnumbered by tablets containing lists of omens of the form “if (some phenomenon is observed) then (some future events will occur),” The library was clearly a resource used by diviners and exorcists in the service of the Assyrian king rather than a repository of literary, scientific or historical works. There were also many lexicons, prayers, incantations and medical texts (which were somewhat similar in form to the omens: “if the doctor sees a black pig, the patient will die”).
Sometimes they’re more interesting than that, Rich: “When a foetus has eight legs and two tails, the prince of the kingdom will seize power.”