3. Councils of elders and general assemblies of citi-
zens existed in individual cities of Mesopotamia since
the third millennium B.C. An episode in the short
Sumerian epic poem on Gilgamesh and Agga is
regarded as the earliest evidence on record about both
councils and assemblies. The extant tablets of the poem
were inscribed in the second millennium but reflect the
situation of a time not far removed from 3000 B.C.
Gilgamesh, the mythical hero and lord of Uruk,
addresses the council of elders in order to enlist its
support for war. The council turns down his proposal,
but another assembly, which is likely to have included
all the local arms-bearing males, overrides the opinion
of the elders and declares for war. The possibility of
disagreement in assemblies is confirmed by an omen
of the Old Babylonian Kingdom (ca. 1800 B.C.).
Composition and function of such councils and
assemblies naturally varied in time and space. In the
Assyrian commercial colony of Kanis in Cappadocia
in the nineteenth century B.C. the council of elders
apparently divided into three sections while deciding—
which might imply a collective vote of each section.
In a trial for murder at Nippur about the twentieth
century B.C. opposite opinions on the guilt of the cul-
prit are chanted alternately by various members of the
judging assembly. Thus military expeditions, trials,
relations with local kings all appear to be within the
competence of such gatherings. In no case are we
sufficiently well informed to visualize the real nature
of the activities of these bodies. Even the distinction
between councils of elders and popular assemblies is
blurred. According to what is now the prevailing opin-
ion among Assyriologists, the Mesopotamian institu-
tions developed from an original basis of primitive
military democracy, and the king in Mesopotamia (in
contrast to Egypt) was very seldom equated with a
god. Indeed even the gods formed a society with some
democratic features. The Enûma Elish was written in
the first half of the second millennium B.C. to explain
how Marduk had been elected by the gods to be their
king. However powerful the royal palace and the tem-
ple might be in a city, the original communal orga-
nization survived beside them: it was especially strong
in the great commercial centers. The proud sense of
autonomy of the citizens of Babylon (who reminded
Assurbanipal that even a dog is free when he enters
their city) and the elements of social criticism in pray-
ers and epics go well with this communal life. But the
history of Babylonia and Assyria in the second and first
millennia B.C. is that of centralized empires in which
decisions are taken by a king, and his advisers are
hardly visible. Intellectual life is directed towards the
reiteration of orthodox opinions, not towards expression
of dissent. The absence of popular protest against the
administration in real life, and the poverty of intellec-
tual controversy in Akkadian literature, have often been
noticed. We must assume some freedom of speech
behind routine legal and administrative processes: no-
where does it appear as a value or as an art in itself.
The Hittites were the only great state of the Ancient
Near East in which the king had to reckon with a
central political assembly—not just with local
assemblies of individual cities. The Pankus is men-
tioned in the so-called political testament of Hat-
tushilish I (ca. 1650) and in the edict of Telepinush (ca.
1500) regulating the succession to the throne and
reforming the judical system. The etymology of the
word Pankus, an adjective meaning “entire,” is irrele-
vant to the interpretation of the institution. But a
magical text puts the Pankus above the court officials,
though it places the “kin of the Pankus” below the
priests and the military. This can only imply that the
Pankus was an aristocratic assembly, and indeed there
are signs that it had some say in the succession to the
throne. Hittite scholars like to think that the Pankus
was an institution of undeniably Indo-European char-
acter, but who has ever seen an Indo-European
assembly? Telepinush even extended (or restored) the
judicial powers of the Pankus to include the trial of
a king under specified circumstances. We hear nothing
more of the Pankus after him. In the next century the
builders of the Hittite empire seem to have had an
easier time working with a tamer council of court
dignitaries. When Shuppiluliumash I (perhaps about
1350) was suddenly faced with the request to provide
a husband for the widow of Tutankhamen, “he called
the great into council (saying): since of old, such a thing
has never happened before me.” The “council of the
great” is probably something different from the Elders
of Hatti who appear in a strange clause of the political
testament of Hattushilish I. Hattushilish I appears to
be anxious to establish a barrier between his successor-
designate and the Elders of Hatti: “The Elders of Hatti
shall not speak to you, neither shall a man of...,
nor of Hemmuva nor of Tamalkiya, nor a man of...,
nor indeed any of the people of the country speak to
you.” For the rest we know that the Hittie code
recognized the jurisdiction of the elders outside the
capital. Naturally the king dealt with councils of elders
in occupied territories.
Thus it appears that the Hittite kings came to rely
increasingly on a military organization in which
decision-making would be characterized by swiftness,
secrecy, and deference to the king's will. Hattushilish's
move to prevent the elders—and more in general the
common people—from approaching his heir is one of
the most definite and explicit limitations of freedom
of speech we encounter in antiquity. We should like
to know whether in the exercise of justice the weak
was heard and whether intellectual life included dis-
cussion of moral and religious topics. The Hittite texts,
such as they are, do not offer much in these directions.
A moving soliloquy, the prayer of Kantuzilish for relief
from his sufferings, is a sign of reflection and sensitive-
ness. But independent thinking on either political or
social or religious issues does not emerge from the
extant Hittite documents.
