Meanwhile, back between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Amorites have settled in to their role as lords of the land. But they live in dual worlds, one with the cities, and one with their own people. It is a difficult balance, because while they may be kings of Akkad, they are still chiefs of the warrior bands that follow them, whom they must keep happy. With a steady income of bribes, the warrior Amorites form a kind of leisure class, since they’ve largely nothing to do with the institutions of urban infrastructure. “Let the little city dwellers live under their roofs and tend their farms, so long as we are paid!” This attitude keeps the Amorites separate from their servants in blood as well as culture. As such, the Sumerians are pleased to continue living as they always have, since those few Amorites who do prefer city-life quickly acclimate themselves and disappear.
The union of the Amorites and the Sumerians, however, is not entirely out of the question. The kings of Akkad find it troublesome to please their followers, so steps must be taken to prove themselves supreme rulers. What laws already exist are codified by one Hamurabbi, who, in the Eighteenth Century BC, has the legal code etched into small obelisks and erected in the public place of every town. These laws apply to everyone, so in one move the king has made himself supreme and brought all his peoples – nomad and settled – to the same level.
Half the world away, sea-folk with a strikingly Egyptian-like culture have founded civilizations on Crete and the Aegean coasts in Greece and Ionia. A warlike people, they produce and export weapons to their mainland neighbors – likely the traders along the Palestinian and Phoenician coasts. But despite their warlike tendencies, they are nonetheless extremely advanced (for the age), indulging in ashlar masonry and flushable toilet systems, and write in a curious script called “Linear A,” which has yet to be deciphered. But their achievements are nothing when set against Thera’s destructive output, and around 1625 the volcano erupts, wrecking life in Crete and damaging the ecological system for years. The Cretans understandably flee to their coastal colonies and vanish into history, only resurfacing for an instant when a strange new people, the Myceneans return to Crete. These people come speaking “Linear B,” a language of the rich and religious, and prove even more violent and warlike than their predecessors, pleasing the gods with sacrifice and torching those neighbors that disrupt trade, like Ilium.
Not to be outdone, a new people emerge from the steppes to try their hand at empire. The Mittani, horse lords with a warrior class after the fashion of the Aryans, settle in the mountains east of Anatolia. From those impregnable heights they essay forth to pillage the rich valleys north of Akkad. Someone of them invented the bellows, a humble device capable of heating the forge to such a degree that stronger metals than bronze may be crafted. With this new technology, a band of Mittani called “Hittites” raid and slaughter in the lowlands all the way to the Persian Gulf, taking the loot back into the mountain fastness with the promise of future tribute from those conquered. Sadly, as with any cultural mingling, information is passed, and before long the art of making iron has become common knowledge. With the loss of their secret, the Hittites and Mittani vanish, leaving the field of history to more enduring empires.
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