Ilku (‘corvée,’ ‘labour service’)

Postgate suggested that ilkuwas “a system of personal service in return for land held directly from the king.”²⁷⁷ The system had military applications, as Postgate put it: “ilku was either the performance of military or civilian service for the state, or the payment of contributions as a commuted version of that service.”²⁷⁸Following his logic it is obvious that the original rural concept changed immensely when the Assyrian Empire grew beyond the limits of the original system, its administrative structure became very complex, some officials could not be spared to perforn the ilkuservice, and in the case of large towns and the “capital cities of Assyria, any call­

up based on land­holders alone would be very incomplete. Therefore we must assume that people who did not own or till land were assessed for ilkuin other ways. … the system of payment in kind in place of ilkuservice must have grown up.”²⁷⁹A further reason behind this change might be that since “ilkuseems to have been the only major obligation to which the subjects of the crown were liable, and it is therefore possible that ilkudespite its rather special antecedents, came to be the poll­tax par excellence of the nA empire.”²⁸⁰

The problem was realized by Richardson as well, but he refrained from such an explcicit assertion when he stated that “The meaning of the term ilku was also as protean as it was durable: in different contexts ilkucould refer to the service­land itself, the work done on that land, the delivery of the yield of that land, the service obligations attached to it, the tenure­holder

273PARPOLA1987, 99 (ABL 99).

274FUCHS– PARPOLA2001, 60 (ABL 242), Rev. 5’-6’; 710/709 B.C., Babylonian campaign.

275FUCHS– PARPOLA2001, 53 (ABL 165), 4-5.

276POSTGATE1974, 63-93.

277POSTGATE1974, 83, 86.

278POSTGATE1974, 83, 91.

279POSTGATE1974, 91.

280POSTGATE1974, 91-92.

himself, or goods, animals, and services used to support ilku­service. In all periods it is difficult to assess the degree to which ilku­tenancy in practice obligated actual military service instead of payments by the tenant to support the hire of troops by central authorities or provide substitutes (prohibited by the Code of Hammurabi, but well honoured by the breach).”²⁸¹He referred to Postgate’s study, saying: “Postgate concluded that ilkuintersected with a system of lots and shares in common land funds of the community: ‘it would not have entailed large­scale of land­

ownership, merely the acknowledgement … of a status quo’²⁸²If that was the case, then the Assyrian military was deeply integrated, if not identical to, the village community, and quite different from a two sector economy of village and palace lands prevailing in Babylonia.”²⁸³

When we are looking for the legal background of the military service, and a connection between service and ilku duty (which connection is hardly indicated in a direct form in the cuneiform corpus (for the few examples seebelow)), we should acknowledge that every duty in the service of the state can be perceived as a kind of ilku. This view supposes – as has been referred to by both Postgate and Richardson, as quoted above – that ilkuwas a general type of duty applied to several aspects of the state service.

According to the present writer’s view, as a general phenomenon behind the military service, there is a much more direct connection between the military service obligation and the ilkuof the nonprofessional or semi­professional soldiers owning their own fields or service­fields, than in the case of the professional soldiers, where the donation of estates would fall in a somewhat different category than a simple ilkuobligation.

An example of the military connotations of the ilkuduty is known from one of the letters of Aššur­dūr­pānīa discussed above, who reported to Sargon II that the Šubrian emissaries “have written down on clay tablets the king’s men and the people of the country who last year, the year before and three years ago ran away from labour duty and military service (il­kiTA IGI ERIM.MEŠ MAN­te), ending up there, and have set them as their bargain; they are going to bring (the tablets) and read them to the king, my lord. Yet the prime men who now escape the king’s work and go there

— he (›u­Tešub, the Šubrian king) gives them fields, gardens and houses, settles them in his country, and there they stay.”²⁸⁴ These sentences make it clear that the labour duty/military service was a substantial burden and dangerous enough to make some people flee from the country.²⁸⁵

A further example is discussed in detail above: the letter of £āb­%il­Ēšarra to Sargon II on the exemption of the Inner City, and the imposition of the ilkuduty of the Inner City on him and the palace of Ekallāte refers to “370 men, 90 of whom were king’s men, 90 were (their) reserves (ša ku­

tal), and 190 did the king’s work.”²⁸⁶In this case £āb­%il­Ēšarra supplied the deficit of king’s men who would serve in the army, or do the king’s work on the base of their ilkuduty.

The letter of Aššur­bēlu­da’’in written to Sargon II shows that not only the Assyrians, but the conquered people, as for example the Uš‹u and Qudu also had to provide king’s men for labour duty (ilku) and military service („Those obliged to provide labour have provided it, and those obliged to provide king’s men (LÚ.ERIM.MEŠ—MAN) have provided them”).²⁸⁷ Similarly

281RICHARDSON2011, 22.

282POSTGATE1982, 304-313.

283RICHARDSON2011, 23.

284LANFRANCHI– PARPOLA1990, 52 (ABL 252), 4-Rev. 6.

285Similar reports are known from other regions of the Empire: Carchemish (PARPOLA1987, 183 (ABL 1287), 12) and even the blacksmiths have complained to the king that the ilkuduty (they produced a great number of weapons for the Palace) became such a burden on them that they had gone away and entered the palaces (LUUKKO– VANBUYLAERE2002, 40 (CT 53, 13), Rev. 12-17).

286PARPOLA1987, 99 (ABL 99).

287LANFRANCHI– PARPOLA1990, 78 (ABL 246), 16.

Legal background of the recruitment system

Samnu‹a­bēlu­u%ur also reminded the ruler that “the king, my lord, knows that the Šadikanneans are hirelings; they work for hire all over the king’s lands. They are no runaways; they perform the ilkuduty and supply king’s men from their midst.”²⁸⁸

Some of the sources make it clear that this type of personal labour service would be replaced by payment in kind. There are a few examples which show a military context. Such an example is a list of provisions (ND 3467)²⁸⁹(discussed in detail in chapter II.1.1.1.2 Central allotment of rations during a ‘home service’), which were – in the form of or deriving from of ilkuduty – alloted to some chariot troops (LÚ.GIŠ.GIGIR.MEŠ) or more probably to their superior by the major­domo of the Palace (LÚ.GAL—É.GAL(rab ekalli)).

Another administrative text (ND 453)²⁹⁰lists various ilkuitems divided into three categories (and discussed in chapter II.1.1.2.3 Raising barley rations for troops during campaign preparations):

(1) Daily campaign supplies (lines 1­5): “[x] bowl(s) of wine, 2 homers 1 sūtu of bread, 2 homers of beer, 5 sūtuof fodder – per day.”

(2) Non­recurrent campaign expenditure (lines 6­8): “2 minas of copper for oil for the lamp(s).

All this for his expedition.”

(3) Yearly payments (lines 9­12): “90 minas of copper for 30 reserves of the king’s men, [x ho]mers of corn, 5 homers of …corn, he shall receive in the year […].”

From these examples it seems obvious that certain units were equipped and supplied by the ilkupayments of various offices, communities or personnel.

It seems that some people could pay ilkuin animals as well. A long list detailing the debts of the Qappatean people ends witht these lines: “1,600 [...] is our ilku­service, which we give year after year. [We] have already giv[en] 150 sheep, 20 oxen and 2 horses, as audience gift of the town D[ūr­Šarrukēn].”²⁹¹ In a fragmentary letter Nergal­ē#ir also refers to the ilku dues the king imposed upon him: these dues included 30 oxen and [x] sheep from Parsua.²⁹²These payments would easily contributed to the supply of the units of the Assyrian army.

From our military point of view it seems quite reasonable to say that the ilku­based conscription was the general system on which the recruitment of the regular units of the Assyrian army was founded. Only the auxiliaries and the élite units of the royal corps (ki%ir šarrūti) might have served on a different basis. Auxiliaries might have worked for service fields, ‘bow­fields,’

rights to pasture etc.(seebelow), while some units of the royal corps (bodyguard units of the cavalry and chariotry) possessed such special skills which went far beyond the possibilities of a recruitment based on an ad hocyearly rota of peasants or other men, and suppose a professional status.

288PARPOLA1987, 223 (CT 53, 87), 4-13.

289WISEMAN1953, 146, ND 3467; POSTGATE1974, 399-401.

290POSTGATE1973, 141 (ND 453).

291FALES– POSTGATE1992, 45 (ADD 1139+), 14-Rev. 6.

292FUCHS– PARPOLA2001, 67 (ABL 230).