The Median Guide For Creating and Maintaining an Empire

By Lucas, David, Sabrina, James and Althea

Table of ContentsMilitary Strategy

Military Strategies Image

Stable Food Supply

Stable Food Supply Image

Writing Writing Image

Public Works Project

Public Works Image

Ruler RulerImage

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My Eldest Son,

My life as the ruler of this wonderful empire is coming to an end. My power is fading, and I have grey hair. Before I go towards the light, I entrust the rule of my wonderful empire to you.

You are a young man, though, and need much guidance in the ways of building and maintaining an empire. Along with the help of my scribes, I have decided to create a guide to ensure that my empire remains strong and prosperous for generations to come.

May the Gods be with You,Nebuchadrezzar

Introduction

Military StrategiesMilitary strategy was vital to sustaining an empire because it permitted an empire to dominate and secure new

territory. When empires conquered new territory, they had working battle formations or a strategy for organizing their armies. For example, Akkadians had soldiers in the front line with interlocking shields with a second row of men holding spears through the gaps between the shields. This allowed the Akkadians to protect the soldiers carrying shields as well as the men carrying spears while the enemy would be trampled. Siege warfare was another strategy empires used. During a siege the attackers would make camp outside of another city-state and repeatedly attack them until the city-state fell. Siege warfare had helped the Assyrians to conquer different lands such as Babylon, Jerusalem, and part of Egypt. The Assyrians were the first to use battering rams and siege towers. Battering rams were long heavy beams of wood on wheels that were used to break down walls. Siege towers were movable towers that the Assyrians used to get over the city-walls. Once an empire conquered a city-state they took precautions so that the conquered city-states did not rebel against them. For example, the Akkadians demanded the loyalty of the city-states' governors so that they would not be betrayed. If the governors did not pledge their loyalty to the Akkadians they were replaced with one of the Akkadian men. Also, they tore down the city walls, so that it would be harder for the conquered people to rebel in any kind of way because they would have no protection if they did rebel. As you can see, when empires wanted to start expanding military strategy was critical to dominating new territory and controlling it.

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Military Strategy Images

By: David Ramirez

Stable food supplyA stable food supply was important to creating and maintaining an empire because it allows people to

expand their territory to gain more resources. For example, a stable food supply allows leaders to train more people to fight and form armies. In fact he has more food to support more armies than he could without a stable food supply. If you don't have a stable food supply you can’t support as many people in an army because you have to feed everybody in the army. With more armies he can conquer new lands that have different resources. Some of the resources that they needed to survive was cattle, fruit’s, and grain. These are necessary because without them they would die of starvation. He will gain two things at once, new land and new resources.. This is good because the empire can have things that they don't have in their area. Some of these things could be wheat, timber, iron, cattle, and glass. You can't grow new resources in an area that does not meet the essentials. For example, you can’t grow wheat in a very dry place. You would have to grow it in a place that has lots of rain and fertile soil. Which leads me to this conclusion that without a stable food supply you can’t take control of the areas with different resources. You need to be able to have enough armies to conquer and earn more resources. As a result, a stable food supply is essential to gaining land and earning new resources.

Stable Food Supply Images

By: James Henderson

WritingWriting was an essential element to maintain an empire going because of recording taxes, writing down laws, and maintaining peace. The first reason is that writing enables scribes to write down laws. Writing down laws was very important because people knew exactly the rules that they had to follow in the city. One example of a law was: "If a son hits his father, his hands should be sawed off." One other reason why writing is important to maintain an empire is that writing was used to record grain, and taxes. Farmers paid the government grain in return of protection, and the government used the grain to pay to the people who had specialized jobs, and also to build public works projects. Finally, writing was used to make treaties with other empires. This is important because people could know what other empires are about to do, and they will also make peace treaties. In the simulation there were many peace treaties made;

Writing images

By: Lucas Taragano

Public Works Project

Public works projects helped with unexpected events. For example, when there was an attack . Ancient Mesopotamian cities built city walls that protected them from any attacks. Armies couldn't protect the city all by themselves so then city walls helped out. If the armies failed/ (died the city walls reinforced protection.City walls wasn't the only public works project.Warehouses were another public works project. Warehouses was a public work project that stored food for time like floods and drought . When floods came, the warehouses had food. Warehouses weren't the only things that helped for droughts, there were also reservoirs. Reservoirs made sure there was water in droughts. When there were droughts , these reservoirs would keep the water and the city-state would store it. All you needed to do was to get water stored in the reservoirs from floods. There wasn't an endless water supply but there was water for a period of time. Reservoirs worked a lot like warehouses but it was for water. These public works projects benefited the empire when they were caught in a situation where they didn't know what to do.

Public Works Projects Image

By: Sabrina Scheinberg

Effective Rulers

Effective rulers were essential for the creation and maintenance of an empire because they helped settle disputes and created order. First, if there were disputes between citizens, a ruler would resolve them. If a ruler resolved the disputes, the citizens would not constantly quarrel and would therefore be more united. The more united the city-state, the sooner they could form an empire. Secondly, effective rulers created order in the social class. Since rulers were at the top of the social class, and far from the bottom, which consisted of mostly farmers and slaves, a ruler completely controlled rest of the city-state. If a ruler had complete control of the city-state, a ruler had the right to punish people who disobeyed the rules. Rulers also created laws by which people were forced to abide. This created order because everybody followed the same laws, and were indicted and punished if they broke a law. This is similar to a classroom situation. In a classroom situation, the teacher makes rules which the class must abide by. This helps create order in the classroom because everybody knows how they are expected to behave. In conclusion, effective rulers help create order and settle the many disputes that may have occurred during Mesopotamian times. By:Althea Hudson

Image of Effective Rulers

By: Althea Hudson

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