The peoples of Mesopotamia took their turns to develop rich civilizations during the ancient period. Each of the civilizations flourished and then collapsed.
This state of affairs was caused by one or more of the following factors:-
- Harsh rule: This involved treating subject peoples with no respect or fairness acts of cruel rule included the denial of the right to life, the right to movement, the right to worship freely, among other freedoms. The Assyrian civilization declined because of these factors.
- Stern Leadership: As a factor, it involved making the people to abide by law, whether they liked it or not. The people, for their security or safety accepted such laws, but seized upon any opportunity to overthrow the leadership. Such was the case in Babylon on the after math of the death of Hammurabi who had made use of a stern code of laws.
- Largeness of empires: When an empire became so vast, it became very difficult to have an effective control over the territory or the people living inside it. During the ancient period also. The means of communication were poor, making it difficult to transmit messages quickly. The empires that declined because of this factor were those of the Assyrians and the Persians.
- Improvement in armaments: Weapons of war often help to determine the party that would win in a war. It is in this respect that the Babylonian Empire declined because the weapons their soldiers used were inferior in strength to those used by the Hittites. Also, the Persian Empire declined because they were not strong at sea.
- Failure to adapt to changes: Man's history has always been marked by changes as aspects of old civilizations eventually declined. The experience of the Assyrians showed that military force alone was not enough to keep an empire intact.
- Weak Leaders: Most empires collapsed when weak leaders were ruling. This was because, they often do not really know how to take decisions and uphold them. Strong leaders like Hammurabi (Babylon), Nebuchadnezzar (Chaldean) and Cyrus (Persia) did great things because they took strong. Firm decisions and stood by them. The weak rulers who later succeeded them like Xerxes (in Persia) did not often know what to do whenever there was a crisis.
N.B.
The strong leaders led to the greatness of Mesopotamia, they were :
- King Hammurabi; he set up a legal system of laws ever known. It’s features were: one, a stem system of justice demanding severe punishment for crimes, for example “an eye for an eye” was the slogan often used. Two a sharp division of classes was made by the administrating justice. For example an offence against a noble man received harsher punishment than an offence against a common man.
- King Nebuchadnezzar:he was recognized as one of the most able leaders in the ancient world. He made Babylon the most beautiful place ever in the ancient world during the Chaldeans civilization
