The First Bicameral Congress
Man's social and spiritual development is often slow, devious, and hard to trace. The fullgrown tree may well be separated from its original seed by thousands of miles and years. Take, for example, the way of life known as democracy and its fundamental institution, the political assembly. On the surface it seems to be practically a monopoly of our Western civilization and an outgrowth of recent centuries. Who could imagine that there were political congresses thousands and thousands of years ago, and in parts of the world rarely associated with democratic institutions? But the patient archaeologist digs deep and wide, and he never knows what he will come up with. As a result of the efforts of the "pick and spade" brigade, we can now read the record of a political assembly that took place some five thousand years ago in—of all places—the Near East.
The first political "congress" in man's recorded history met in solemn session about 3000 B.C. It consisted, not unlike our own congress, of two "houses": a "senate,"
or an assembly of elders; and a ''lower house," or an assembly of armsbearing male citizens. It was a ''war congress," called together to take a stand on the momentous question of war and peace; it had to choose between what we would describe as "peace at any price" or war and independence. The "senate," with its conservative elders, declared for peace at all cost, but its decision was "vetoed" by the king, who then brought the matter before the "lower house." This body declared for war and freedom, and the king approved.
In what part of the world did the first "congress" known to man meet? Not, as you might surmise, somewhere in the West, on the continent of Europe (the political assemblies in "democratic" Greece and republican Rome came much later). Our hoary congress met, surprising as it may seem, in that part of Asia now generally designated as the Near East, the traditional home of tyrants and despots, a part of the world where political assemblies were thought to be practically unknown. It was in the land known in ancient days as Sumer, situated north of the Persian Gulf between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, that the oldest known political assembly was convened. And when did this "congress" meet? In the third millennium B.C. In those days, this Near Eastern land Sumer (it corresponds roughly to the lower half of modern Iraq) was inhabited by a people who developed what was probably the highest civilization in the then known world.
Sumer, some four to five thousand years ago, boasted of many large cities centering about monumental and worldrenowned public buildings. Its busy traders carried on an extensive commerce by land and sea with neighboring countries. Its more serious thinkers and intellectuals developed a system of religious thought which was accepted as gospel not only in Sumer but throughout much of the ancient Near East. Its gifted poets sang lovingly and fervently of their gods, heroes, and kings. To crown it all, the Sumerians gradually developed a system of writing by means of reed stylus on clay, which enabled man for the first time to make a detailed and permanent record of his deeds and thoughts, his hopes and desires, his judgments and beliefs. And so it is not surprising to find that in the field of politics, too, the Sumerians made important progress. Particularly, they took the first steps toward democratic government by curbing the power of the kings and recognizing the right of political assembly.
The political situation that brought about the convening of the oldest "congress" recorded in history may be described as follows: Like Greece of a much later day, Sumer, in the third millennium B.C., consisted of a number of citystates vying for supremacy over the land as a whole. One of the most important of these was Kish, which, according to Sumerian legendary lore, had received the "kingship" from heaven immediately after the "flood.'' But in time another citystate, Erech, which lay far to the south of Kish, kept gaining in power and influence until it seriously threatened Kish's supremacy in Sumer. The king of Kish at last realized the danger and threatened the Erechites with war unless they recognized him as their overlord. It was at this crucial moment that Erech's two assemblies were convened—the elders and the armsbearing males—in order to decide which course to follow, whether to submit to Kish and enjoy peace or to take to arms and fight for independence.
The story of the struggle between Erech and Kish is told in the form of a Sumerian epic poem whose chief characters are Agga, the last ruler of the first dynasty of Kish, and Gilgamesh, the king of Erech and "lord of Kullab." The poem begins with the arrival in Erech of Agga's envoys bearing an ultimatum to its king Gilgamesh.
Before giving them his answer, Gilgamesh goes before "the convened assembly of the elders of his city" with an urgent plea not to submit to Kish but to take up arms and fight for victory. The "senators," however, are of a different mind; they would rather submit to Kish and enjoy peace. Their decision displeases Gilgamesh, who then goes before ''the convened assembly of the men of his city" and repeats his plea. The men of this assembly decide to fight rather than submit to Kish. Gilgamesh is delighted, and seems confident of the results of the expected struggle. In a very short time—in the words of our poet, "It was not five days, it was not ten days"—Agga besieges Erech, and the Erechites are dumfounded. The meaning of the remainder of the poem is not too clear, but it seems that Gilgamesh in some way succeeds in gaining the friendship of Agga and in having the siege lifted without a fight.
Here, now, are the ancient Sumerian poet's actual words dealing with the Erech "congress"; the translation is quite literal, but omits a number of lines whose contents are still unintelligible.
The envoys of Agga, the son of Enmebaraggesi,
Proceeded from Kish to Gilgamesh in Erech.
The lord Gilgamesh before the elders of his city
Put the matter, seeks out the word:
"Let us not submit to the house of Kish, let us smite it with
weapons."
The convened assembly of the elders of his city
Answers Gilgamesh:
"Let us submit to the house of Kish, let us not smite it with
weapons."
Gilgamesh, the lord of Kullab,
Who performs heroic deeds for the goddess Inanna,
Took not the words of the elders of his city to heart.
A second time Gilgamesh, the lord of Kullab,
Before the fighting men of his city put the matter, seeks out the
word:
"Do not submit to the house of Kish, let us smite it with weapons."
The convened assembly of the fighting men of his city
Answers Gilgamesh:
"Do not submit to the house of Kish, let us smite it with weapons."
Then Gilgamesh, the lord of Kullab,
At the word of the fighting men of his city his heart rejoiced,
his spirit brightened.
Our poet is all too brief; he merely mentions the Erech "congress" and its two assemblies, without giving any further details. What we would like to know, for example, is the size of the membership of each body, and just how the "congressmen" and "senators" were selected. Could each individual voice his opinion and be sure of a hearing? How was the final consensus of the body as a whole obtained? Did they have a device corresponding to the voting technique of our own day? Certainly there must have been a "speaker'' in charge of the discussion who ''spoke" for the assembly to the king. Then again, in spite of the poet's lofty language, we may rest assured that there was considerable "politicking" and "wirepulling" among the old political "boys." The citystate of Erech was evidently split wide open into two opposing camps, a war party and a peace party. There was probably more than one behindthescenes conference of our own "smokefilled room" type, before the leaders of each "house" announced the final and seemingly unanimous decisions.
But of all these ancient political bickerings and compromises we will probably never recover a trace. There is little likelihood that we will ever find any written historical records from the days of Agga and Gilgamesh, since, in their time, writing was either altogether unknown or had only just been invented and was still in its early picture stage. As for our epic poem, it must be borne in mind that it is inscribed on tablets written many centuries after the incidents it describes took place—probably more than a thousand years after the Erech "congress" had met and adjourned.
There are known, at present, eleven tablets and fragments inscribed with our politicalassembly poem. Four of the eleven pieces were copied and published in the past four decades. But the significance of their contents for the history of political thought and practice was not realized until 1943, when Thorkild Jacobsen, of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, published a study on Primitive Democracy. Since then it was my good fortune to identify and copy the remaining seven pieces in Istanbul and Philadelphia. As a result, the poem, consisting of 115 lines, is now complete. A scientific edition of its text, together with a newly revised translation, appeared in 1949 in the American Journal of Archaeology.
The two political events described here and in Chapter 3 took place about 3000 B.C. They are known to us not from contemporary historical documents but from epic poems written down at a much later date, and these poems contain only a kernel of historic truth. It is not until some six centuries later that we come upon a number of inscriptions recording and interpreting social and political events in a style which stamps them as man's first attempt at historywriting. One of these documents is described and analyzed in Chapter 6, after an introductory comment on the intellectual and psychological limitations of our first "historians." It is primarily concerned with a bitter and tragic civil war between two Sumerian citystates that ended in a temporary and uneasy stalemate, the only victors being death and destruction.