Mesopotamian Civilization
The first civilization in Quigley's typology — Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian — running from roughly 6000 BCE to the Persian conquest, with a temple priesthood as its instrument of expansion
Also known as: Mesopotamian Civilization, Mesopotamian, Sumerian civilization, Sumerian-Akkadian-Babylonian civilization
Quigley identifies Mesopotamian civilization as the first civilization in his historical sample — the producing society that arose in the Tigris-Euphrates valley after roughly 6000 BCE, reached its peak around 1700 BCE, and was eventually absorbed into a series of empires culminating in the Persian Empire, which was itself destroyed by Alexander the Great (EoC 81). Its instrument of expansion was the Sumerian temple-priesthood, a religious organisation that accumulated surplus by tithes and from its own profits (EoC 142–143). It is the parent civilization, in Quigley's typology, of Canaanite, Minoan, and other peripheral civilizations of the Northwest Quadrant, and the empirical anchor for chapter 7 of Evolution of Civilizations.
Origin: The First Producing Society
Quigley calls Mesopotamian civilization "the first civilization" in human history: it began after 6000 BCE on the Tigris-Euphrates floodplain, reached its peak about 1700 BCE, and ended in a series of empires of which the last was the Persian (EoC 81). The basic productive achievement was irrigated agriculture in a region that had neither stone nor wood for construction. Out of this constraint emerged the diagnostic Mesopotamian inventions: sun-dried brick about 5000 BCE, the arch ("a very difficult invention, made only once in human history," EoC 222), the ziggurat as flat-topped stepped pyramid temple platform, and — Quigley argues distinctively — the wheel, which arose from recognition that solar-disk emblems would roll, was first used on ceremonial carts inside the temple, and only subsequently as a war vehicle drawn by asses or onagers (EoC 222). The city-state itself, with a temple complex at its centre, is in Quigley's analysis the basic political-economic form of Mesopotamian civilization (EoC 211).
Instrument of Expansion: The Sumerian Priesthood
The instrument of expansion of Mesopotamian civilization, Quigley argues, was the Sumerian temple-priesthood — a religious organisation rather than a political, social, military, or economic one (EoC 138). At each city-state of Mesopotamia, the accumulation of economic surplus was in the hands of this distinctive social group, the Sumerian priesthood; the surplus arose from their control, in the name of the gods they served, of a considerable part of the community's land and from tributes (usually in kind) levied upon the produce of land owned by others (EoC 211). The chief secondary tasks of the priesthood, beyond their obvious religious functions, were the study of the stars and the keeping of records of celestial observations — out of which, Quigley argues, came the early-historic discovery of the connection between the annual flood and the heliacal risings, and from there the calendar, the writing system needed to keep the records, the school to train the record-keepers, and the cumulative astronomical and mathematical tradition that culminated in the Babylonian observational science (EoC 211–212). The priesthood satisfied all three conditions of an instrument of expansion: it had incentives to innovate (in irrigation, calendar-keeping, monumental architecture, writing, and administration); it accumulated surplus (through tithes, temple-owned land, and its own commercial profits); and it invested that surplus into productive innovation, especially the massive irrigation works that made Mesopotamian agriculture among the most productive in the ancient world (EoC 143). The temple complex itself — ziggurat, granary, scribal school, workshops — was the physical embodiment of the instrument. Quigley notes that private surplus accumulation also occurred — from private enterprise, from earnings of privately owned slaves, and from voluntary restrictions on consumption — but the dominant accumulating institution was the temple, and it is this concentration that gave Mesopotamian civilization its expansionary character (EoC 143). When the priesthood institutionalised — when the accumulation served the priesthood's own corporate interests rather than productive reinvestment — the Age of Conflict opened.
The Seven Stages Applied to Mesopotamia
Applying the seven-stage model, Quigley reads Mesopotamian civilization as follows. Mixture: the Neolithic and Chalcolithic encounters of upland Sumerians (whose Highland origin is signalled by the ziggurat as terraced mountain) with the lowland riverine peoples (EoC 222). Gestation: roughly the fourth millennium BCE. Expansion: the third millennium, with city-state proliferation, surplus accumulation, and the great inventions. Age of Conflict and the first conquest of the core area by Babylonia around 1700 BCE (EoC 153). Universal Empire: arrived not from Babylon, which conquered only the core, but from a peripheral power — Assyria, about 725 BCE — and was replaced by another peripheral power, the Persian Empire, about 525 BCE (EoC 153–154). Decay: the long ossification under Assyrian and Persian rule. Invasion: the Greek conquest under Alexander the Great around 330 BCE, which destroyed Mesopotamian civilization as such (EoC 81). This is one of Quigley's cleanest cases of his rule that the universal empire arises in the periphery, not the core.
Parent Civilization of the Northwest Quadrant
In Quigley's typology of cultural links, Mesopotamian civilization is the parent of multiple peripheral civilizations: Canaanite, Hittite, and Minoan all arose on the edges of Mesopotamia (EoC 148). The trade routes radiating outward from the Mesopotamian core — especially through the Syrian Saddle to the Levantine coast — were the channels along which technology, religion, calendar, writing, and metallurgy diffused (EoC 241). The older unreformed Babylonian 354-day calendar, Quigley notes, was adopted by the Semites and came through the Phoenicians to the Greeks (EoC 230). This pattern of peripheral parentage means Mesopotamia stands at the head of a long lineage of Northwest Quadrant civilizations whose ultimate descendant, by complex paths, is Western civilization itself.
The Crisis That Ended Each Stage
The transition from Expansion to Conflict in Mesopotamia came as the priesthood institutionalised: the temple became less an instrument of accumulation and investment for the community and more a vested interest accumulating wealth for itself, its hereditary priestly families, and its own monumental projects. The Age of Conflict was marked by inter-city-state warfare (the Sumerian historical record is largely a record of wars between Lagash, Umma, Ur, Uruk, Kish, and the other city-states), the rise of secular kingships that challenged priestly authority (Sargon of Akkad and his successors representing the first wave of such kingships), and the eventual conquest of the southern Sumerian core by Babylonia around 1700 BCE — Quigley's pattern of conquest of the core by a semi-peripheral power (EoC 153). The Universal Empire then arrived from a fully-peripheral power: Assyria, about 725 BCE, which unified Mesopotamia and the Levant into a single tributary state, was replaced by another peripheral power, the Persian Empire under Cyrus, about 525 BCE (EoC 153–154). This long Persian period — over two centuries of relative political stability over an enormous territory — was the Decay phase: politically peaceful, productively stagnant, intellectually ossified. The final Invasion stage was external: the Greek-Macedonian conquest under Alexander the Great around 330 BCE destroyed the Persian successor empire and with it Mesopotamian civilization as such (EoC 81). The Seleucid and later Parthian-Sassanian polities that followed are, in Quigley's framework, no longer the same civilization. He uses the Mesopotamian case to illustrate that the universal empire does not save a civilization — it is, on the contrary, the political mask of an underlying productive system that has already lost the capacity to reform itself.
Significance in Quigley's Typology
Mesopotamia matters in Quigley's argument because it shows that the instrument-of-expansion mechanism is not specific to capitalism, to slavery, or to any particular economic form. A religious organisation — the Sumerian temple — can be just as effectively an instrument of expansion as Classical slavery, Western feudalism, or Western capitalism (EoC 138). This generality is what makes the seven-stage model a theory of civilizations rather than a theory of one civilization. Chapter 7 of Evolution of Civilizations (pp. 209–238) is the application of the framework to this case; it is also the earliest pole of Quigley's chronological sample, with chapter 10 on Western civilization as its modern counterpart.
Cited in
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 81 Quigley
The first civilization, known to us as the Sumerian or Mesopotamian civilization, began after 6000 B.C., reached a peak of achievement about 1700 B.C., and ended in a series of empires of which the last was the Persian. That empire and the civilization of which it was the political aspect were destroyed by outside invaders, the Greeks under Alexander.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 138 Quigley
In Mesopotamian civilization [the instrument of expansion] was a religious organization, the Sumerian priesthood to which all members of the society paid tribute.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 143 Quigley
In Mesopotamian civilization the significant surpluses were accumulated by the Sumerian priesthood from tithes and its own profits.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 211 Quigley
At that later time, about 3000 B.C., in each city-state of Mesopotamia, the accumulation of economic surplus was in the hands of a distinctive social group, the Sumerian priesthood; it arose from their control, in the name of the gods they served, of a considerable part of the land of the community and of tributes levied, usually in kind.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 222 Quigley
In Mesopotamia, which lacked both stone and wood, a solution to this problem was found in the invention of sun-dried bricks about 5000 B.C. From this came the invention of the arch, the construction of temple platforms (ziggurats)… The arch is a very difficult invention, made only once in human history.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 153 Quigley
In Mesopotamia the core area was conquered by Babylonia as early as 1700 B.C., but the whole civilization was not conquered by a universal empire until Assyria about 725 B.C. (replaced by Persia about 525 B.C.).
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 148 Quigley
Canaanite, Hittite, and Minoan civilizations arose on the edges of Mesopotamian civilization.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 230 Quigley
The older unreformed Babylonian calendar of 354 days was adopted by the Semites, and came through the Phoenicians to the Greeks.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 2 Quigley
Quigley tests these hypotheses by a detailed analysis of five major civilizations: the Mesopotamian, the Canaanite, the Minoan, the classical, and the Western.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 27 Quigley
The Mesopotamian civilization, the first of the historic civilizations, lasted from before 6000 B.C. to its destruction by Alexander's empire.