deities of his
conqueror. He styles himself a Patesi--a "priest king", or more
literally, "servant of the chief deity". But as an independent monarch
may also be a pious Patesi, it does not always follow when a ruler is
referred to by that title he is necessarily less powerful than his
neighbours.

When the historical narrative begins Akkad included the cities of
Babylon, Cutha, Kish, Akkad, and Sippar, and north of Babylonia proper
is Semitic Opis. Among the cities of Sumer were Eridu, Ur, Lagash,
Larsa, Erech, Shuruppak, and probably Nippur, which was situated on
the "border". On the north Assyria was yet "in the making", and
shrouded in obscurity. A vague but vast area above Hit on the
Euphrates, and extending to the Syrian coast, was known as the "land
of the Amorites". The fish-shaped Babylonian valley lying between the
rivers, where walled towns were surrounded by green fields and
numerous canals flashed in the sunshine, was bounded on the west by
the bleak wastes of the Arabian desert, where during the dry season
"the rocks branded the body" and occasional sandstorms swept in
blinding folds towards the "plain of Shinar" (Sumer) like demon hosts
who sought to destroy the world. To the east the skyline was fretted
by the Persian Highlands, and amidst the southern mountains dwelt the
fierce Elamites, the hereditary enemies of the Sumerians, although a
people apparently of the same origin. Like the Nubians and the
Libyans, who kept watchful eyes on Egypt, the Elamites seemed ever to
be hovering on the eastern frontier of Sumeria, longing for an
opportunity to raid and plunder.

The capital of the Elamites was the city of Susa, where excavations
have revealed traces of an independent civilization which reaches back
to an early period in the Late Stone Age. Susa is referred to in the
Old Testament--"The words of Nehemiah.... I was in Shushan the
palace".[144] An Assyrian plan of the city shows it occupying a
strategic position at a bend of the Shawur river, which afforded
protection against Sumerian attacks from the west, while a canal
curved round its northern and eastern sides, so that Susa was
completely surrounded by water. Fortifications had been erected on the
river and canal banks, and between these and the high city walls were
thick clumps of trees. That the kings of Elam imitated the splendours
of Babylonian courts in the later days of Esther and Haman and
Mordecai, is made evident by the Biblical referenc