The compound phrase bēt bēli, literally "the house of the lord," is attested in several letters of the present volume (see Glossary). ln spite of the recent careful and extensive study of this term by Fales.[[130]] we believe that there is still room for a different and somewhat simpler interpretation, and would like to offer our alternative solution here.
It is easy to agree with Fales that all the Neo-Assyrian spellings of bēt bēli with the plural sign MEŠ are to be interpreted as singular.[[131]] MEŠ merely representing the lengthening of the genitive marker -i before a following possessive suffix.[[132]] However, our understanding of bēt bēli as such partly deviates from his views, because we think that bēt bēli can - possibly in all of its attestations - be interpreted literally as 'the household of the lord"[[133]] or rather. with the obligatory possessive suffix,[[134]] "the household of my/your/his/our/your/their lord."[[135]] We find this rendering preferable to "house of the lord," because a "household" can be understood as a larger entity than a 'house', and possibly bēt bēli never meant a single physical house or building. Otherwise "the house of the lord" is, of course, an equally valid rendering.
In the basic meaning of the compound, the element 'lord' can hardly refer to anybody other than the Assyrian king. Thus "the royal household, the ruling house," would also be acceptable translations.[[136]] The possibility that bet heli did not always refer to the Assyrian king remains, but we do not know any convincing examples of such a usage in Neo-Assyrian. It needs to be stressed that the literal translation of bet beli does not exclude different semantic nuances of the concept. It was probably understood concretely, but in a figurative use also abstractly. For instance, bēt bēli may often have been used in contexts where it was not desirable to repeat the word "king" all the time. Perhaps in some cases the phrase was simply used for stylistic reasons, lo avoid tautology.
The fundamental purpose of using a concept I ike bēt bēli can be considered ideological or propagandistic: the phrase stresses the mutual bond between the royal household and its subjects. Interestingly, bēt bēli can be mentioned in the same breath with the royal palace and the land of Assyria.[[137]] In some cases, bēt bēli is also combined with forms of the verb ra'amu "to love".[[138]] The use of bēt bēli in this kind of context strongly suggests that the concept had general currency as a means of expressing Assyrian patriotic or nationalistic feelings. Hence bēt bēli, as an ideological abstraction. may even be considered part of the Sargon id propaganda in its best form.[[139]] The passages with the verb "to love" emphasise the close relationship between the king and his subjects. Especially in contemporary Babylonian letters, the relationship of a royal servant (ardu) to the king is a recurring topic, see the references in note 138. In this respect it does not seem to make much difference whether the phrase is used by the king or one of his subjects. Only the viewpoint differs: the king emphasises the responsibilities of the subject vis-à-vis the ruling house and the privileges granted for a loyal servant siding with the king, while the subject confirms his allegiance to the king and his household.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire was truly multinational and it should be stressed that foreigners could "love" Assyria as well. Many non-native Assyrians were employed in high posts in the administration and army all over the empire. We do not sec any reason why some Babylonians, for example, attested as high officials of the Assyrian king, would not address their overlord by using the phrase "my lord's household" to emphasise their allegiance and devotion To the Assyrian king.[[140]] Whether this "love" towards Assyria by non-native Assyrians was genuine, or merely pretended, is not our concern here.
At this point it is appropriate to compare the display of loyalty towards the ruling house with the display of disloyalty. Disloyalty is also attested in connection with bēt bēli and it manifests itself, among others, in crimes ins''), corruption, conspiracy and rebellion against the ruling house. All these things were constant worries and threats that could have corroded the Assyrian ruling house, either from inside or from outside. A telling example a crime committed by some governors, or at least by the governor of Arrapha, against the king and the ruling house. The major-domo Ṣallaya and the cribe Asalluhi-ereš write in no. 42:
It is a pity that the other "lord" of Sallaya and Asalluhi-eres mentioned in the passage is not known. The context of the letter suggests that "the house of our lord" could here also be interpreted as referring to this other lord and not to the king. The major-clomo (rab bēti) was a high official, usually associated with a palace, and served Assyrian and foreign kings, queens, crown princes, magnates or provincial governors. If the letter was sent from Arrapha and the other lord of Sallaya and Asalluhi-eres was the governor of Arrapha, then the letter would be a denunciation of this immediate superior of theirs. However, this interpretation must for the time being remain uncertain.
In another letter referring to rab bēti, royal magnates are similarly accused of having obstructed an explicit order of the king:
It does not seem to matter whether the phrase bet beli occurs in letters sent from Assyrian cities, Babylonia, provinces annexed to Assyria or the countryside since its meaning and connotations remain the same everywhere.[[142]] Moreover, the broad geographical distribution of the phrase confirms its currency and diffusion throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
At present bēt bēli is attested in written documents attributable to the reigns of Sargon II, Esarhaddon, Assurbanipal and (once) Sin-šarru-iškun. An even earlier attestation may be available in CTN 2 186, a letter from Šarru-duri, the governor of Calah under Tiglath-pileser III and Sargon II, but the dating of this text is uncertain.[[143]] Therefore, the phrase may have originated as an ideologically loaded concept not earlier than the reign of Sargon.[[144]] The concept probably developed in time, and it may well have taken a while before all of its semantic nuances were fully established.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the phrase is not attested at all in Assyrian royal inscriptions. It seems to be confined to more informal types of text, such as letters. The only attestation of bēt bēli outside letters, a passage in the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon (SAA 2 6:208), emphasises the adjured individual's personal relationship to the ruling house. The use of the phrase in the treaty indicates that by that time, at the latest, its ideological connotations were deeply rooted in Neo-Assyrian.
Seeing in bēt bēli an "informal" or "intimate" concept finds support in the possessive suffixes that were without exception attached to the phrase. Using the appropriate possessive suffixes clearly served to confirm the relationship of a person or persons to the ruling house, and their main purpose probably was to emphasise a person's allegiance to the latter: he/they was/were to protect and take care of "the household of his/their lord (= king)," for instance, by looking after its interests and by informing the palace of suspicious actions.
Rendering bet beli as "government," "government department" or "administrative department" seems a less fortunate solution. Much as our knowledge of the Neo-Assyrian Empire has increased during recent years, there is still very little positive evidence for the existence of an administrative body that could be called "government" in the modern sense. Thus it seems doubly difficult to posit the existence of specific "government departments" in Assyria. There were of course many governors and other high officials exercising their authority in the Assyrian homeland and the provinces, but ultimately decision-making always lay in the hands of the king. To use terms that would hint at the existence of a more diversified type of decision-making system in Assyria could be misleading. If the concept of "government" really existed in Assyria, then it would be safer to assume that the king himself took part in the governmental meetings than that the government gathered without the king. However, while there is some evidence for a group of magnates occasionally gathering to exercise justice with the Assyrian king and possibly secretly advising him on political matters, there are practically no direct references to the meetings of such an advisory body in the written record.[[145]] Probably a lot of interaction between the king and his trusted officials did precede the taking of many important decisions and the king may well have relied on his advisors - Assyrian royal correspondence shows that scholars, for instance, advised the king on an institutional basis[[146]] - but still it was always the king who made the final decisions. From this point of view, writing to the king in a fawning and flattering tone about one 's "government (depart- ment)," divorced from the king, would not make much sense.
The political role of the king's magnates must have been considerable, but the way this role was organised is largely unclear. For example, the interaction between the king's magnates and the governors is not obvious. The royal) magnates are often depicted acting collectively but it is never stated What that actually means, i.e., did they regularly gather to take counsel with the king? The fact that we do not have any letters by the magnates to Esarhaddon could imply that few such (cuneiform) letters were actually written.
129 Cf., e.g., SAA 10 67.
130 Fales bīt bēli p. 231ff. Here we prefer the Assyrian form of the compound, bēt bēli, although the Babylonian form bīt bēli is justified as a variant form, since many of the attestations come from Neo-Assyrian letters.
131 Occasionally, this interpretation seems possible also when EN.MEŠ appears without É.; cf. SAA 10 290;9 and the discussion in LAS II p. 216 (n. 352). However, a word of caution is appropriate here. While translating DUMU.MEŠ EN.MEŠ-ia in SAA 10 244:9 as "the sons of my lord" would superficially seem to make better sense than "the sons, my lord" of the edition, such a translation is excluded in SAA 10 187:17, where DUMU.ME EN.ME-ka can only mean "the sons, your lords", not "the sons of your lord".
132 See Fales bīt bēli p. 232, including references to previous literature on the matter.
133 The literal rendering is rejected by Fales bīt bēli p. 243: "I think that this usual rendering, in its complete "one-to-one" flatness, is not conductive for a deeper semantic and contextual perception such as will be sought here." In our opinion, using the "deeper semantic and contextual perception" in the case of bīt bēli may lead to far-fetched ideas which are based on passages whose interpretation seems questionable. Therefore, the tangled rendering of the concept may not correspond with the attested reality.
134 The phrase occurs without a possessive suffix. In É-EN.MEŠ ABL 402:12, the only attestation without a possessive suffix as cited by Fales (bīt bēli p. 232), the suffix is to be restored in the following break (É-EN.ME[Š-su].
135 "Her" not attested.
136 the rendering of the ruling house is not a new suggestion, cf., e.g., LAS II p. 107 ad ABL 630:3, Watanabe adê p. 183 ad 208 and Fales bīt bēli pp. 233, 245- 249.
137 ABL 1342:13, 19-20. See the following note for bibliographical references.
138 The references including attestations of bīt bēli with the verb ra'āmu and/or the land of Assyria are: ABL 277 r. 8., ABL 288:9-11, ABL 290:14-r. 12, ABL 402:10-14, ABL 521:18-22, ABL 561 r. 1-6, ABL 964 r. 9-11, ABL 1136 r.9-10, ABL 1311+ r.37, ABL 1342:13, 19-20, CT 54 62:20, 27, r.20 and no. 207:4-7 (except for the NA references ABL 561 and no. 207 all others are NB); in addition, cf. the passage from the succession treaty: "(...) one of you, who loves his lord and feels concern over the household of his lord", SAA 2 6 207-208. An illustrative example, for instance, is ABL 293+ (CT 54 484) 12ff, Fales bīt bēlip. 235. For some of these quotations, c.g. De Vaan, "Idiom in Neubabylonischen (I). Erläuterungen zum Vokabular des Generals Bel-ibni," in M. Dietrich and O. Loretz (eds.), dubsar anta-men: Studien zur Altorientalistik. Fs Römer (AOAT 253, Münster 1998), p. 73ff. See also Fales bīt bēli, p. 237.
139 Propaganda in the sense is defined by B.N. Porter, "Assyrian propaganda for the West: Esarhaddon's Stelae for Til Barsip and Sam'al", in G. Bunnens (ed.), Essays on Syria in the Iron Age. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 7 (Louvain 2000), p. 145ff.
140 Examples are Bel-ibni, military commander of the Sealand (passim); Illil-bani, governor of Nippur and Aššur-belu-taqqin, prefect (in ABL 617+); probably Aqar-bel-lumur, military official (CT 54 393); Rašil, high clergyman of Bel in Babylon (Saa 13 173); Inurta-ahu-iddina, scholar (SAA 10 373); Kudurru, governor of Uruk (ABL 964); Nabû-taklak, official active in Bit-Dakurri (ABL 897), and so on.
141 No, 41:9-r.4. Cf. Fales bīt bēli, p. 241.
142 Cf. ibid. P. 231.
143 On dating of Šarru-duri's governorship, see J.N. Poastgate, The Governor's Palace Archive (CTN 2, London 1973), p. 11, and cf. Fales bīt bēli, p. 242f.
144 Not any kind of proof, but perhaps indicative of the age of bīt bēli as a concept, is the fact that it is not attested in the so-called Nimrud Letters which to a great extent date from the reign of Tiglath-pileser III.
145 See Parpola, "The Assyrian Cabinet", Festschrift von Soden (1995), pp. 379-401, esp. 83 with n.15.
146 For the evidence see LAS II p. 474ff.
Mikko Luukko & Greta van Buylaere
Mikko Luukko & Greta van Buylaere, 'Bet heli Reconsidered', The Political Correspondence of Esarhaddon, SAA 16. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 2002; online contents: SAAo/SAA16 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2022 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa16/bethelireconsidered/]