Res Gestae Sargonis: Sargon The Great King Of Akkad
The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, was the very first empire the world had seen, established in ancient Mesopotamia in about 2370 BC. This empire was remembered as having been exceptionally great and powerful, with great epic tales about those mighty kings told and retold throughout the ages. The dominium and rule of the Akkadian emperors reached to the furthest corners of the ancient Middle East.
Sargon on his victory stele, followed by an attendant holding a royal umbrella. The name of Sargon in cuneiform ("King Sargon") appears faintly in front of his face. Louvre Museum (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sargon the Great, belonged to an eastern Semitic people called the Akkadians who had been living among the Sumerians perhaps since the earliest times. When the Akkadians took control of the land of the two rivers and conquered the entire known world (and beyond) to the north, south, east and west, a new era in world history had arrived - a heroic era characterised by true greatness and glory, equal to that which one would associate with the early Greeks. Although the Akkadians did not have a Homer, they did in fact have poets, who preserved the epic deeds of those great and mighty emperors for later generations.
