Re: CHAT: reign names

Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:

> > Thomas Wier wrote:
> > > Heck, if Sargon II of Assyria (r. 722-705 BC) can be called
> > > thus because of Sargon I the Great of Akkad (r. 2371-2315 BC), I
> > > suppose anything can happen.
> >
> > Hm? I seem recall recently to've read words to the effect that Sargon
> > of Akkad reached such fame that _two_ Assyrian kings adopted his name.
> > There was no Sargon III of Assyria, so I've assumed there was a Sargon
> > I of Assyria sometime between Sargon of Akkad and Sargon II.
>
> There is indeed a Sargon I of Assyria, but he belongs to a period when
> Assyria was a vassal of Babylon, and it is not even known
> how long he reigned; it was around the time of Hamurabi.
Yep - I found him the day before yesterday*, but didn't get to a computer with
'Net access till today.

> I was
> given to understand (and this may be wrong) that by the time of Sargon II
> of Assyria, over a thousand years later, it was the first Sargon that
> was really salient, and that Sargon II conscientiously took that throne
> name to echo the Great One's martial glory.  But I suppose the question
> is ambiguous;  I'm not even sure the Assyrians used regnal numbers.
I don't know either, altho they must have had _some_ means of distinguishing
kings of the same way, since their dating system was based on royal reigns.
While two Sargons with a millennium in between may not have been much of a
problem in this regard, four Shamshi-Adads withing a couple centuries must've
been.

In the abscence of anything more concrete, it seems to be most likely that the
'II' refers to the earlier Sargon of Assyria, whether or not the name was
chosen to recall Sargon of Akkad.

* It's always annoyed me that English hasn't got a single word for "the day
before yesterday", nor "the day after tomorrow". It still happens, as it did
when I wrote this mail, that I get stuck trying to find the word before
recalling it simply does not exist.

                                                          Andreas

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