Legitimation of War and Warriors in Literary Texts

When considering Mesopotamian literary texts we can easily observe that fighting receives legitimation at the highest level in the dynamics of cosmic creation and evolution: literary texts describe gods fighting as warriors and defeating adversaries who threaten the hierarchic cosmic order. However, it seems interesting to consider if and how literary texts differ in interpreting war and assigning to it a place in the cosmic sphere, and especially in human experience, and whether they can be considered testimonies of developing and/or debated views on the topic. The paper examines in particular the “classical” example of legitimation of war in the Epic of Tukulti- Ninurta, the deep reflection upon the royal attitude towards enemies and war in the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin, and its development in the poem of Erra and Išum.