Varangian Chronicler
Varangian Chronicler

@Varangian_Tagma

7 Tweets 22 reads Sep 15, 2023
I don’t think any other empire has been able to match the Assyrians for their gruesome & terrible proclamations of victory. They sound almost like something an evil alien invader would say in a bad science fiction.
“I rained destruction upon them. I scattered their corpses far and wide, filled the face of the desolate plain with their widespreading armies. With weapons I made their blood to flow down the valleys of the land. The plain was too small to let their bodies fall, the wide countryside was used up in burying them. With their bodies I spanned the Arantu as with a bridge. In that battle I took from them their chariots, their cavalry, their horses, broken to the yoke.”
“With their blood I dyed the mountain red like red wool. Tthe rest of them the ravines and torrents of the mountain swallowed. I carried off captives & possessions from them. I cut off the heads of their fighters and built therewith a tower before their city. I burnt their adolescent bovs & girls."
Their dismembered bodies I fed to the dogs, swine, wolves, and eagles, to the birds of heaven and the fish in the deep.... What was left of the feast of the dogs and swine, of their members which blocked the streets and filled the squares, I ordered them to remove from Babylon, Kutha and Sippar, and to cast them upon heaps.
“I, Zorg, have blotted out countless stars. The planets of the Yuzedrians I sundered, their atmospheres I scorched. I fed the Humux to the Great Devourer, their salvage I left to drift endlessly.”
Ok this is the best one:
"I cut their throats like lambs. I cut off their precious lives (as one cuts) a string. Like the many waters of a storm, I made (the contents of) their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth. My prancing steeds harnessed for my riding, plunged into the streams of their blood as (into) a river. The wheels of my war chariot, which brings low the wicked and the evil, were bespattered with blood and filth. With the bodies of their warriors I filled the plain, like grass. (Their) testicles I cut off, and tore out their privates like the seeds of cucumbers.”
Toynbee on the Assyrians:

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