ABSTRACT
Anthropologists use the term "chiefdom" for a primitive culture that has developed a formal social hierarchy in which the war leader holds a unique and permanent rank above all his tribesmen, often with theocratic and redistributive functions as well. The sheer scale and pervasiveness of warfare in early states justifies the conclusions about its central importance. The ancient Middle East saw the full development of warfare as an instrument of state policy; but the intellectual history of war had hardly begun. In one corner of the Assyrian empire, a peculiar variant of theocratic militarism had developed. Some scholars doubt that the Hebrew people, in the days when they really conducted warfare, had any military practices that differed much from their neighbors. In the early civilizations religion does not change much in the ideology of war. The rituals of war become more costly and ferocious, and the gods and their myths are more clearly defined by organized temple priesthoods.
