The city-state was the first form of political organisation to emerge after the Neolithic Revolution. It was the crucible in which order, economy, religion, and warfare were all fused into a single civic body. But as cities grew, clashed, and competed, a new form of political ambition emerged - empire. The shift from independent city-states to unified imperial systems marks one of the most consequential transitions in human history. Nowhere was this transformation more vivid, or more foundational, than in early Mesopotamia, where the arc of history bends from Uruk, the world's first city, to Akkad, the world’s first empire.
In the fourth millennium BCE, Sumerian city-states like Uruk, Lagash, Ur, Nippur, and Eridu formed a dense constellation across the southern Mesopotamian plain. Each was an independent polity, ruled by a lugal (king) or ensi (priest-governor), and centred around a temple economy. Temples were not only religious centres but the economic and bureaucratic hubs of the city. They controlled vast tracts of land, employed thousands of workers, and stored grain, textiles, and livestock. These were the earliest forms of organised urban labour and resource distribution (Postgate, 1992).
Each city had its own patron deity. Inanna ruled Uruk. Enlil held court in Nippur. Nanna, the moon god, reigned over Ur. The pantheon was shared, but localised - and this religious differentiation helped cement civic identity. Sumerian kingship was sacred, but not divine. The lugal was the servant of the gods, tasked with ensuring justice, military defence, and ritual observance. This balance of divine sanction and practical responsibility became the blueprint for kingship across history.
City-states interacted through trade, diplomacy, and war. Disputes over canals, land, and tribute were common. Alliances formed and dissolved. Warfare was ritualised but also brutal - early inscriptions and stelae depict chariot raids, prisoners of war, and pillaged temples. By the mid-third millennium BCE, inter-city conflict intensified. The Sumerian King List records cycles of dynastic rise and fall, often mythologised into cosmic terms.
It was in this context of fragmentation that a new form of power emerged - the centralised territorial state, or empire. The pioneer of this form was Sargon of Akkad, who ruled from c. 2334-2279 BCE. According to his inscriptions, Sargon, a man of humble origins, seized power in Kish, then conquered Uruk, Ur, Lagash, and finally all of Sumer, extending his rule over northern Mesopotamia, Elam, and parts of Syria. He established his capital at Akkad - a city whose location remains uncertain but whose name would define the first imperial age of the ancient Near East.
Sargon’s empire was unprecedented. It spanned hundreds of kilometres, encompassing diverse linguistic, ethnic, and religious communities. He maintained control through military garrisons, appointed governors (often his own family), and standardised weights, measures, and tribute systems. His inscriptions declare him “king of the four quarters of the world” - the first known use of universalist language in state ideology.
Sargon’s genius lay not only in military conquest but in administrative integration. He allowed local elites to maintain roles in temple administration while asserting centralised control over taxation and security. He ensured loyalty through both force and ceremony. His daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as high priestess of the moon god Nanna in Ur - cementing Akkadian control over sacred offices. Enheduanna is also the earliest named author in world history. Her hymns to Inanna blend devotion, political propaganda, and poetic sophistication - revealing how deeply intertwined empire and religion had become.
The Akkadian Empire was a new kind of political creature. It superseded the independence of city-states, replacing local rivalries with imperial administration. Its rise marked the beginning of the imperial logic - expansion, centralisation, standardisation, and symbolic unification. Yet it also set in motion challenges that would echo through all empires: logistical overreach, fragile supply lines, local resistance, and the limits of charisma.
Indeed, after Sargon’s death, his successors struggled to maintain control. His grandson, Naram-Sin, declared himself a living god, the first Mesopotamian king to claim divinity in life. His victory stele depicts him with horned crown ascending a mountain - a striking visual statement of king as cosmic force. But this theological audacity was controversial. The later Sumerian texts depict Naram-Sin as punished by the gods for his pride. The empire eventually collapsed under internal dissent and external invasion, particularly from the Gutians - a group from the Zagros Mountains. By 2150 BCE, Akkad was no more.
Yet the legacy of Sargon and Akkad endured. The idea of empire - of a world united under one ruler, one law, one cosmic vision - became irresistible. The memory of Akkad was preserved in kingship rituals, myths, and political ideology. Later rulers, from Babylonian kings to Assyrian emperors, invoked Sargon as a model of strength and order.
The shift from city-state to empire was not just political. It was metaphysical. The city-state was an expression of place - bound by deity, geography, and kinship. The empire was an expression of idea - universal rule, human hierarchy, divine favour expanded across peoples. It required a new kind of imagination: one that saw difference not as division, but as material to be conquered, categorised, and ruled.
Empires brought peace, trade, and law - but also displacement, control, and violence. Their glory was real, and so was their cost. Yet their emergence marked the beginning of the world’s great civilisational arcs. From Akkad onward, history would be shaped not only by cities - but by those who dreamed of ruling them all.