The Long War: A Documentary Podcast

The First Soldiers: How Humanity Invented War

5,000 years ago, on the sunbaked plains of Southern Iraq, humanity did something it had never done before: it organized. In the series premiere of The Long War, we witness the birth of the first standing armies. From the border disputes of Lagash and Umma to the legendary rise of Sargon of Akkad—the abandoned infant who built the world’s first empire—we trace the moment warfare stopped being a skirmish and started being an industry. Why did we invent the phalanx? How did the irrigation canals of Mesopotamia create the necessity for the soldier? This is Chapter One of a continuous narrative: the story of a species perpetually at war with itself. The Long War continues. In this episode: * The Stele of Vultures: History’s first victory monument. * The Standard of Ur: War and Peace in the Royal Tombs. * Sargon of Akkad: The invention of the professional army.