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Warfare has been a constant throughout human history and conflict can certainly be traced back to our hominid ancestors in our evolutionary past. While technology today is often used as the distinguishing characteristic of warfare, the development of the professional army, that is fulltime soldiers and formations of a standing army, was also an important factor in making warfare an affair conducted throughout the year and allowed the establishment of large-scale states and empires to be possible.<ref>For general information about the history of war and armies, see: Chaliand, Gérard, ed. 1994. ''The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age''. Berkeley: University of California Press.</ref> This also paved the way for early states and empires to compete more with each other, helping to develop a variety of other social and technical innovations, including shaping our own world.

In early warfare, from what we can tell when textual sources first become available to us at around the 3rd millennium BC, men would be conscripted for specific campaigns or years when kings were fighting neighboring kingdoms, where the conscripted soldiers would not be required to serve for very long periods and would simply return to their previous employment/professions after the campaign would finish.<ref>For information about early conscription in warfare in city-states, see: Trigger, Bruce G. 2007. ''Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study''. 1. paperback ed. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.</ref> By the mid 3rd millennium BC, there were attempts to create standing armies of professional soldiers.<ref>For information on early professional armies in Mesopotamia, see Bauer, S. Wise. 2007. ''The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome''. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton, pg. 167.</ref>

Early development of iron, present in the Hittite Empire, also gave that kingdom an advantage in tools. These differences in equipment and training may have created incentives to provide more resources to at least some of the soldiers of the state, developing a potential officer and professional core that would be complemented with conscripted regulars.<ref>Fields, Nic, and Brian Delf. 2006. Bronze Age War Chariots. New Vanguard 119. Oxford ; New York: Osprey.</ref> These types of early, perhaps semi-professional armies, Egypt and the Hittites, fought each other in a famous battle at Kadesh. In both cases, it is clear that the armies were divided into elite units where supplemented by other, regular units. <ref>Meskell, Lynn. 2004. Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt. Princeton, N.J.; Woodstock: Princeton University Press.</ref> What was beginning to change in warfare in the Near East and the military, in general, was war not only began to be professional but it also occurred in new and different places. This included the high seas, such as the Mediterranean, where navies developed and specialized troops who were trained to fight on ships developed, perhaps for the first time.<ref>Wachsmann, Shelley. 2009. Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant. 2. print. Ed Rachal Foundation Nautical Archaeology Series. College Station, Tex: Texas A & M Univ. Press.</ref>

However, what preceded the professionalization of the military was the professionalization of the provincial and administrative system. In other words, running an empire became a more professional task. Beginning in the 9th century BC, we begin to see a new pattern, where kings appear to depend more on trained high officials who are eunuchs and a host of other bureaucratic officials began to be associated with the royal court and provinces. The empire appears to depend on officials, or “Great Ones,” who obtained their position, in part, based on merit and not simply through family or lineage connections to the royal family. <ref>For more information, see: Karlsson, Mattias. 2016. Relations of Power in Early Neo-Assyrian State Ideology. Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Records, volume 10. Boston: De Gruyter, pg. 38.</ref> Thus, it was the realization that professional administration was needed that likely suggested that other aspects of empire needed to become professional (Figure 3).

In the reign of Tiglath-pileser III (744-727 BC), new military reforms took place within the Neo-Assyrian state that saw a standing professional army develop, similar to what had been done in the third millennium BC, but now with more specialized soldiers along with auxiliary soldiers from various parts of the empire being incorporated into the military. These army units began to have distinct ranks and be part of specialized units within the military (Figure 4).<ref> For general information on the military reforms of Tigleth-Pileser III, see: Gabriel, Richard A. 2002. ''The Great Armies of Antiquity''. Westport, Conn: Praeger, pg. 127. For other information about Tigleth-Pileser III and his military reforms, see also: Anspacher, Abraham S. 2009. Tiglath Pileser III. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press.</ref>

This included the chariotry, cavalry, and infantry units; specialized units also included naval units consisting of Phoenicians. Other specialized soldiers include engineering units used for siege warfare. In addition, the army’s command structure became more sophisticated with developed ranks, similar to modern militaries. Several different large and independent armies were created within the state, as this helped to ensure that no single military unit would have unrestrained power and threaten the king’s authority. While kings still often led battles, generals now also began to have greater authority to lead armies without the presence of the king. The armies were now always able to fight in any time of the year, giving them a major advantage over enemies who were still constrained by labor shortages during the agriculture season, when men would have been needed to work the fields.

In essence, the development of the concept of military logistics was also critical for making military forces professionals. Officials and military officers were charged with maintaining this infrastructure and ensuring it can be used for authorized and appropriate purposes. These officials also had a large degree of independence in decision-making, further removing the king from key military decisions. This process contributed to making the military another center of gravity for power in addition to the royal authorities, while also creating more diverse ranks and increasingly larger military bureaucracy.<ref>For more on the Neo-Assyrian military bureaucracy, see: Albarella, Umberto, and Angela Trentacoste, eds. 2011. Ethnozooarchaeology: The Present and Past of Human-Animal Relationships. Oxford : Oakville, CT: Oxbow Books ; David Brown Book Co, pg. 231.</ref>

The key development of the Neo-Assyrian Empire now became adopted by later armies, as new states began to realize the advantages of having a full-time army able to march as needed. The Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC) in particular utilized many innovations by the Neo-Assyrians and even more greatly utilized different ethnic groups into its formations as the empire expanded.<ref> For a history of the Achaemenid Empire and its armies, see: Sekunda, Nick. 1992. ''The Persian Army: 560 - 330 BC''. Edited by Simon Chew. Elite Series 42.

see: pg. 3.</ref>

</ref> Nevertheless, the key basic structure utilized by the Neo-Assyrians, which made soldiers full-time and developing a true officer core, was largely maintained and was essentially continued by the Romans.

Although the first professional armies were likely founded in the 3rd millennium BC, what we can see is that by the 2nd millennium BC the use of foreigners, elite soldiers, and officers were used within military units. By the 2nd millennium BC, warfare was also happening in increasingly diverse places, including war conducted by navies as they battles to control important sea lanes and trade or communication routes. By the first half of the 1st millennium BC, armies became more consistently professional with full time soldiers and specialized troops. This professionalization facilitated warfare by not making it bound by the agricultural cycles that would have limited when armies could fight.

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