The outbreak of the war between Umma and Lagash is recorded concisely in the sixth column of the inscription upon the Stele of the Vultures, which states that the patesi of Umma, by the command of his god, plundered[3] Gu-edin, the territory beloved of Ningirsu. In this record, brief as it is, it is interesting to note that the patesi of Umma is regarded as no more than the instrument of his city-god, or the minister who carries out his commands. As the gods in a former generation had drawn up the treaty between Lagash and Umma, which Mesilim, their suzerain, had at the command of his own goddess engraved upon the stele of delimitation, so now it was the god, and not the patesi, of Umma, who repudiated the terms of that treaty by sending his army across the border. Gu-edin, too, is described, not in its relation to the patesi of Lagash, but as the special property of Ningirsu, the opposing city-god. We shall see presently that Eannatum's first act, on hearing news of the invasion, was quite in harmony with the theocratic feeling of the time. The patesi who led the forces of Umma is not named by Eannatum upon the Stele of the Vultures, but from the Cone of Entemena[4] we learn that his name was Ush. In the summary of events which is given upon that document it is stated that Ush, patesi of Umma, acted with ambitious designs, and that, having removed the stele of delimitation which had been set up in an earlier age by Mesilim between the territories of the respective states, he invaded the plain of Lagash. The pitched battle between the forces of Umma and Lagash, which followed the raid into the latter's territory, is recorded by Entemena in equally brief terms. The battle is said to have taken place at the word of Ningirsu, the warrior of Enlil, and the destruction of the men of Umma is ascribed not only to the command, but also to the actual agency, of Enlil himself. Here, again, we find Enlil, the god of the central cult of Nippur, recognized as the supreme arbiter of human and divine affairs. The various city-gods might make war on one another, but it was Enlil who decreed to which side victory should incline.