That was how I instructed you. Why did you not act as I ordered you? You were not empowered to kill anyone, to blind people or to destroy cities; but I gave you authority to do so.

To his general Sharrum-bani, Letter from Shu-Suen to Sharrum-bani about digging a trench, Correspondence of the Kings of Ur, Old Babylonian period, ca. 1800-1600 BCE, at The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature; their original date of composition and their historical accuracy are debated.