Although Greece is accepted as the birthplace of Western civilization, diplomacy was not born in Greece in contrast to what is widely thought. Diplomacy was born thousands of years before ancient Greece committed to diplomacy as a civilization. Nevertheless, the word “diplomacy” is itself borrowed from ancient Greek. It is derived from the word “diploma” meaning two fold. In the Roman Empire, the word was used to describe the passes, comparable to the modern day passport, which were stamped on metal plates. This word was later extended to cover other metallic documents, especially those embodying arrangements with foreign communities

The first system of city-states occurred in Mesopotamia between the 4th and the first millennium. The system was mainly based on that of the Sumerians in the south, Babylonian and Akadian in the center and Assyrians in the north.

Sumerians were the earliest practitioners of diplomacy (3000-2370 BCE). The diplomatic tradition emerged from this site mainly because the Sumerians were the civilization which invented writing sometime in the 4th millennium BCE. In the meantime, Sumeria was the site of the first urban communities consisted of complex social, economic and political structures each of which was ruled by an independent King.

The features of the first exchange systems of organized polities resemble in many ways the diplomacy as we now understand. They were conducted by envoys in a formal framework of law; and they were based upon the principles of reciprocity. With the emergence of the state system, the methods of diplomacy were transformed from primitive courses into trade agreements, dynastic marriages, and military alliances.

Diplomacy was used by Sumerians with a motivation to end conflicts through the conventional method of sending messengers with the messages written on clay tablets in cuneiform. Sumerian was used as the lingua franca of diplomacy until the Akhadian hegemony was established in the region.

The correct answer is Choice E.