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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs
+by Rev. A. H. Sayce
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs
+
+Author: Rev. A. H. Sayce
+
+Release Date: April 16, 2008 [Ebook #25080]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS, LIFE AND CUSTOMS***
+
+
+
+
+
+                       *Babylonians And Assyrians*
+
+                             Life And Customs
+
+                                  By The
+
+                             Rev. A. H. Sayce
+
+                    Professor of Assyriology at Oxford
+
+                                  London
+
+                              John C. Nimmo
+
+                      14 King William Street, Strand
+
+                                  MDCCCC
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Editor’s Preface
+Chapter I. Babylonia And Its Inhabitants
+Chapter II. The Family
+Chapter III. Education And Death
+Chapter IV. Slavery And The Free Laborer
+Chapter V. Manners And Customs
+Chapter VI. Trades, Houses, And Land; Wages And Prices
+Chapter VII. The Money-Lender And Banker
+Chapter VIII. The Government And The Army
+Chapter IX. The Law
+Chapter X. Letter-Writing
+Chapter XI. Religion
+Appendix: Weights And Measures
+Index
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SERIES ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+Series of Handbooks in Semitics
+
+Edited By
+
+James Alexander Craig
+
+Professor of Semitic Languages and Literatures and Hellenistic Greek,
+University of Michigan
+
+Recent scientific research has stimulated an increasing interest in the
+study of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and allied Semitic races of ancient
+history among scholars, students, and the serious reading public
+generally. It has provided us with a picture of a hitherto unknown
+civilization, and a history of one of the great branches of the human
+family. The object of the present Series is to state its results in
+popularly scientific form. Each work is complete in itself, and the
+Series, taken as a whole, neglects no phase of the general subject. Each
+contributor is a specialist in the subject assigned him, and has been
+chosen from the body of eminent Semitic scholars both in Europe and
+America.
+
+The Series will be composed of the following volumes:—
+
+I. *Hebrews. History and Government.* By Professor J. F. McCurdy,
+University of Toronto, Canada.
+
+II. *Hebrews. Ethics and Religion.* By Professor Archibald Duff, Airedale
+College, Bradford.
+
+III. *The Sumerians. Language, History, and Religion.* By Professor Fritz
+Hommel, University of Munich, Germany.
+
+IV. *Babylonians and Assyrians. History to the Fall of Babylon.* By
+Professor Fritz Hommel, University of Munich, Germany.
+
+V. *Babylonians and Assyrians. Religion.* By Professor J. A. Craig,
+University of Michigan.
+
+VI. *Babylonians and Assyrians. Life and Customs.* (With special reference
+to the Contract Tablets and Letters.) By Professor A. H. Sayce, University
+of Oxford. _Now Ready._
+
+VII. *Babylonians and Assyrians. Excavations and Account of Decipherment
+of Inscriptions.* By Professor A. V. Hilprecht, University of
+Pennsylvania.
+
+VIII. *Arabia. Discoveries in, and History and Religion until Mohammed.*
+By Dr. Eduard Glazer, University of Munich, Germany.
+
+IX. *Development of Islamic Theology, Jurisprudence, and Theory of the
+State.* By Professor D. B. MacDonald, Hartford Theological Seminary.
+
+In addition to the above the following volumes are to be included in the
+Series, and others may be added from time to time:—
+
+X. *Phœnicia. History and Government, including Colonies, Trade, and
+Religion.*
+
+XI. *Palestine and Syria. Important Discoveries in Recent Years.*
+
+XII. *Arabic Literature and Science Since Mohammed.*
+
+XIII. *The Influence of Semitic Art and Mythology on Western Nations.*
+
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR’S PREFACE
+
+
+Semitic studies, both linguistically and archæologically, have advanced by
+rapid strides during the last two decades. Fresh light has fallen upon the
+literary, scientific, theological, mercantile, and other achievements of
+this great branch of the human family. What these peoples thought and
+achieved has a very direct bearing upon some of the problems that lie
+nearest to the hearts of a large portion of the intelligent peoples of
+Christendom to-day. Classical studies no longer enjoy a monopoly of
+attention in the curricula of our colleges and universities. It is, in
+fact, more and more plainly perceived by scholars that among the early
+peoples who have contributed to the ideas inwrought into our present
+civilization there is none to whom we owe a greater debt than we do to the
+Semitic family. Apart from the genetic relation which the thought of these
+peoples bears to the Christianity of the past and present, a study of
+their achievements in general has become a matter of general human
+interest. It is here that we find the earliest beginnings of civilization
+historically known to us—here that early religious ideas, social customs
+and manners, political organizations, the beginnings of art and
+architecture, the rise and growth of mythological ideas that have endured
+and spread to western nations, can be seen in their earliest stages, and
+here alone the information is supplied which enables us to follow them
+most successfully in their development.
+
+The object of this series is to present, in brief and compact form, a
+knowledge of the more important facts in the history of this family in a
+way that will be serviceable to students in colleges, universities, and
+theological seminaries, to the clergy, and to intelligent lay readers.
+
+It has been the good fortune of the Editor and Publishers to secure the
+interest and co-operation of scholars who are fitted by their special
+knowledge of the subjects entrusted to them. Works written on Semitic
+subjects by those whose knowledge is gained from other than the original
+sources are sure to be defective in many ways. It is only the specialist
+whose knowledge enables him to take a comprehensive view of the entire
+field in which he labors who is able to gain the perspective necessary for
+the production of a general work which will set forth prominently, and in
+their proper relations, the salient and most interesting facts.
+
+Each contributor to the Series presents his contribution subject to no
+change by the Editor. In cases where it may be deemed of sufficient
+importance to notice a divergent view this will be done in a foot-note.
+The authors, however, will aim to make their several contributions
+consistent with the latest discoveries.
+
+James Alexander Craig.
+
+University of Michigan,
+
+_September, 1899._
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. BABYLONIA AND ITS INHABITANTS
+
+
+Babylonia was the gathering-place of the nations. Berossus, the Chaldean
+historian, tells us that after the creation it was peopled by a mixture of
+races, and we read in the book of Genesis that Babel, or Babylon, was the
+first home of the manifold languages of mankind. The country for the most
+part had been won from the sea; it was the gift of the two great rivers,
+Euphrates and Tigris, which once flowed separately into the Persian Gulf.
+Its first settlers must have established themselves on the desert plateau
+which fringes the Babylonian plain rather than in the plain itself.
+
+The plain is formed of the silt deposited each year by the rivers that
+flow through it. It is, in fact, as much a delta as Northern Egypt, and is
+correspondingly fertile. Materials exist for determining approximately the
+rate at which this delta has been formed. The waters of the Persian Gulf
+are continually receding from the shore, and Ainsworth(1) calculates that
+about ninety feet of land are added annually to the coast-line. But the
+rate of deposit seems to have been somewhat more rapid in the past. At all
+events, Mohammerah, which in 1835 was forty-seven miles distant from the
+Gulf, stands on the site of Spasinus Charax, which, in the time of
+Alexander the Great, was not quite a mile from the sea. In 2,160 years,
+therefore, no less than forty-six miles of land have been formed at the
+head of the Persian Gulf, or nearly one hundred and fifteen feet each
+year.
+
+The deposit of soil, however, may not have been so rapid in the
+flourishing days of Babylonian history, when the canals were carefully
+attended to and the irrigation of the country kept under control. It is
+safer, therefore, to assume for the period preceding the rise of the
+Macedonian Empire a rate of deposit of not more than one hundred feet each
+year. The seaport of primitive Chaldea was Eridu, not far from Ur, and as
+the mounds of Abu-Shahrein or Nowâwis, which now mark its site, are nearly
+one hundred and thirty miles from the present line of coast, we must go
+back as far as 6500 B.C. for the foundation of the town. “Ur of the
+Chaldees,” as it is called in the Book of Genesis, was some thirty miles
+to the north, and on the same side of the Euphrates; the ruins of its
+great temple of the Moon-god are now known by the name of Muqayyar or
+Mugheir. It must have been founded on the sandy plateau of the Arabian
+desert at a time when the plain enclosed between the Tigris and the
+Euphrates was still too marshy for human habitation. As the Moon-god of Ur
+was held to be the son of El-lil of Nippur, Dr. Peters is doubtless right
+in believing that Ur was a colony of the latter city. Nippur is the modern
+Niffer or Nuffar in the north of Babylonia, and recent excavations have
+shown that its temple was the chief sanctuary and religious centre of the
+civilized eastern world in the earliest epoch to which our records reach.
+Eridu, Ur, and Nippur seem to have been the three chief cities of primeval
+Babylonia. As we shall see in a future chapter, Eridu and Nippur were the
+centres from which the early culture and religion of the country were
+diffused. But there was an essential difference between them. Ea, the god
+of Eridu, was a god of light and beneficence, who employed his divine
+wisdom in healing the sick and restoring the dead to life. He had given
+man all the elements of civilization; rising each morning out of his
+palace under the waters of the deep, he taught them the arts and sciences,
+the industries and manners, of civilized life. El-lil of Nippur, on the
+contrary, was the lord of the underworld; magical spells and incantations
+were his gifts to mankind, and his kingdom was over the dead rather than
+the living. The culture which emanated from Eridu and Nippur was thus of a
+wholly different kind. Is it possible that the settlers in the two cities
+were of a different race?
+
+Of this there is no proof. Such evidence as we have tells against it. And
+the contrast in the character of the cultures of Eridu and Nippur can be
+explained in another way. Eridu was a seaport; its population was in
+contact with other races, and its ships traded with the coasts of Arabia.
+The myth which told how Ea or Oannes had brought the elements of
+civilization to his people expressly stated that he came from the waters
+of the Persian Gulf. The culture of Eridu may thus have been due to
+foreign intercourse; Eridu was a city of merchants and sailors, Nippur of
+sorcerer-priests.
+
+Eridu and Nippur, however, alike owed their origin to a race which we will
+term Sumerian. Its members spoke agglutinative dialects, and the primitive
+civilization of Babylonia was their creation. They were the founders of
+its great cities and temples, the inventors of the pictorial system of
+writing out of which the cuneiform characters subsequently developed, the
+instructors in culture of their Semitic neighbors. How deep and
+far-reaching was their influence may be gathered from the fact that the
+earliest civilization of Western Asia finds its expression in the Sumerian
+language and script. To whatever race the writer might belong he clothed
+his thoughts in the words and characters of the Sumerian people. The fact
+makes it often difficult for us to determine whether the princes of
+primitive Chaldea whose inscriptions have come down to us were Semites or
+not. Their very names assume Sumerian forms.
+
+It was from the Sumerian that the Semite learnt to live in cities. His own
+word for “city” was _âlu_, the Hebrew _’ohel_ “a tent,” which is still
+used in the Old Testament in the sense of “home;” the Hebrew _’îr_ is the
+Sumerian _eri_. _Ekallu_, the Hebrew _hêkal_, “a palace,” comes from the
+Sumerian _ê-gal_ or “great house;” the first palaces seen by the Semitic
+nomad must have been those of the Chaldean towns.
+
+But a time came when the Semite had absorbed the culture of his Sumerian
+teachers and had established kingdoms of his own in the future Babylonia.
+For untold centuries he lived in intermixture with the older population of
+the country, and the two races acted and re-acted on each other. A mixed
+people was the result, with a mixed language and a mixed form of religion.
+The Babylonia of later days was, in fact, a country whose inhabitants and
+language were as composite as the inhabitants and language of modern
+England. Members of the same family had names derived from different
+families of speech, and while the old Sumerian borrowed Semitic words
+which it spelt phonetically, the Semitic lexicon was enriched with
+loan-words from Sumerian which were treated like Semitic roots.
+
+The Semite improved upon the heritage he had received. Even the system of
+writing was enlarged and modified. Its completion and arrangement are due
+to Semitic scribes who had been trained in Sumerian literature. It was
+probably at the court of Sargon of Akkad that what we may term the final
+revision of the syllabary took place. At all events, after his epoch the
+cuneiform script underwent but little real change.
+
+Sargon was the founder of the first Semitic empire in Asia. His date was
+placed by the native historians as far back as 3800 B.C., and as they had
+an abundance of materials at their disposal for settling it, which we do
+not possess, we have no reason to dispute it. Moreover, it harmonizes with
+the length of time required for bringing about that fusion of Sumerian and
+Semitic elements which created the Babylonia we know. The power of Sargon
+extended to the Mediterranean, even, it may be, to the island of Cyprus.
+His conquests were continued by his son and successor Naram-Sin, who made
+his way to the precious copper-mines of the Sinaitic peninsula, the chief
+source of the copper that was used so largely in the work of his day. “The
+land of the Amorites,” as Syria was called, was already a Babylonian
+province, and he could therefore march in safety toward the south through
+the desert region which was known as Melukhkha.
+
+How long the empire of Sargon lasted we do not know. But it spread
+Babylonian culture to the distant west and brought it to the very border
+of Egypt. It was, too, a culture which had become essentially Semitic; the
+Sumerian elements on which it was based had been thoroughly transformed.
+What Babylonian civilization was in the latest days of Chaldean history,
+that it already was, to all intents and purposes, in the age of Sargon.
+The Sumerian and the Semite had become one people.
+
+But the mixture of nationalities in Babylonia was not yet complete.
+Colonies of Amorites, from Canaan, settled in it for the purposes of
+trade; wandering tribes of Semites, from Northern Arabia, pastured their
+cattle on the banks of its rivers, and in the Abrahamic age a line of
+kings from Southern Arabia made themselves masters of the country, and
+established their capital at Babylon. Their names resembled those of
+Southern Arabia on the one hand, of the Hebrews on the other, and the
+Babylonian scribes were forced to give translations of them in their own
+language.
+
+But all these incomers belonged to the Semitic race, and the languages
+they spoke were but varieties of the same family of speech. It is probable
+that such was the case with the Kaldâ, who lived in the marshes at the
+mouth of the Euphrates, and from whom classical geography has derived the
+name of Chaldean. The extension of the name to the whole population of
+Babylonia was due to the reign of the Kaldâ prince, Merodach-baladan, at
+Babylon. For years he represented Babylonian freedom in its struggle with
+Assyria, and his “Chaldean” subjects became an integral part of the
+population. Perhaps, too, the theory is right which makes Nebuchadnezzar
+of Kaldâ descent. If so, there is a good reason why the inhabitants of
+Babylonia should have become “Chaldeans” in the classical age.
+
+Of wholly different origin were the Kassites, mountaineers from the east
+of Elam, who conquered Babylonia, and founded a dynasty of kings which
+lasted for several centuries. They also gave their name to the population
+of the country, and, in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, accordingly, the
+natives of Babylonia are known as “Kassi.” Sennacherib found their
+kinsfolk in the Elamite mountains, and here they still lived in the age of
+the Greek writers. Strabo calls them Kosseans, and it seems probable that
+they are the same as the Kissians, after whom the whole of Elam was named.
+At any rate the Kassites were neither Sumerians nor Semites; and their
+language, of which several words have been preserved, has no known
+connections. But they left their mark upon the Babylonian people, and
+several family names were borrowed from them.
+
+The Babylonian was thus a compound of Sumerian, Semitic, and Kassite
+elements. They all went to form the culture which we term Babylonian, and
+which left such enduring traces on Western Asia and the world. Mixed races
+are invariably the best, and the Babylonians were no exception to the
+rule. We have only to compare them with their neighbors, the more purely
+blooded Semitic Assyrians, to assure ourselves of the fact. The culture of
+Assyria was but an imitation and reflection of that of Babylonia—there was
+nothing original about it. The Assyrian excelled only in the ferocities of
+war, not in the arts of peace. Even the gods of Assyria had migrated from
+the southern kingdom.
+
+The dual character of Babylonian civilization must never be forgotten. It
+serves to explain a good deal that would otherwise be puzzling in the
+religious and social life of the people. But the social life was also
+influenced and conditioned by the peculiar nature of the country in which
+the people lived. It was an alluvial plain, sloping toward the sea, and
+inundated by the overflow of the two great rivers which ran through it.
+When cultivated it was exceedingly fertile; but cultivation implied a
+careful regulation of the overflow, as well as a constant attention to the
+embankments which kept out the waters, or to the canals which drained and
+watered the soil.
+
+The inhabitants were therefore, necessarily, agriculturists. They were
+also irrigators and engineers, compelled to study how best to regulate the
+supply of water, to turn the pestiferous marsh into a fruitful field, and
+to confine the rivers and canals within their channels. Agriculture and
+engineering thus had their natural home in Babylonia, and originated in
+the character of the country itself.
+
+The neighborhood of the sea and the two great waterways which flanked the
+Babylonian plain further gave an impetus to trade. The one opened the road
+to the spice-bearing coasts of Southern Arabia and the more distant shores
+of Egypt; the other led to the highlands of Western Asia. From the first
+the Babylonians were merchants and sailors as well as agriculturists. The
+“cry” of the Chaldeans was “in their ships.” The seaport of Eridu was one
+of the earliest of Babylonian cities; and a special form of boat took its
+name from the more inland town of Ur. While the population of the country
+devoted itself to agriculture, the towns grew wealthy by the help of
+trade.
+
+Their architecture was dependent on the nature of the country. In the
+alluvial plain no stone was procurable; clay, on the other hand, was
+everywhere. All buildings, accordingly, were constructed of clay bricks,
+baked in the sun, and bonded together with cement of the same material;
+their roofs were of wood, supported, not unfrequently, by the stems of the
+palm. The palm stems, in time, became pillars, and Babylonia was thus the
+birthplace of columnar architecture. It was also the birthplace of
+decorated walls. It was needful to cover the sun-dried bricks with
+plaster, for the sake both of their preservation and of appearance. This
+was the origin of the stucco with which the walls were overlaid, and which
+came in time to be ornamented with painting. Ezekiel refers to the
+figures, portrayed in vermilion, which adorned the walls of the houses of
+the rich.
+
+The want of stone and the abundance of clay had another and unique
+influence upon Babylonian culture. It led to the invention of the written
+clay tablet, which has had such momentous results for the civilization of
+the whole Eastern world. The pictures with which Babylonian writing began
+were soon discarded for the conventional forms, which could so easily be
+impressed by the stylus upon the soft clay. It is probable that the use of
+the clay as a writing material was first suggested by the need there was
+in matters of business that the contracting parties should record their
+names. The absence of stone made every pebble valuable, and pebbles were
+accordingly cut into cylindrical forms and engraved with signs. When the
+cylinder was rolled over a lump of wet clay, its impress remained forever.
+The signs became cuneiform characters, and the Babylonian wrote them upon
+clay instead of stone.
+
+The seal-cylinder and the use of clay as a writing material must
+consequently be traced to the peculiar character of the country in which
+the Babylonian lived. To the same origin must be ascribed his mode of
+burial. The tomb was built of bricks; there were no rocky cliffs in which
+to excavate it, and the marshy soil made a grave unsanitary. It was
+doubtless sanitary reasons alone that caused wood to be heaped about the
+tomb after an interment and set on fire so that all within it was
+partially consumed. The narrow limits of the Babylonian plain obliged the
+cemetery of the dead to adjoin the houses of the living, and cremation,
+whether partial or complete, became a necessity.
+
+Even the cosmogony of the Babylonians has been influenced by their
+surroundings. The world, it was believed, originated in a watery chaos,
+like that in which the first settlers had found the Babylonian plain. The
+earth not only rested on the waters, but the waters themselves, dark and
+unregulated, were the beginning of all things. This cosmological
+conception was carried with the rest of Babylonian culture to the West,
+and after passing through Canaan found its way into Greek philosophy. In
+the Book of Genesis we read that “darkness was on the face of the deep”
+before the creative spirit of God brooded over it, and Thales, the first
+of Greek philosophers, taught that water was the principle out of which
+all things have come.
+
+The fertility of the Babylonian soil was remarkable. Grain, it was said,
+gave a return of two hundred for one, sometimes of three hundred for one.
+Herodotus, or the authority he quotes, grows enthusiastic upon the
+subject. “The leaf of the wheat and barley,” he says, “is as much as three
+inches in width, and the stalks of the millet and sesamum are so tall that
+no one who has never been in that country would believe me were I to
+mention their height.” In fact, naturalists tell us that Babylonia was the
+primitive home of the cultivated cereals, wheat and probably barley, and
+that from the banks of the Euphrates they must have been disseminated
+throughout the civilized world. Wheat, indeed, has been found growing wild
+in our own days in the neighborhood of Hit.
+
+The dissemination of wheat goes back to a remote epoch. Like barley, it is
+met with in the tombs of that prehistoric population of Egypt which still
+lived in the neolithic age and whose later remains are coeval with the
+first Pharaonic epoch. The fact throws light on the antiquity of the
+intercourse which existed between the Euphrates and the Nile, and bears
+testimony to the influence already exerted on the Western world by the
+culture of Babylonia. We have, indeed, no written records which go back to
+so distant a past; it belongs, perhaps, to an epoch when the art of
+writing had not as yet been invented. But there was already civilization
+in Babylonia, and the elements of its future social life were already in
+existence. Babylonian culture is immeasurably old.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE FAMILY
+
+
+Two principles struggled for recognition in Babylonian family life. One
+was the patriarchal, the other the matriarchal. Perhaps they were due to a
+duality of race; perhaps they were merely a result of the circumstances
+under which the Babylonian lived. At times it would seem as if we must
+pronounce the Babylonian family to have been patriarchal in its character;
+at other times the wife and mother occupies an independent and even
+commanding position. It may be noted that whereas in the old Sumerian
+hymns the woman takes precedence of the man, the Semitic translation
+invariably reverses the order: the one has “female and male,” the other
+“male and female.” Elsewhere in the Semitic world, where the conceptions
+of Babylonian culture had not penetrated, the woman was subordinate to the
+man, his helpmate and not his equal.
+
+In this respect nothing can be more significant than the changes undergone
+by the name and worship of the goddess Istar, when they were carried from
+Babylonia to the Semites of the West. In Babylonia she was a goddess of
+independent power, who stood on a footing of equality with the gods. But
+in Southern Arabia and Moab she became a male divinity, and in the latter
+country was even identified with the supreme god Chemosh. In Canaan she
+passed into the feminine Ashtoreth, and at last was merged in the crowd of
+goddesses who were but the feminine reflections of the male. A goddess
+whose attributes did not differ from those of a god was foreign to the
+religious ideas of the purely Semitic mind.
+
+It was otherwise in Babylonia. There the goddess was the equal of the god,
+while on earth the women claimed rights which placed them almost on a
+level with the men. One of the early sovereigns of the country was a
+queen, Ellat-Gula, and even in Assyria the bas-reliefs of Assur-bani-pal
+represent the queen as sitting and feasting by the side of her husband. A
+list of trees brought to Akkad in the reign of Sargon (3800 B.C.) speaks
+of them as having been conveyed by the servants of the queen, and if Dr.
+Scheil is right in his translation of the Sumerian words, the kings of Ur,
+before the days of Abraham, made their daughters high-priestesses of
+foreign lands.
+
+Up to the last the Babylonian woman, in her own name, could enter into
+partnership with others, could buy and sell, lend and borrow, could appear
+as plaintiff and witness in a court of law, could even bequeath her
+property as she wished. In a deed, dated in the second year of Nabonidos
+(555 B.C.), a father transfers all his property to his daughter, reserving
+to himself only the use of it during the rest of his life. In return the
+daughter agrees to provide him with the necessaries of life, food and
+drink, oil and clothing. A few years later, in the second year of Cyrus, a
+woman of the name of Nubtâ, or “Bee,” hired out a slave for five years in
+order that he might be taught the art of weaving. She stipulated to give
+him one _qa_, or about a quart and a half of food, each day, and to
+provide him with clothing while he was learning the trade. It is evident
+that Nubtâ owned looms and traded in woven fabrics on her own account.
+
+Nubtâ was the daughter of Ben-Hadad-amara, a Syrian _settled_ in Babylonia
+who had been adopted by another Syrian of the name of Ben-Hadad-nathan.
+After the latter’s death his widow brought an action before the royal
+judges to recover her husband’s property. She stated that after their
+marriage she and Ben-Hadad-nathan had traded together, and that a house
+had been purchased with a portion of her dowry. This house, the value of
+which was as much as 110 manehs, 50 shekels, or £62 10s., had been
+assigned to her in perpetuity. The half-brother Aqabi-il (Jacob-el),
+however, now claimed everything, including the house. The case was tried
+at Babylon before six judges in the ninth year of Nabonidos, and they
+decided in favor of the plaintiff.
+
+One of the documents that have come down to us from the age of Abraham
+records the gift of a female slave by a husband to his wife. The slave and
+her children, it was laid down, were to remain the property of the wife in
+case either of divorce or of the husband’s death. The right of the woman
+to hold private property of her own, over which the male heirs had no
+control, was thus early recognized by the law. In later times it is
+referred to in numberless contracts. In the reign of Nebokin-abla, for
+instance, in the eleventh century B.C., we find a field bequeathed first
+of all to a daughter and then to a sister; in the beginning of the reign
+of Nabonidos we hear of a brother and sister, the children of a
+naturalized Egyptian, inheriting their father’s property together; and in
+the fourth year of Cyrus his son Cambyses sued for the payment of a loan
+which he had made to a Babylonian on the security of some house-property,
+and which was accordingly refunded by the debtor’s wife. Other deeds
+relate to the borrowing of money by a husband and his wife in partnership,
+to a wife selling a slave for a maneh of silver on her own account, to a
+woman bringing an action before six judges at the beginning of the reign
+of Nabonidos to recover the price of a slave she had sold, and to another
+woman who two years previously was the witness to the sale of a house.
+Further proofs are not needed of the independent position of the woman,
+whether married or single, and of her equality with the man in the eyes of
+the law.
+
+It would seem that she was on a level with him also in the eyes of
+religion. There were priestesses in Babylonia as well as priests. The
+oracles of Istar at Arbela were worked by inspired prophetesses, who thus
+resembled Deborah and Huldah and the other prophetesses of Israel. When
+Esar-haddon inquired of the will of heaven, it was from the prophetesses
+of Istar that he received encouragement and a promise of victory. From the
+earliest period, moreover, there were women who lived like nuns, unmarried
+and devoted to the service of the Sun-god. The office was held in high
+honor, one of the daughters of King Ammi-Zadok, the fourth successor of
+Khammurabi or Amraphel, being a devotee of the god. In the reign of the
+same king we find two of these devotees and their nieces letting for a
+year nine feddans or acres of ground in the district in which the
+“Amorites” of Canaan were settled. This was done “by command of the
+high-priest Sar-ilu,” a name in which Mr. Pinches suggests that we should
+see that of Israel. The women were to receive a shekel of silver, or three
+shillings, “the produce of the field,” by way of rent, while six measures
+of corn on every ten feddans were to be set apart for the Sun-god himself.
+In the previous reign a house had been let at an annual rent of two
+shekels which was the joint property of a devotee of the Sun-god Samas and
+her brother. It is clear that consecration to the service of the deity did
+not prevent the “nun” from owning and enjoying property.
+
+Like Samas, the Sun-god, Istar was also served by women, who, however, do
+not seem to have led the same reputable lives. They were divided into two
+classes, one of which was called the “Wailers,” from the lamentations with
+which each year they mourned the death of the god Tammuz, the stricken
+favorite of Istar. The Chaldean Epic of Gilgames speaks of the “troops” of
+them that were gathered together in the city of Erech. Here Istar had her
+temple along with her father, Anu, the Sky-god, and here accordingly her
+devotees were assembled. Like the goddess they served, it would appear
+that they were never married in lawful wedlock. But they nevertheless
+formed a corporation, like the corporations of the priests.
+
+Babylonian law and custom prevailed also in Assyria. So far as can be
+gathered from the contracts that have come down to us, the Assyrian women
+enjoyed almost as many privileges as their sisters in Babylonia. Thus, in
+668 B.C., we find a lady, Tsarpî by name, buying the sister of a man whose
+slave she was, for reasons unknown to us, and paying half a maneh of
+silver (£4 10s.) for the girl. Tsarpî was a “prefectess,” like another
+lady who is called “the prefectess of Nineveh,” and who, in 683 B.C.,
+purchased seventeen slaves and a garden. It is plain from this that women
+could hold civil offices and even act as governors of a city.
+
+In fact, wherever Babylonian culture and law extended, the principles and
+practice of it were necessarily in force. The Amorite colonies from Canaan
+established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade in the age of Abraham
+were naturally subject to the Babylonian laws, and the women among them
+possessed all the rights of their Babylonian neighbors. At the very
+beginning of the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged, an Amorite lady, a
+certain Kuryatum, brought an action for the recovery of a field which had
+been the property of her father, Asalia, and won her suit. Kuryatum and
+her brother were themselves subsequently sued by three other “Amorites,”
+the children of Izi-idrê, one of whom was a woman, for a field and house,
+together with some slaves and palm-trees, of which, it was asserted, they
+had wrongfully taken possession. The judges, however, after hearing both
+sides, dismissed the case.
+
+It is not strange that the same laws and principles should have held good
+in Canaan itself, which was so long a Babylonian province. Sarah, who was
+of Babylonian origin, owned a female slave (Gen. xvi. 2, 6, 8, 9), and the
+Kennizzite Caleb assigned a field with springs to his daughter Achsah in
+the early days of the invasion of Canaan (Josh. xv. 18, 19). A Canaanitish
+lady takes part in the Tel-el-Amarna correspondence, and writes to the
+Pharaoh on matters of state, while the Mosaic Law allowed the daughter to
+inherit the possessions of her father (Numb. xxxvi. 8). This, however, was
+only the case where there was no son; after the Israelitish conquest of
+Canaan, when the traditions of Babylonian custom had passed away, we hear
+no more of brothers and sisters sharing together the inheritance of their
+father, or of a wife bequeathing anything which belongs to her of right.
+As regards the woman, the law of Israel, after the settlement in Canaan,
+was the moral law of the Semitic tribes. We must go back to the age of
+Abraham and Sarah to find a Hebrew woman possessed of the same powers as
+the Babylonian lady who, in the fifth year of Cambyses, sold a slave for
+two manehs and five shekels of silver, her husband and mother guaranteeing
+the value of the chattel that was thus sold.
+
+The dowry which the woman brought with her on marriage secured of itself
+her independence. It was her absolute property, and she could leave it by
+will as she pleased. It protected her from tyrannical conduct on the part
+of her husband, as well as from the fear of divorce on insufficient
+grounds. If a divorce took place the dowry had to be restored to her in
+full, and she then returned to her father’s house or set up an
+establishment of her own. Where no dowry had been brought by the bride,
+the husband was often required by the marriage contract to pay her a
+specified sum of money in case of her divorce. Thus a marriage contract
+made in Babylon in the thirteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar stipulates that,
+if the husband marries a second wife, the act shall be equivalent to a
+divorce of the first wife, who shall accordingly receive not only her
+dowry, but a maneh of silver as well. The payment, in fact, was a penalty
+on the unfaithfulness of the husband and served as a check upon both
+divorce and polygamy.
+
+The dowry consisted not of money alone, but also of slaves and furniture,
+the value of which was stated in the marriage contract. In the contract
+just referred to, for instance, part of the dowry consisted of a slave who
+was valued at half a maneh. Sometimes the dowry included cattle and sheep.
+In the sixth year of Nabonidos we hear of three slaves and “furniture with
+which to stock the house,” besides a maneh of silver (£6), being given as
+the marriage-portion. In this instance, however, the silver was not
+forthcoming on the wedding-day, and in place of it a slave valued at
+two-thirds of a maneh was accepted, the remaining third being left for
+payment at a subsequent date. Where the dowry could not be paid at once,
+security for the payment of it was taken by the bridegroom.
+
+The payment was made, not by the bridegroom, as among the Israelites and
+other Semitic peoples, but by the father of the bride. If he were dead, or
+if the mother of the bride had been divorced and was in the enjoyment of
+her own property, the mother took the place of the father and was expected
+to provide the dowry. In such a case she also naturally gave permission
+for the marriage, and it was from her accordingly that consent to it had
+to be obtained. In one instance, however, in a deed dated in the sixteenth
+year of Nabonidos, a sister is given in marriage by her two brothers, who
+consequently furnish the dowry, consisting of a piece of ground inherited
+from the mother, a slave, clothes, and furniture. It is evident that in
+this case both the parents must have been dead.
+
+It was the bridegroom’s duty and interest to see that the dowry was duly
+paid. He enjoyed the usufruct of it during his life, and not unfrequently
+it was employed not only to furnish the house of the newly married couple,
+but also to start them in business. It was with his wife’s dowry that
+Ben-Hadad-nathan bought in part the house to which his widow laid claim
+after his death, and we read of instances in which the husband and wife
+enter into partnership in order to trade with the wife’s money. More
+frequently the wife uses her dowry to transact business separately, her
+purchases and loans being made in her own name; this is especially the
+case if she otherwise has property of her own.(2)
+
+At times the son-in-law found it difficult to get the dowry paid. From a
+deed dated in the third year of Cambyses we gather that the dowry, instead
+of being delivered “into the hand” of the bridegroom, as ought to have
+been done at the time of the marriage, was still unpaid nine years later.
+Sometimes, of course, this was due to the inability of the father-in-law
+to discharge his debt, through bankruptcy, death, or other causes. Where,
+therefore, the money was not immediately forthcoming, security was taken
+for its future payment. If payment in full was impossible, owing to
+pecuniary losses incurred after the marriage contract had been drawn up,
+the bridegroom was entitled to claim a proportionate amount of it on
+behalf of his wife. The heirs were called upon to pay what was due if the
+father-in-law died between the drawing-up of the contract and the actual
+marriage, and when the wife died without children it returned to her
+“father’s house.”
+
+If the husband died and his widow married again, she carried her former
+dowry with her. In such a case the children of the first marriage
+inherited two-thirds of it upon her death, the remaining third going to
+the children of the second husband. This was in accordance with a law
+which regulated the succession to the property of a father who had married
+a second time, the children of the first marriage receiving two-thirds of
+it and the remainder being reserved for the children of the second wife.
+The law could only be overruled by a will made during the man’s lifetime,
+and properly attested by witnesses.
+
+The dowry could not be alienated by the wife without the consent of her
+parents, if they were still alive. In the year of Nergal-sharezer’s
+accession, for example, a certain Nergal-ballidh and his wife Dhibtâ
+wished to sell a slave, who had constituted the dowry of Dhibtâ, for
+twenty-five shekels, but the sale was not considered valid until the
+consent of both her father and mother had been obtained.
+
+The dowry was not the only property the woman was able to hold. She had
+similar power to hold and dispose of whatever else had come to her by
+inheritance or gift. The gains she made in business, the proceeds of the
+sale of her estates, and the interest upon the capital she lent, all
+belonged to herself, and to herself alone. For purposes of succession they
+were reckoned along with the dowry as constituting her property during
+life. In the thirty-fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar, for instance, a father
+stipulates that the creditors of his daughter’s father-in-law should have
+no claim either upon her dowry or upon any other part of her possessions.
+
+The power of the married woman over her property was doubtless the result
+of the system which provided her with a dowry. The principle of her
+absolute control over the latter once admitted, it was extended by the law
+to the rest of her estate. She thus took rank by the side of the man, and,
+like him, could trade or otherwise deal with her property as she chose.
+The dowry, in fact, must have been her original charter of freedom.
+
+But it was so because it was given by her father, and not by the
+bridegroom. Where it was the gift of the bridegroom it was but a civilized
+form of purchasing the bride. In such a case the husband had a right to
+the person and possessions of the wife, inasmuch as he had bought her; as
+much right, in fact, as he had to the person and possessions of a slave.
+The wife was merely a superior slave.
+
+Where, however, the dowry was the gift of the bride’s father the
+conditions were reversed. The husband received not only a wife, he
+received also an estate along with her. He it was upon whom the benefit
+was conferred, and he had to accept the conditions offered him, not to
+make them. In a commercial state like Babylonia, property represented
+personalty, and the personalty of the wife accordingly remained with the
+family from which her property was derived, rather than with the husband,
+to whom the use of it was lent. Hence the independence of the married
+woman in Babylonia and her complete freedom of action as regards her
+husband. The property she possessed, the personalty it represented,
+belonged to herself alone.
+
+Traces, however, may be detected of an older order of things, which once
+existed, at all events, in the Semitic element of the Babylonian
+population. The dowry had to be paid to the husband, to be deposited, as
+it were, in his “hand.” It was with him that the marriage contract was
+made. This must surely go back to an age when the marriage portion was
+really given to the bridegroom, and he had the same right over it as was
+enjoyed until recently by the husband in England. Moreover, the right of
+divorce retained by the husband, like the fact that the bride was given
+away by a male relation, points in the same direction. According to an
+early Sumerian law, while the repudiation of the wife on the part of the
+husband was punishable only with a small fine, for the repudiation of the
+husband by the wife the penalty was death. A deed drawn up in the time of
+Khammurabi shows that this law was still in force in the age of Abraham.
+It lays down that if the wife is unfaithful to her husband she may be
+drowned, while the husband can rid himself of his wife by the payment only
+of a maneh of silver. Indeed, as late as the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the
+old law remained unrepealed, and we find a certain Nebo-akhi-iddin, who
+married a singing-woman, stipulating in the marriage contract that if he
+should divorce her and marry another he was to pay her six manehs, but if,
+on the contrary, she committed adultery, she should be put to death with
+“an iron sword.”
+
+In this instance, however, the husband married beneath him, and in view of
+the antecedents of the wife the penalty with which she was threatened in
+case of unfaithfulness was perhaps necessary. She came to him, moreover,
+without either a dowry or family relations who could give her away. She
+was thus little better than the concubines whom the Babylonian was allowed
+to keep by the side of his lawful wife. But even so, the marriage contract
+had to be made out in full legal form, and the penalty to be paid for her
+divorce was as much as £54. With this she could have lived comfortably and
+probably have had no difficulty in finding another husband.
+
+The concubine was usually a slave who had been bought by the bridegroom.
+Occasionally, by agreement with the parents, the wife herself was in much
+the same position. Thus Dagil-ili, who married the daughter of a lady
+named Khammâ, gave the mother one and a half manehs of silver and a slave
+worth half a maneh, and agreed that if he married another wife he would
+give her daughter a maneh and send her back to her old home. Here the
+husband practically buys his wife, though even so the law obliged him to
+divorce her if he married again, and also fined him for doing so. Khammâ
+was apparently in financial difficulties, and consequently, instead of
+furnishing her daughter with a dowry, received money from the bridegroom.
+It was a private arrangement, and utterly opposed to the usual custom. The
+parents had, however, the power of selling their children before they came
+of age, and where the parents were dead, the same power was possessed—at
+any rate in Assyria—by a brother in the case of a sister. Doubtless the
+power was restricted by law, but the instances in which we hear of its
+being exercised are so rare that we do not know what these restrictions
+were.
+
+Nor do we know the reasons which were considered sufficient to justify
+divorce. The language of the early laws would seem to imply that
+originally it was quite enough to pronounce the words: “Thou art not my
+wife,” “Thou art not my husband.” But the loss of the wife’s dowry and the
+penalties attached to divorce must have tended to check it on the part of
+the husband, except in exceptional circumstances. Perhaps want of children
+was held to be a sufficient pretext for it; certainly adultery must have
+been so. Another cause of divorce was a legal one: a second marriage
+invalidated the first, if the first wife was still alive.
+
+This is a very astonishing fact in a country where polygamy was allowed.
+It proves that polygamy was greatly restricted in practice, and that the
+tendency of the law was to forbid it altogether. Among the multitudinous
+contracts of the second Babylonian empire it is difficult to find any
+which show that a man had two legitimate wives living at one and the same
+time. The high position of the mother of the family, her independence and
+commercial equality with her husband, were all against it. It is only
+where the wife is a bought slave that polygamy can flourish.
+
+In early times, it is true, the rich Babylonian indulged in the possession
+of more than one wife. Some contracts of the age of Khammurabi, translated
+by Mr. Pinches, are particularly instructive in this respect. We hear in
+them of a certain Arad-Samas, who first married a lady called Taram-Sagila
+and then her adopted sister Iltani. Iltani, it is ordained, shall be under
+the orders of her sister, shall prepare her food, carry her chair to the
+Temple of Merodach, and obey her in all things. Not a word is said about
+the divorce of the first wife; it is taken for granted that she is to
+remain at the head of the household, the younger and second wife acting as
+her servant. The position of Iltani, in fact, is not very different from
+that of a slave, and it is significant that neither wife brought a dowry
+with her.
+
+As we have seen in the case of Dagil-ili, the law and custom of later
+Babylonia display a complete change of feeling and practice. Marriage with
+a second wife came to involve, as a matter of course, divorce from the
+first, even where there had been a _mésalliance_ and the first wife had
+been without a dowry. The woman had thus gained a second victory; the rule
+that bound her in regard to marriage was now applied to the man. The
+privilege of marrying two husbands at once had been denied her; usage was
+now denying a similar privilege to him. It was only when the first wife
+was dead or divorced that a second could be taken; the wife might have a
+successor, but not a rival.
+
+The divorced wife was regarded by the law as a widow, and could therefore
+marry again. A deed of divorce, dated in the reign of the father of
+Khammurabi, expressly grants her this right. To the remarriage of the
+widow there was naturally no bar; but the children by the two marriages
+belonged to different families, and were kept carefully distinct. This is
+illustrated by a curious deed drawn up at Babylon, in the ninth year of
+Nabonidos. A certain Bel-Katsir, who had been adopted by his uncle,
+married a widow who already had a son. She bore him no children, however,
+and he accordingly asked the permission of his uncle to adopt his
+step-son, thereby making him the heir of his uncle’s property. To this the
+uncle objected, and it was finally agreed that if Bel-Katsir had no child
+he was to adopt his own brother, and so secure the succession of the
+estate to a member of his own family. The property of the mother probably
+went to her son; but she had the power to leave it as she liked. This may
+be gathered from a will, dated in the seventh year of Cyrus, in which a
+son leaves property to his father in case of death, which had come to him
+from his maternal grandfather and grandmother. The property had been
+specially bequeathed to him, doubtless after his mother’s death, the
+grandmother passing over the rest of her descendants in his favor.
+
+The marriage ceremony was partly religious, partly civil; no marriage was
+legally valid without a contract duly attested and signed. The Babylonians
+carried their business habits into all departments of life, and in the
+eyes of the law matrimony was a legal contract, the forms of which had to
+be duly observed. In the later days of Babylonian history the legal and
+civil aspect of the rite seems to have been exclusively considered, but at
+an earlier period it required also the sanction of religion; and Mr.
+Pinches has published a fragmentary Sumerian text in which the religious
+ceremony is described. Those who officiated at it, first placed their
+hands and feet against the hands and feet of the bridegroom, then the
+bride laid her neck by the side of his, and he was made to say to her:
+“Silver and gold shall fill thy lap; thou art my wife; I am thy husband.
+Like the fruit of an orchard will I give thee offspring.” Next came the
+ceremony of binding the sandals on the feet of the newly wedded pair and
+of handing them the latchet wherewith the shoes should be tied, as well as
+“a purse of silver and gold.” The purse perhaps symbolized the dowry,
+which was given by the father of the bride. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar
+the ceremony was restricted to joining together the hands of the bride and
+bridegroom.
+
+Contact with the Assyrians and Babylonians in the Exilic period introduced
+the Babylonian conception of the legal character of marriage among the
+Israelites, and, contrary to the older custom, it became necessary that it
+should be attested by a written contract. Thus, Raguel, when he gave his
+daughter “to be wife to Tobias,” “called Edna, his wife, and took paper
+and did write an instrument of covenants, and sealed it” (Tobit vii. 14).
+
+According to Herodotus, a gigantic system of public prostitution prevailed
+in Babylonia. Every unmarried woman was compelled to remain in the sacred
+enclosure of Mylitta—by which Istar is apparently meant—until some
+stranger had submitted to her embraces, while the sums derived from the
+sale of their personal charms by the handsome and good-looking provided
+portions for the ugly. Of all this there is not a trace in the mass of
+native documents which we now possess. There were the devotees of Istar,
+certainly—the _ukhâtu_ and _kharimâtu_—as well as public prostitutes, who
+were under the protection of the law; but they formed a class apart, and
+had nothing to do with the respectable women of the country. On the
+contrary, in the age of Khammurabi it was customary to state in the
+marriage contracts that no stain whatever rested on the bride. Thus we
+read in one of them: “Ana-Â-uzni is the daughter of Salimat. Salimat has
+given her a dowry, and has offered her in marriage to Bel-sunu, the son of
+the artisan. Ana-Â-uzni is pure; no one has anything against her.” The
+dowry, as we have seen, was paid by the near relations of the wife, and
+where there was none, as in the case of the singing-woman married by
+Nebo-akhi-iddin, there was no dowry at all. The dowries provided for the
+ugly by the prostitution of the rich must be an invention of the Greeks.
+
+Within what degree of relationship marriage was permitted is uncertain. A
+man could marry his sister-in-law, as among the Israelites, and, in one
+instance, we hear of marriage with a niece. In the time of Cambyses a
+brother marries his half-sister by the same father; but this was probably
+an imitation of the Persian custom.
+
+The children, as we have seen, whether boys or girls, inherited alike,
+subject to the provisions of the parent’s will. The will seems to have
+been of Babylonian origin. Testamentary devolution of property went back
+to an early period in a country in which the legal relations of trade had
+been so fully developed. Trade implied private property and the idea of
+individual possession. The estate belonging to a person was his
+absolutely, to deal with pretty much as he would. He had the same right to
+alienate it as he had to increase it. In a commercial community there
+could be no community of goods.
+
+As far back, therefore, as our materials carry us, the unit in the
+Babylonian state is the individual rather than the family. It is he with
+whom both the law and the government deal, and the legal code of Babylonia
+is based upon the doctrine of individual responsibility. Private ownership
+is the key-note of Babylonian social life.
+
+But the whole of this social life was fenced about by a written law. No
+title was valid for which a written document could not be produced, drawn
+up and attested in legal forms. The extensive commercial transactions of
+the Babylonians made this necessary, and the commercial spirit dominated
+Babylonian society. The scribe and the lawyer were needed at almost every
+juncture of life.
+
+The invention of the will or documentary testament, followed naturally.
+The same legal powers that were required to protect a man’s property
+during his lifetime were even more urgently required when he was dead. The
+will was at first the title which gave the heir his father’s estate.
+Gradually it developed, until at last it came to be an instrument by means
+of which the testator retained control over his property even after his
+death. As an example of the form which it usually assumed, we may take one
+which was drawn up in the seventh year of the reign of Cyrus as King of
+Babylon (532 B.C.):
+
+
+    Nebo-baladan, the son of Samas-palassar, the son of the priest of
+    the Sun-god, has, of his own free-will, sealed all his estate,
+    which he had inherited from Nebo-balasu-iqbi, the son of Nur-Ea,
+    the son of the priest of the Sun-god, the father of his mother,
+    and from Kabtâ, the mother of Assat-Belit, his grandmother,
+    consisting of a piece of land, a house and the slaves or serfs
+    attached to it, in accordance with the will (_literally_ tablet)
+    which his maternal grandfather, Nebo-balasu-iqbi, and his maternal
+    grandmother, Kabtâ, had sealed and bequeathed to Nebo-baladan, the
+    son of their daughter, and has bequeathed them for ever to
+    Samas-palassar, the son of Samas-ina-esi-edher, the son of the
+    priest of the Sun-god. As long as Nebo-baladan lives the piece of
+    ground, the house, the slaves, and all the rest of his property
+    shall continue in his own possession, according to the terms of
+    this his will. Whoever shall attempt to change them, may Anu, Bel,
+    and Ae curse him; may Nebo, the divine scribe of Ê-Saggil, cut off
+    his days! This will has been sealed in the presence of Sula, son
+    of Bania, son of Epes-ilu; of Bel-iddin, son of Bel-natsir, son of
+    the priest of Gula; of Nebo-sum-yukin, son of Sula, son of Sigua;
+    of Nebo-natsir, son of Ziria, son of Sumâti; … of Nebo-sum-lisir,
+    son of Nebo-sum-iskun, son of the wine-merchant (?), and the
+    scribe Samas-zir-yusabsi, son of Zariqu-iddin, son of the
+    architect. (Written at) Babylon, the 19th day of Sebat (February),
+    the seventh year of Cyrus, king of Babylon and the world.
+
+
+In this case it is a son who makes over his property to his father should
+he be the first to die. The will shows that the son was absolute master of
+his own possessions even during his father’s lifetime, and could bequeath
+it as he chose.
+
+A remarkable instance of the application of the principles underlying
+testamentary devolution is to be found in the case of Ninip-Sum-iskun, the
+son of a land-surveyor who handed over his property to his daughter
+Dhabtu, while he was still alive, stipulating only for the usufruct of it.
+The text begins by saying that the testator called to his daughter: “Bring
+me writing materials, for I am ill. My brother has deserted me; my son has
+offended me. To you therefore I turn. Have pity on me, and while I live
+support me with food, oil, and clothes. The income from my surveying
+business, in which I have two-thirds of a share with my brother, do I hand
+over to you.” After this preamble the deed is drawn up in due form,
+attested, dated, and sealed. The whole of the testator’s property is
+assigned to his daughter “for ever,” “the usufruct of his income” only
+being reserved to himself “as long as he shall live.” He undertakes
+accordingly not to “sell” it, not to give it to another, not to pawn it or
+alienate a portion of it. By way of doubly securing that the deed shall
+take effect, the gods are invoked as well as the law.(3)
+
+Another case in which a kind of will seems to have been made which should
+take effect during the lifetime of the testator, is a document drawn up by
+order of the Assyrian King Sennacherib. We may gather from it that
+Esar-haddon, though not his eldest, was his favorite son, a fact which may
+explain his subsequent assassination by two of his other sons, who took
+advantage of their brother’s absence in Armenia at the head of the army,
+to murder their father and usurp the throne. In the document in question
+Sennacherib makes a written statement of his desire to leave to
+Esar-haddon certain personal effects, which are enumerated by name. “Gold
+rings, quantities of ivory, gold cups, dishes, and necklaces, all these
+valuable objects in plenty, as well as three sorts of precious stones, one
+and one-half maneh and two and one-half shekels in weight, I bequeath to
+Esar-haddon, my son, who bears the surname of Assur-etil-kin-pal, to be
+deposited in the house of Amuk.” It will be noticed that this document is
+not attested by witnesses. Such attestation was dispensed with in the case
+of the monarch; his own name was sufficient to create a title. Whether it
+would have been the same in Babylonia, where the king was not equally
+autocratic and the commercial spirit was stronger than in Assyria, may be
+questioned. At all events, when Gigitu, the daughter of the Babylonian
+King Nergal-sharezer, was married to one of his officials, the contract
+was made out in the usual form, and the names of several witnesses were
+attached to it, while the deeds relating to the trading transactions of
+Belshazzar when heir-apparent to the throne differ in nothing from those
+required from the ordinary citizen.
+
+Besides possessing the power of making a will, the head of the family was
+able to increase it by adoption. The practice of adoption was of long
+standing in Babylonia. The right to become King of Babylon and so to claim
+legitimate rule over the civilized world was conferred through adoption by
+the god Bel-Merodach. The claimant to sovereignty “took the hand of Bel,”
+as it was termed, and thereby became the adopted son of the god. Until
+this ceremony was performed, however much he might be a sovereign _de
+facto_, he was not so _de jure_. The legal title to rule could be given by
+Bel, and by Bel alone. As the Pharaohs of Egypt were sons of Ra the
+Sun-god, so it was necessary that the kings of Babylon should be the sons
+of the Babylonian Sun-god Merodach. Sonship alone made them legitimate.
+
+This theory of adoption by a god must have been derived from a practice
+that was already well known. And the power of adopting children was
+exercised by the Babylonians up to the last. It has been suggested that it
+was due to ancestor-worship, and the desire to prevent the customary
+offerings from being discontinued through the extinction of the family.
+But for this there is no evidence. Indeed, it is questionable whether
+there was any worship of ancestors in Babylonia except in the case of the
+royal family. And even here it had its origin in the deification of the
+kings during their lifetime.
+
+The prevalence of adoption in Babylonia had a much less recondite cause.
+It was one of the results of the recognition of private property and the
+principle of individual ownership. The head of the family naturally did
+not wish his estate to pass out of it and be transferred to a stranger.
+Wherever monogamy is the general rule, the feeling of family relationship
+is strong, and such was the case among the Babylonians. The feeling shows
+itself in the fact that when inherited land is sold we find other members
+of the family signing their assent by their presence at the sale. The
+father or mother, accordingly, who adopted a child did so with the
+intention of making him their heir, and so keeping the estate they had
+inherited or acquired in the hands of their own kin.
+
+That this is the true explanation of the Babylonian practice of adoption
+is clear from the case mentioned above in which Bel-Katsir was prevented
+from adopting his step-son, because his uncle and adoptive father, whose
+property would then have passed to the latter, objected to his doing so.
+It was entirely a question of inheritance. Bel-Katsir had been adopted in
+order that he might be his uncle’s heir, and consequently the uncle had
+the right of deciding to whom his estate should ultimately go. He
+preferred that it should be the brother of Bel-Katsir, and the brother
+accordingly it was settled to be.
+
+The fact that women could adopt, also points in the same direction. The
+woman was the equal of the man as regards the possession and management of
+property, and like the man, therefore, she could determine who should
+inherit it.
+
+A slave could be adopted as well as a free man. It was one of the ways in
+which a slave obtained his freedom, and contracts for the sale of slaves
+generally guarantee that they have not been adopted into the family of a
+citizen. A curious suit that was brought before a special court at Babylon
+in the tenth year of Nabonidos illustrates the advantage that was
+sometimes taken of the fact. The action was brought against a slave who
+bears the Israelitish name of Barachiel, and may, therefore, have been a
+Jew, and it was tried, not only before the ordinary judges, but before
+special commissioners and “elders” as well. The following is a translation
+of the judgment which was delivered and preserved in the record office:
+
+“Barachiel is the slave of Gagâ, the daughter of … , redeemable with money
+only. In the thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon (570
+B.C.), he was given to Akhi-nuri, son of Nebo-nadin-akhi, as security for
+a debt of twenty-eight shekels. Now he claims that he is the adopted son
+of Bel-rimanni, who has joined the hands of Samas-mudam-miq, the son of
+Nebo-nadin-akhi, and Qudasu, the daughter of Akhi-nuri, in matrimony. The
+case was pleaded before the commissioners, the elders, and the judges of
+Nabonidos, King of Babylon, and the arguments were heard on both sides.
+They read the deeds relating to the servile condition of Barachiel, who
+from the thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, to the
+seventh year of Nabonidos, King of Babylon, had been sold for money, had
+been given as security for a debt, and had been handed over to Nubtâ, the
+daughter of Gagâ, as her dowry—Nubtâ, had afterward, by a sealed deed,
+given him with a house and other slaves to her son, Zamama-iddin, and her
+husband, Nadin-abla—and they said to Barachiel: You have brought an action
+and called yourself an adopted son. Prove to us your adoption. Barachiel
+thereupon confessed: Twice did I run away from the house of my master and
+for many days was not seen. Then I was afraid and pretended to be an
+adopted son. My adoption is non-existent; I was the slave of Gagâ,
+redeemable with money. Nubtâ, her daughter, made a present of me, and by a
+sealed deed transferred me to her son, Zamama-iddin, and her husband,
+Nadin-abla. After the death of Gagâ and Nubtâ, I was sold by sealed
+contract to Itti-Merodach-baladhu, the son of Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of
+Egibi. I will go and [perform each of my duties. The commissioners,] the
+elders, and the judges heard his evidence and restored him to his servile
+condition, and [confirmed] his possession by Samas-mudammiq [the son of
+Nebo-nadin-akhi] and Qudasu, the daughter of Akhi-nuri, who had given him
+as a dowry (to his daughter).” Then follow the names of the judges and
+secretary, and the date and place where the judgment was delivered, two of
+the judges further affixing their seals to the document, as well as a
+certain Kiribtu who calls himself “the shield-bearer,” but who was
+probably one of the commissioners sent to investigate the case.
+
+After a slave had been adopted, it was in the power of the adoptive father
+to cancel the act of adoption and reduce him to his former state of
+servitude if he had not performed his part of the contract and the parties
+who had witnessed it were willing that it should be cancelled. We learn
+this from a deed that was drawn up in the thirteenth year of Nabonidos.
+Here we read:
+
+“Iqisa-abla, the son of Kudurru, the son of Nur-Sin, sealed a deed by
+which he adopted his servant, Rimanni-Bel, usually called Rimut, in return
+for his receiving food and clothing from Rimanni-Bel. But Rimanni-Bel,
+usually called Rimut, has violated the contract ever since the deed by
+which he was adopted was sealed, and has given neither food, oil, nor
+clothing, whereas Ê-Saggil-ramat, the daughter of Ziria, the son of Nabâ,
+the wife of Nadin-Merodach, the son of Iqisa-abla, the son of Nur-Sin, has
+taken her father-in-law, has housed him, and has been kind to him and has
+provided him with food, oil, and clothing. Iqisa-abla, the son of Kudurru,
+the son of Nur-Sin, has, therefore, of his own free will, cancelled the
+deed of adoption, and by a sealed deed has given Rimanni-Bel to wait upon
+Ê-Saggil-ramat and Nubtâ, the daughter of Ê-Saggil-ramat and
+Nadin-Merodach, the grandson of Nur-Sin; Ê-Saggil-ramat and Nubtâ, her
+daughter, shall he obey. After the death of Ê-Saggil-ramat he shall wait
+on Nubtâ, her daughter. Whoever shall change these words and shall destroy
+the deed which Iqisa-abla has drawn up and given to Ê-Saggil-ramat and
+Nubtâ, her daughter, may Merodach and the goddess Zarpanit denounce
+judgment upon him!” Then come the names of four witnesses and the clerk,
+the date and place of writing, and the statement that the deed was
+indented in the presence of Bissâ, the daughter of Iqisa-abla.
+
+It is clear that the testator had little or no property of his own, and
+that he was too old, or otherwise incapacitated, to earn anything for
+himself. It is also clear that the adopted slave, who is described by the
+milder term _gallu_, or “servant,” had acquired some wealth, and that this
+was the motive for his adoption. He, however, deserted and neglected his
+adopted father after his freedom had been secured to him, and thereby
+failed to carry out his part of the contract. Iqisa-abla accordingly had
+the legal right to break it also on his side.
+
+One of the effects of the system of adoption was to give the privileges of
+Babylonian citizenship to a good many foreigners. The foreign origin of
+Barachiel, as evidenced by his name, was no obstacle to his claim to be a
+citizen, and the numerous contracts in which it is certified of a foreign
+slave that he has never been adopted prove the fact conclusively. A
+commercial community cannot afford to be exclusive on the ground of race
+and nationality.
+
+Such, then, was the family system in the Babylonia of the historical
+period. Polygamy was rare, and the married woman possessed full rights
+over her property and could employ or bequeath it as she chose. The dowry
+she brought from her father or other near relation made her practically
+independent of her husband. Sons and daughters alike were able to inherit,
+and the possessor of property had the power of making a will. The law
+seems to have placed but few restrictions upon the way in which he could
+bestow his wealth. A family could be increased or prevented from dying out
+by means of adoption, and new blood could thus be introduced into it.
+
+The rights and duties of the individual were fully recognized; it was with
+him alone that the law had to deal. Nevertheless, a few traces survived of
+that doctrine of the solidarity of the family which had preceded the
+development of individual ownership and freedom of action. The bride was
+given in marriage by her parents, or, failing these, by her nearest male
+relations, and when an estate was sold which had long been in the
+possession of a certain family, it was customary for the rest of the
+family to signify their consent by attending the sale. We may gather,
+however, that the sale was not invalidated if the consent was not
+obtained. In the older days of Babylonian history, moreover, it was usual
+for the property of a deceased citizen to be divided among his heirs
+without the intervention of a will. It went in the first instance to his
+widow, and was then divided equally among his children, whether body heirs
+or adopted ones, the eldest son alone receiving an additional share in
+return for administering the estate. But disputes frequently arose over
+the division, and the members of the family went to law with one another.
+In such cases it became the custom to place the whole of the property in
+the hands of the priests of the city-temple, who thus corresponded to the
+English Court of Chancery, and made the division as they judged best. The
+results, however, were not always satisfactory, and it was doubtless in
+order to avoid both the litigation and the necessity of appointing
+executors who were not members of the family, that the will came to play
+so important a part in the succession to property. In bequeathing his
+possessions the head of the family was expected to observe the usual rule
+of division, but it ceased to be obligatory to do so.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. EDUCATION AND DEATH
+
+
+One of the lesson-books used in the Babylonian nursery contains the
+beginning of a story, written in Sumerian and translated into Semitic,
+which describes the adventures of a foundling who was picked up in the
+streets and adopted by the King. We are told that he was taken “from the
+mouth of the dogs and ravens,” and was then brought to the _asip_ or
+“prophet,” who marked the soles of his feet with his seal. What the
+precise object of this procedure was it is difficult to say, but the
+custom is alluded to in the Old Testament (Job xiii. 27). Certain tribes
+in the south of China still brand the soles of a boy’s feet, for the
+purpose, it is said, of testing his strength and hardihood.
+
+After the operation was performed the boy was handed over to a “nurse,” to
+whom his “bread, food, shirt, and (other) clothing were assured for three
+years.” At the same time, we may assume, he received a name. This giving
+of a name was an important event in the child’s life. Like other nations
+of antiquity the Babylonians conformed the name with the person who bore
+it; it not only represented him, but in a sense was actually himself.
+Magical properties were ascribed to the name, and it thus became of
+importance to know what names were good or bad, lucky or unlucky. An
+unlucky name brought evil fortune to its possessor, a lucky name secured
+his success in life. A change of name influenced a man’s career; and the
+same superstitious belief which caused the Cape of Storms to become the
+Cape of Good Hope not unfrequently occasioned a person’s name to be
+altered among the nations of the ancient East.
+
+The gods themselves were affected by the names they bore. A knowledge of
+the secret and ineffable name of a deity was the key to a knowledge of his
+inner essence and attributes, and conferred a power over him upon the
+fortunate possessor of it. The patron god of the dynasty to which
+Khammurabi belonged was spoken of as “the Name,” Sumu or Samu, the Shem of
+the Old Testament; his real title was too sacred to be uttered in speech.
+The name of a thing was the thing itself, and so too the name of a god or
+person was the actual god or person to whom it was attached.
+
+A large proportion of Babylonian names includes the name of some divinity.
+In spite of their length and unwieldiness they tended to increase in
+number as time went on. In ordinary life, however, they were frequently
+shortened. In the contract given in the last chapter, the slave
+Rimanni-Bel is said to have been usually called Rimut, the one name
+signifying “Love me, O Bel,” the other “Love.” In other instances we find
+Samas-musezib contracted into Samsiya and Suzub, Kabti-ilâni-Merodach into
+Kabtiya, Nebo-tabni-uzur into Tabniya. The Belesys of Greek writers is the
+Babylonian Balasu, which is a shortened form of Merodach-balasu-iqbi, and
+Baladan, which is given in the Old Testament as the name of the father of
+Merodach-baladan, has lost the name of the god with which it must
+originally have begun.
+
+Sometimes a change in the form of the name was due to its being of foreign
+origin and consequently mispronounced by the Babylonians, who assimilated
+it to words in their own language. Thus Sargon of Akkad was properly
+called Sargani, “The Strong One,” or, more fully, Sargani-sar-ali,
+“Sargani, the King of the City,” but his Sumerian subjects turned this
+into Sar-gina or Sargon, “The Established King.” The grandson of
+Khammurabi bore the Canaanitish name of Abesukh, the Abishua of the
+Israelites, “The Father of Welfare,” but it was transformed by the
+Babylonians into Ebisum, which in their own dialect meant “The Actor.”
+Eri-Aku or Arioch was an Elamite name signifying “The Servant of the
+Moon-god;” the Babylonians changed it into Rim-Sin and perhaps even
+Rim-Anu, “Love, O Moon-god,” “Love, O Sky-god.”
+
+At other times the name was changed for political or superstitious
+reasons. When the successful general Pul usurped the throne of Assyria he
+adopted the name of one of the most famous of the kings of the older
+dynasty, Tiglath-pileser. His successor, another usurper, called Ululâ,
+similarly adopted the name of Shalmaneser, another famous king of the
+earlier dynasty. It is probable that Sargon, who was also a usurper,
+derived his name from Sargon of Akkad, and that his own name was
+originally something else. Sennacherib tells us that Esar-haddon had a
+second name, or surname, by which he was known to his neighbors. In this
+respect he was like Solomon of Israel, who was also called Jedidiah.
+
+It is doubtful whether circumcision was practised in Babylonia. There is
+no reference to it in the inscriptions, nor is it mentioned by classical
+writers as among Babylonian customs. In fact, the words of the Greek
+historian Herodotus seem to exclude the practice, as the Babylonians are
+not one of the nations of Western Asia who are said by him to have learnt
+the rite from the Egyptians. Moreover, Abraham and his family were not
+circumcised until long after he had left Babylonia and had established
+himself in Canaan. Africa, rather than Asia, seems to have been the
+original home of the rite.
+
+If the boy were the son of well-to-do parents he was sent to school at an
+early age. One of the texts which, in Sumerian days, was written as a
+head-line in his copy-book declared that “He who would excel in the school
+of the scribes must rise like the dawn.” Girls also shared in the
+education given to their brothers. Among the Babylonian letters that have
+been preserved are some from ladies, and the very fact that women could
+transact business on their own account implies that they could read and
+write. Thus the following letter, written from Babylon by a lover to his
+mistress at Sippara, assumes that she could read it and return an answer:
+“To the lady Kasbeya thus says Gimil-Merodach: May the Sun-god and
+Merodach, for my sake, grant thee everlasting life! I am writing to
+enquire after your health; please send me news of it. I am living at
+Babylon, but have not seen you, which troubles me greatly. Send me news of
+your arrival, so that I may be happy. Come in the month Marchesvan. May
+you live forever, for my sake!” The Tel-el-Amarna collection actually
+contains letters from a lady to the Egyptian Pharaoh. One of them is as
+follows: “To the king my lord, my gods, my sun-god, thus says Nin, thy
+handmaid: At the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my sun-god, seven
+times seven I prostrate myself. The king my lord knows that there is war
+in the land, and that all the country of the king my lord has revolted to
+the Bedâwin. But the king my lord has knowledge of his country, and the
+king my lord knows that the Bedâwin have sent to the city of Ajalon and to
+the city of Zorah, and have made mischief (and have intrigued with) the
+two sons of Malchiel; and let the king my lord take knowledge of this
+fact.”
+
+The oracles delivered to Esar-haddon by the prophetesses of Arbela are in
+writing, and we have no grounds for thinking that they were written down
+by an uninspired pen. Indeed, the “bit riduti,” or “place of education,”
+where Assur-bani-pal tells us he had been brought up, was the woman’s part
+of the palace. The instructors, however, were men, and part of the boy’s
+education, we are informed, consisted in his being taught to shoot with
+the bow and to practise other bodily exercises. But the larger part of his
+time was given to learning how to read and write. The acquisition of the
+cuneiform system of writing was a task of labor and difficulty which
+demanded years of patient application. A vast number of characters had to
+be learned by heart. They were conventional signs, often differing but
+slightly from one another, with nothing about them that could assist the
+memory; moreover, their forms varied in different styles of writing, as
+much as Latin, Gothic, and cursive forms of type differ among ourselves,
+and all these the pupil was expected to know. Every character had more
+than one phonetic value; many of them, indeed, had several, while they
+could also be used ideographically to express objects and ideas. But this
+was not all. A knowledge of the cuneiform syllabary necessitated also a
+knowledge of the language of the Sumerians, who had been its inventors,
+and it frequently happened that a group of characters which had expressed
+a Sumerian word was retained in the later script with the pronunciation of
+the corresponding Semitic word attached to them, though the latter had
+nothing to do with the phonetic values of the several signs, whether
+pronounced singly or as a whole.
+
+The children, however, must have been well taught. This is clear from the
+remarkably good spelling which we find in the private letters; it is
+seldom that words are misspelt. The language may be conversational, or
+even dialectic, but the words are written correctly. The school-books that
+have survived bear testimony to the attention that had been given to
+improving the educational system. Every means was adopted for lessening
+the labor of the student and imprinting the lesson upon his mind. The
+cuneiform characters had been classified and named; they had also been
+arranged according to the number and position of the separate wedges of
+which they consisted. Dictionaries had been compiled of Sumerian words and
+expressions, as well as lists of Semitic synonyms. Even grammars had been
+drawn up, in which the grammatical forms of the old language of Sumer were
+interpreted in Semitic Babylonian. There were reading-books filled with
+extracts from the standard literature of the country. Most of this was in
+Sumerian; but the Sumerian text was provided with a Semitic translation,
+sometimes interlinear, sometimes in a parallel column. Commentaries,
+moreover, had been written upon the works of ancient authors, in which
+difficult or obsolete terms were explained. The pupils were trained to
+write exercises, either from a copy placed before them or from memory.
+These exercises served a double purpose—they taught the pupil how to write
+and spell, as well as the subject which the exercise illustrated. A list
+of the kings of the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged has come to us,
+for instance, in one of them. In this way history and geography were
+impressed upon the student’s memory, together with extracts from the poets
+and prose-writers of the past.
+
+The writing material was clay. Papyrus, it is true, was occasionally used,
+but it was expensive, while clay literally lay under the feet of everyone.
+While the clay was still soft, the cuneiform or “wedge-shaped” characters
+were engraved upon it by means of a stylus. They had originally been
+pictorial, but when the use of clay was adopted the pictures necessarily
+degenerated into groups of wedge-like lines, every curve becoming an angle
+formed by the junction of two lines. As time went on, the characters were
+more and more simplified, the number of wedges of which they consisted
+being reduced and only so many left as served to distinguish one sign from
+another. The simplification reached its extreme point in the official
+script of Assyria.
+
+At first the clay tablet after being inscribed was allowed to dry in the
+sun. But sun-dried clay easily crumbles, and the fashion accordingly grew
+up of baking the tablet in a kiln. In Assyria, where the heat of the sun
+was not so great as in the southern kingdom of Babylonia, the tablet was
+invariably baked, holes being first drilled in it to allow the escape of
+the moisture and to prevent it from cracking. Some of the early Babylonian
+tablets were of great size, and it is wonderful that they have lasted to
+our own days. But the larger the tablet, the more difficult it was to bake
+it safely, and consequently the most of the tablets are of small size. As
+it was often necessary to compress a long text into this limited space,
+the writing became more and more minute, and in many cases a magnifying
+glass is needed to read it properly. That such glasses were really used by
+the Assyrians is proved by Layard’s discovery of a magnifying lens at
+Nineveh. The lens, which is of crystal, has been turned on a lathe, and is
+now in the British Museum. But even with the help of lenses, the study of
+the cuneiform tablets encouraged short sight, which must have been common
+in the Babylonian schools. In the case of Assur-bani-pal this was
+counteracted by the out-of-door exercises in which he was trained, and it
+is probable that similar exercises were also customary in Babylonia.
+
+A book generally consisted of several tablets, which may consequently be
+compared with our chapters. At the end of each tablet was a colophon
+stating what was its number in the series to which it belonged, and giving
+the first line of the next tablet. The series received its name from the
+words with which it began; thus the fourth tablet or chapter of the “Epic
+of the Creation” states that it contains “one hundred and forty-six lines
+of the fourth tablet (of the work beginning) ‘When on high
+unproclaimed,’ ” and adds the first line of the tablet which follows.
+Catalogues were made of the standard books to be found in a library,
+giving the name of the author and the first line of each; so that it was
+easy for the reader or librarian to find both the work he wanted and the
+particular chapter in it he wished to consult. The books were arranged on
+shelves; M. de Sarzec discovered about 32,000 of them at Tello in Southern
+Chaldea still in the order in which they had been put in the age of Gudea
+(2700 B.C.).
+
+Literature of every kind was represented. History and chronology,
+geography and law, private and public correspondence, despatches from
+generals and proclamations of the king, philology and mathematics, natural
+science in the shape of lists of bears and birds, insects and stones,
+astronomy and astrology, theology and the pseudo-science of omens, all
+found a place on the shelves, as well as poems and purely literary works.
+Copies of deeds and contracts, of legal decisions, and even inventories of
+the property of private individuals, were also stored in the libraries of
+Babylonia and Assyria, which were thus libraries and archive-chambers in
+one. In Babylonia every great city had its collection of books, and
+scribes were kept constantly employed in it, copying and re-editing the
+older literature, or providing new works for readers. The re-editing was
+done with scrupulous care. Where a character was lost in the original text
+by a fracture of the tablet, the copyist stated the fact, and added
+whether the loss was recent or not. Where the form of the character was
+uncertain, both the signs which it resembled are given. Some idea may be
+formed of the honesty and care with which the Babylonian scribes worked
+from the fact that the compiler of the Babylonian Chronicle, which
+contains a synopsis of later Babylonian history, frankly states that he
+does “not know” the date of the battle of Khalulê, which was fought
+between the Babylonians and Sennacherib. The materials at his disposal did
+not enable him to settle it. It so happens that we are in a more fortunate
+position, as we are able to fix it with the help of the annals of the
+Assyrian King.
+
+New texts were eagerly collected. The most precious spoils sent to
+Assur-bani-pal after the capture of the revolted Babylonian cities were
+tablets containing works which the library of Nineveh did not possess. The
+Babylonians and Assyrians made war upon men, not upon books, which were,
+moreover, under the protection of the gods. The library was usually within
+the walls of a temple; sometimes it was part of the archives of the temple
+itself. Hence the copying of a text was often undertaken as a pious work,
+which brought down upon the scribe the blessing of heaven and even the
+remission of his sins. That the library was open to the public we may
+infer from the character of some of the literature contained in it. This
+included private letters as well as contracts and legal documents which
+could be interesting only to the parties whom they concerned.
+
+The school must have been attached to the library, and was probably an
+adjacent building. This will explain the existence of the school-exercises
+which have come from the library of Nineveh, as well as the reading-books
+and other scholastic literature which were stored within it. At the same
+time, when we remember the din of an oriental school, where the pupils
+shout their lessons at the top of their voices, it is impossible to
+suppose that the scribes and readers would have been within ear-shot. Nor
+was it probable that there was only one school in a town of any size. The
+practice of herding large numbers of boys or girls together in a single
+school-house is European rather than Asiatic.
+
+The school in later times developed into a university. At Borsippa, the
+suburb of Babylon, where the library had been established in the temple of
+Nebo, we learn from Strabo that a university also existed which had
+attained great celebrity. From a fragment of a Babylonian medical work,
+now in the British Museum, we may perhaps infer that it was chiefly
+celebrated as a school of medicine.
+
+In Assyria education was mainly confined to the upper classes. The trading
+classes were perforce obliged to learn how to read and write; so also were
+the officials and all those who looked forward to a career in the
+diplomatic service. But learning was regarded as peculiarly the profession
+of the scribes, who constituted a special class and occupied an important
+position in the bureaucracy. They acted as clerks and secretaries in the
+various departments of state, and stereotyped a particular form of
+cuneiform script, which we may call the chancellor’s hand, and which,
+through their influence, was used throughout the country. In Babylonia it
+was otherwise. Here a knowledge of writing was far more widely spread, and
+one of the results was that varieties of handwriting became as numerous as
+they are in the modern world. The absence of a professional class of
+scribes prevented any one official hand from becoming universal. We find
+even the son of an “irrigator,” one of the poorest and lowest members of
+the community, copying a portion of the “Epic of the Creation,” and
+depositing it in the library of Borsippa for the good of his soul. Indeed,
+the contract tablets show that the slaves themselves could often read and
+write. The literary tendencies of Assur-bani-pal doubtless did much toward
+the spread of education in Assyria, but the latter years of his life were
+troubled by disastrous wars, and the Assyrian empire and kingdom came to
+an end soon after his death.
+
+Education, as we have seen, meant a good deal more than merely learning
+the cuneiform characters. It meant, in the case of the Semitic Babylonians
+and Assyrians, learning the ancient agglutinative language of Sumer as
+well. In later times this language ceased to be spoken except in learned
+society, and consequently bore the same relation to Semitic Babylonian
+that Latin bears to English. In learning Sumerian, therefore, the
+Babylonian learned what was equivalent to Latin in the modern world. And
+the mode of teaching it was much the same. There were the same paradigms
+to be committed to memory, the same lists of words and phrases to be
+learned by heart, the same extracts from the authors of the past to be
+stored up in the mind. Even the “Hamiltonian” system of learning a dead
+language had already been invented. Exercises were set in translation from
+Sumerian into Babylonian, and from Babylonian into Sumerian, and the
+specimens of the latter which have survived to us show that “dog-Latin”
+was not unknown.
+
+But the dead language of Sumer was not all that the educated Babylonian or
+Assyrian gentlemen of later times was called upon to know. In the eighth
+century before our era Aramaic had become the common medium of trade and
+diplomacy. If Sumerian was the Latin of the Babylonian world, Aramaic was
+its French. The Aramaic dialects seem to have been the result of a contact
+between the Semitic languages of Arabia and Canaan, and the rising
+importance of the tribes who spoke them and who occupied Mesopotamia and
+Northern Arabia caused them to become the language of trade. Aramaic
+merchants were settled on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, and
+conveyed the products of Babylonia and Phœnicia from one country to the
+other. Many of the commercial firms in Babylonia were of Aramaic origin,
+and it was natural that some part at least of their business should have
+been carried on in the language of their fathers.
+
+Hence it was that, when the Rab-shakeh or Vizier of Sennacherib appeared
+before Jerusalem and summoned its inhabitants to submit to the Assyrian
+King, he was asked by the ministers of Hezekiah to speak in “Aramæan.” It
+was taken for granted that Aramaic was known to an Assyrian official and
+diplomatist just as it was to the Jewish officials themselves. The
+Rab-shakeh, however, knew the Hebrew language as well, and found it more
+to his purpose to use it in addressing the Jews.
+
+Here, then, we have an Assyrian officer who is acquainted not only with
+Sumerian, but also with two of the living languages of Western Asia. And
+yet he was not a scribe; he did not belong to the professional class of
+learned men. Nothing can show more clearly the advanced state of education
+even in the military kingdom of Assyria. In Babylonia learning had always
+been honored; from the days of Sargon of Akkad onward the sons of the
+reigning king did not disdain to be secretaries and librarians.
+
+The linguistic training undergone in the schools gave the Babylonian a
+taste for philology. He not only compiled vocabularies of the extinct
+Sumerian, which were needed for practical reasons, he also explained the
+meaning of the names of the foreign kings who had reigned over Babylonia,
+and from time to time noted the signification of words belonging to the
+various languages by which he was surrounded. Thus one of the tablets we
+possess contains a list of Kassite or Kossean words with their
+signification; in other cases we have Mitannian, Elamite, and Canaanite
+words quoted, with their meanings attached to them. Nor did the
+philological curiosity of the scribe end here. He busied himself with the
+etymology of the words in his own language, and just as a couple of
+centuries ago our own dictionary-makers endeavored to find derivations for
+all English words, whatever their source, in Latin and Greek, so, too, the
+Babylonian etymologist believed that the venerable language of Sumer was
+the key to the origin of his own. Many of the words in Semitic Babylonian
+were indeed derived from it, and accordingly Sumerian etymologies were
+found for other words which were purely Semitic. The word _Sabattu_, “the
+Sabbath,” for instance, was derived from the Sumerian _Sa_, “heart,” and
+_bat_, “to cease,” and so interpreted to mean the day on which “the heart
+ceased” from its labors.
+
+History, too, was a favorite subject of study. Like the Hebrews, the
+Assyrians were distinguished by a keen historical sense which stands in
+curious contrast to the want of it which characterized the Egyptian. The
+Babylonians also were distinguished by the same quality, though perhaps to
+a less extent than their Assyrian neighbors, whose somewhat pedantic
+accuracy led them to state the exact numbers of the slain and captive in
+every small skirmish, and the name of every petty prince with whom they
+came into contact, and who had invented a system of accurately registering
+dates at a very early period. Nevertheless, the Babylonian was also a
+historian; the necessities of trade had obliged him to date his deeds and
+contracts from the earliest age of his history, and to compile lists of
+kings and dynasties for reference in case of a disputed title to property.
+The historical honesty to which he had been trained is illustrated by the
+author of the Babylonian Chronicle in the passage relating to the battle
+of Khalulê, which has been already alluded to. The last king of Babylonia
+was himself an antiquarian, and had a passion for excavating and
+discovering the records of the monarchs who had built the great temples of
+Chaldea.
+
+Law, again, must have been much studied, and so, too, was theology. The
+library of Nineveh, however, from which so much of our information has
+come, gives us an exaggerated idea of the extent to which the
+pseudo-science of omens and portents was cultivated. Its royal patron was
+a believer in them, and apparently more interested in the subject than in
+any other. Consequently, the number of books relating to it are out of all
+proportion to the rest of the literature in the library. But this was an
+accident, due to the predilections of Assur-bani-pal himself.
+
+The study of omens and portents was a branch of science and not of
+theology, false though the science was. But it was based upon the
+scientific principle that every antecedent has a consequent, its fallacy
+consisting in a confusion between real causes and mere antecedents.
+Certain events had been observed to follow certain phenomena; it was
+accordingly assumed that they were the results of the phenomena, and that
+were the phenomena to happen again they would be followed by the same
+results. Hence all extraordinary or unusual occurrences were carefully
+noted, together with whatever had been observed to come after them. A
+strange dog, for instance, had been observed to enter a palace and there
+lie down on a couch; as no disaster took place subsequently it was
+believed that if the occurrence was repeated it would be an omen of good
+fortune. On the other hand, the fall of a house had been preceded by the
+birth of a child without a mouth; the same result, it was supposed, would
+again accompany the same presage of evil. These pseudo-scientific
+observations had been commenced at a very early period of Babylonian
+history, and were embodied in a great work which was compiled for the
+library of Sargon of Akkad.
+
+Another work compiled for the same library, and containing observations
+which started from a similarly fallacious theory, was one in seventy-two
+books on the pseudo-science of astrology, which was called “The
+Illumination of Bel.” But in this case the observations were not wholly
+useless. The study of astrology was intermixed with that of astronomy, of
+which Babylonia may be considered to be the birthplace. The heavens had
+been mapped out and the stars named; the sun’s course along the ecliptic
+had been divided into the twelve zodiacal signs, and a fairly accurate
+calendar had been constructed. Hundreds of observations had been made of
+the eclipses of the sun and moon, and the laws regulating them had been so
+far ascertained that, first, eclipses of the moon, and then, but with a
+greater element of uncertainty, eclipses of the sun, were able to be
+predicted. One of the chapters or books in the “Illumination of Bel” was
+devoted to an account of comets, another dealt with conjunctions of the
+sun and moon. There were also tables of observations relating to the
+synodic revolution of the moon and the synodic periods of the planet
+Venus. The year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, an
+intercalary month being inserted from time to time to rectify the
+resulting error in the length of the year. The months had been originally
+called after the signs of the zodiac, whose names have come down to
+ourselves with comparatively little change. But by the side of the lunar
+year the Babylonians also used a sidereal year, the star Capella being
+taken as a fixed point in the sky, from which the distance of the sun
+could be measured at the beginning of the year, the moon being used as a
+mere pointer for the purpose. At a later date, however, this mode of
+determining time was abandoned, and the new year was made directly
+dependent on the vernal equinox. The month was subdivided into weeks of
+seven days, each of which was consecrated to a particular deity.
+
+These deities were further identified with the stars. The fact that the
+sun and moon, as well as the evening and morning stars, were already
+worshipped as divinities doubtless led the way to this system of
+astro-theology. But it seems never to have spread beyond the learned
+classes and to have remained to the last an artificial system. The mass of
+the people worshipped the stars as a whole, but it was only as a whole and
+not individually. Their identification with the gods of the state religion
+might be taught in the schools and universities, but it had no meaning for
+the nation at large.
+
+From the beginning of the Babylonian’s life we now pass to the end. Unlike
+the Egyptian he had no desert close at hand in which to bury his dead, no
+limestone cliffs, as in Palestine, wherein a tomb might be excavated. It
+was necessary that the burial should be in the plain of Babylonia, the
+same plain as that in which he lived, and with which the overflow of the
+rivers was constantly infiltrating. The consequences were twofold. On the
+one hand, the tomb had to be constructed of brick, for stone was not
+procurable; on the other hand, sanitary reasons made cremation imperative.
+The Babylonian corpse was burned as well as buried, and the brick
+sepulchre that was raised above it adjoined the cities of the living.
+
+The corpse was carried to the grave on a bier, accompanied by the
+mourners. Among these the wailing women were prominent, who tore their
+hair and threw dust upon their heads. The cemetery to which the dead was
+carried was a city in itself, to which the Sumerians had given the name of
+Ki-makh or “vast place.” It was laid out in streets, the tombs on either
+side answering to the houses of a town. Not infrequently gardens were
+planted before them, while rivulets of “living water” flowed through the
+streets and were at times conducted into the tomb. The water symbolized
+the life that the pious Babylonian hoped to enjoy in the world to come. It
+relieved the thirst of the spirit in the underground world of Hades, where
+an old myth had declared that “dust only was its food,” and it was at the
+same time an emblem of those “waters of life” which were believed to
+bubble up beneath the throne of the goddess of the dead.
+
+When the corpse reached the cemetery it was laid upon the ground wrapped
+in mats of reed and covered with asphalt. It was still dressed in the
+clothes and ornaments that had been worn during life. The man had his seal
+and his weapons of bronze or stone; the woman her spindle-wheel and
+thread; the child his necklace of shells. In earlier times all was then
+thickly coated with clay, above which branches of palm, terebinth, and
+other trees were placed, and the whole was set on fire. At a more recent
+period ovens of brick were constructed in which the corpse was put in its
+coffin of clay and reeds, but withdrawn before cremation was complete. The
+skeletons of the dead are consequently often found in a fair state of
+preservation, as well as the objects which were buried with them.
+
+While the body was being burned offerings were made, partly to the gods,
+partly to the dead man himself. They consisted of dates, calves and sheep,
+birds and fish, which were consumed along with the corpse. Certain words
+were recited at the same time, derived for the most part from the sacred
+books of ancient Sumer.
+
+After the ceremony was over a portion of the ashes was collected and
+deposited in an urn, if the cremation had been complete. In the later
+days, when this was not the case, the half-burnt body was allowed to
+remain on the spot where it had been laid, and an aperture was made in the
+shell of clay with which it was covered. The aperture was intended to
+allow a free passage to the spirit of the dead, so that it might leave its
+burial-place to enjoy the food and water that were brought to it. Over the
+whole a tomb was built of bricks, similar to that in which the urn was
+deposited when the body was completely burned.
+
+The tombs of the rich resembled the houses in which they had lived on
+earth and contained many chambers. In these their bodies were cremated and
+interred. Sometimes a house was occupied by a single corpse only; at other
+times it became a family burial-place, where the bodies were laid in
+separate chambers. Sometimes tombstones were set up commemorating the name
+and deeds of the deceased; at other times statues representing them were
+erected instead.
+
+The tomb had a door, like a house, through which the relatives and friends
+of the dead man passed from time to time in order to furnish him with the
+food and sustenance needed by his spirit in the world below. Vases were
+placed in the sepulchre, filled with dates and grain, wine and oil, while
+the rivulet which flowed beside it provided water in abundance. All this
+was required in that underworld where popular belief pictured the dead as
+flitting like bats in the gloom and darkness, and where the heroes of old
+time sat, strengthless and ghostlike, on their shadowy thrones.
+
+The kings were allowed to be burned and buried in the palace in which they
+had lived and ruled. We read of one of them that he was interred in “the
+palace of Sargon” of Akkad, of another that his burial had taken place in
+the palace he himself had erected. A similar privilege was granted to
+their subjects only by royal permission.
+
+Want of space caused the tombs of the dead to be built one upon the other,
+as generations passed away and the older sepulchres crumbled into dust.
+The cemetery thus resembled the city; here, too, one generation built upon
+the ruins of its predecessor. The houses and tombs were alike constructed
+of sun-dried bricks, which soon disintegrate and form a mound of dust. The
+age of a cemetery, like the age of a city, may accordingly be measured by
+the number of successive layers of building of which its mound or platform
+is composed. In Babylonia they are numerous, for the history of the
+country goes back to a remote past. Each city clustered round a temple,
+venerable for its antiquity as well as for its sanctity, and the cemetery
+which stood near it was consequently under the protection of its god. At
+Cutha the necropolis was so vast that Nergal, the god of the town, came to
+be known as the “lord of the dead.” But the cemeteries of other towns were
+also of enormous size. Western Asia had received its culture and the
+elements of its theology from Babylonia, and Babylonia consequently was a
+sacred land not only to the Babylonians themselves, but to all those who
+shared their civilization. The very soil was holy ground; Assyrians as
+well as Babylonians desired that their bodies should rest in it. Here they
+were in the charge, as it were, of Bel of Nippur or Merodach of Babylon,
+and within sight of the ancient sanctuaries in which those gods were
+worshipped. This explains in part the size of the cemeteries; the length
+of time during which they were used will explain the rest. As Dr. Peters
+says of each:(4) “It is difficult to convey anything like a correct notion
+of the piles upon piles of human relics which there utterly astound the
+spectator. Excepting only the triangular space between the three principal
+ruins, the whole remainder of the platform, the whole space between the
+walls, and an unknown extent of desert beyond them, are everywhere filled
+with the bones and sepulchres of the dead. There is probably no other site
+in the world which can compare with Warka in this respect.”
+
+Babylonia is still a holy land to the people of Western Asia. The old
+feeling in regard to it still survives, and the bodies of the dead are
+still carried, sometimes for hundreds of miles, to be buried in its sacred
+soil. Mohammedan saints have taken the place of the old gods, and a Moslem
+chapel represents the temple of the past, but it is still to Babylonia
+that the corpse is borne, often covered by costly rugs which find their
+way in time to an American or European drawing-room. “The old order
+changes, giving place to new,” but the influence of Chaldean culture and
+religion is not yet past.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. SLAVERY AND THE FREE LABORER
+
+
+Slavery was part of the foundation upon which Babylonian society rested.
+But between slavery as it existed in the ancient oriental world and
+slavery in the Roman or modern world there was a great difference. The
+slave was often of the same race as his master, sometimes of the same
+nationality, speaking the same language and professing the same religion.
+He was regarded as one of the family, and was not infrequently adopted
+into it. He could become a free citizen and rise to the highest offices of
+state. Slavery was no bar to his promotion, nor did it imprint any stigma
+upon him. He was frequently a skilled artisan and even possessed literary
+knowledge. Between his habits and level of culture and those of his owners
+was no marked distinction, no prejudices to be overcome on account of his
+color, no conviction of his inferiority in race. He was brought up with
+the rest of the family to which he was considered to belong and was in
+hourly contact with them. Moreover, the large number of slaves had been
+captives in war. A reverse of fortune might consign their present masters
+to the same lot; history knew of instances in which master and slave had
+changed places with one another. There were some slaves, too, who were
+Babylonians by birth; the law allowed the parent to sell his child, the
+brother his sister, or the creditor his debtor under certain
+circumstances, and the old Sumerian legislation ordained that a son who
+denied his father should be shorn and sold as a slave. In times of famine
+or necessity a man even sold himself to be quit of a debt or to obtain the
+means of subsistence. A slave was always fed and clothed; the free laborer
+at times could get neither food nor clothing.
+
+There were three classes of slaves—those who were the property of a
+private individual, the serfs who were attached to the soil which they
+cultivated, and the temple slaves who had been dedicated to the service of
+the gods. Of the second class but few traces are found in Babylonia.
+Agriculture was carried on there either by free laborers, or by the slaves
+of the private land-owners. Where the land belonged to priests, it was of
+course usually the temple slaves who tilled it. What was the exact legal
+position of the Jews and other exiles who were transported to Babylonia by
+Nebuchadnezzar we do not know, but they were neither serfs nor slaves. The
+practice of transportation had been borrowed from Assyria, and under the
+Assyrian system the exiled population was treated as a colony. Israelites
+appear among the Assyrian officials in contracts of the second Assyrian
+empire, and Jewish names are found in the Babylonian contracts of the age
+of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors.
+
+The Babylonians were not a military people, and after the Kassite conquest
+their wars of aggression were not sufficiently numerous or extensive to
+provide them with a supply of captives who could be made into slaves.
+Slave-merchants are rarely, if ever, referred to in the Babylonian
+contract tablets, and the slaves must have been home-born, the children
+and descendants of those who had been slaves before them. In the age of
+Abraham it was doubtless different. Then the power of Babylonia extended
+throughout Western Asia, and the constant wars in the East and West must
+have filled the market with foreign captives. The white slaves brought
+from Kurdistan and the north were especially prized. Thus in the reign of
+Ammi-Zadok, the fourth successor of Khammurabi, some “white Kurdish
+slaves” were sold for 3 homers and 24⅔ _qas_ of oil, which were valued at
+20⅔ shekels, and in the time of his son Samsu-ditana “a white slave” from
+Suri or Northern Mesopotamia fetched as much as 20 shekels, or £3.
+
+The earliest code of Sumerian laws known to us takes the slave under its
+protection. It assumes the principle that the life of the slave is not
+absolutely at his master’s disposal, and enacts that, if the slave is
+killed, beaten, maimed, or injured in health, the hand that has so
+offended shall pay each day a measure of wheat. This must mean that the
+payment shall be continued until the slave recovers from his
+ill-treatment. Light is thrown upon it by a later Babylonian law,
+according to which, if the services of a slave have been hired by a second
+person and the slave falls ill or is otherwise rendered incapable of work,
+the hirer is fined for as long a time as the illness or incapacity
+continues. The object of the law is clear. It was intended to prevent the
+slave from being overworked by one who had not, as it were, a family
+interest in him. It protected the slave and at the same time protected the
+master to whom he belonged.
+
+There are several instances of its application. Thus in the eighth year of
+Cyrus a slave named Nidinti was apprenticed for six years by his master
+and mistress to a certain Libludh in order that he might learn the trade
+of fulling. It was stipulated that he was to learn it thoroughly, and if
+at any time he was unable to work Libludh was to pay each day 3 _qas_ (or
+about 4½ quarts) of wheat for his support. At the end of the period, when
+the trade had been learned, Libludh was to receive a cloth worth 4 shekels
+(12 s.) and hand over Nidinti to the service of the Sun-god of Sippara. In
+the same year another slave was apprenticed to the stone-cutter Quddâ, who
+was himself a slave and belonged to the heir-apparent, Cambyses. Quddâ
+undertook to teach his trade to the apprentice in four years, and if he
+failed to do so was to be fined 20 shekels. Six years earlier Qubtâ, the
+daughter of Iddina-Merodach, had given the slave of another person to a
+weaver for a period of five years, in order that he might be taught the
+art of weaving, at the same time agreeing to provide him with 1 _qa_ (1⅗
+quarts) of food each day and to pay his teacher something besides. If,
+however, he was incapacitated from learning, the weaver was required to
+pay a daily fine of half a “measure” of wheat, which we are told was the
+wage of the slave. Any infringement of the contract would be punished by a
+penalty of 20 manehs.
+
+The slave was able to apprentice himself without the intervention of his
+owners. Thus in the sixth year of Cyrus one slave apprenticed himself of
+his own accord to another in order to learn a trade. In this case also the
+penalty for not being taught the trade was half a “measure” of wheat each
+day, which is again stated to be the wage of the slave. The wage, however,
+it would seem, had to be paid to the master, at all events in some cases;
+this is clear from a document which relates to the conclusion of the
+apprenticeship in which Nubtâ took part. The slave she had apprenticed had
+learnt his trade, and his master accordingly received from the teacher 5
+shekels, which it was calculated were the equivalent of the services the
+apprentice had rendered. Ordinarily the 5 shekels would have been
+considered a return for the slave’s maintenance during the term of his
+apprenticeship; but in this instance, for reasons unknown to us, the
+maintenance had been provided by a lady and the payment for the slave’s
+services was consequently clear gain.
+
+The slave, however, was allowed to accumulate capital for himself, to
+trade with it, and even to become rich enough to lend money to his own
+master or to purchase his own freedom. That a similar privilege was
+allowed to the slaves of the Israelites we may gather from the fact that
+Saul’s slave offered to pay the seer Samuel a quarter of a shekel which he
+had about him, though it is true that this might have been the property of
+his master. In Babylonia the possession of property by the slave was not
+at all uncommon. In the sixth year of Cambyses, for example, a female
+slave named Khunnatu received a large quantity of furniture, including
+five beds, ten chairs, three dishes, and various other kitchen utensils,
+and agreed to pay the rent of the house in which she deposited them. Her
+master also lent her 122 shekels of silver, which were expended in buying
+fifty casks of beer, besides other things, and upon which she was to pay
+interest. Apparently she wanted to set up an inn or drinking-shop; the
+fact that the money was lent to her by her master proves that she must
+have been engaged in business on her own account. In other contracts we
+find the slave taking a mortgage and trading in onions and grain or
+employing his money in usury. In one case a slave borrows as much as 14
+manehs 49 shekels, or £138 3s., from a member of the Egibi firm. In
+another case it is a considerable quantity of grain in addition to 12
+shekels of silver that is borrowed from the slave by two other persons,
+with a promise that the grain shall be repaid the following month and the
+money a year later. The contract is drawn up in the usual way, the
+borrowers, who, like the witnesses, are free-born citizens, giving the
+creditor a security and assuming a common responsibility for the debt. The
+grain, however, was to be repaid in the house of the slave’s master; it
+seems evident, therefore, that the slave had no private house of his own.
+The slave, nevertheless, could own a house or receive it in payment of a
+debt. This is illustrated by an interesting contract in which reference is
+made to Ustanni, the Tatnai of the Book of Ezra, who is called “the
+governor of Ebir-nâri,” “the other side of the river.” The contract is as
+follows:
+
+“Two manehs of silver lent by Kurrulâ, the slave of Ustanni, the governor
+of Babylon and Ebir-nâri, to Merodach-sum-ibni, the son of Sula, the son
+of Epes-ilu. The house of the latter, which is by the side of the road of
+the god Bagarus, is Kurrulâ’s security. No one else has any prior claim to
+it. The house is not to be let or interest taken upon the loan.” Then come
+the names of five free-born witnesses, and the document is dated at
+Babylon in the third year of Darius. The terms of the contract are
+precisely the same as those exacted by Cambyses, when he was crown-prince,
+from a certain Iddin-Nebo, to whom he had lent money through the agency of
+his secretary, receiving a house as security for the debt.
+
+In some instances the slave was merely the confidential agent of his
+master, to whom therefore all or most of the profits went. Thus a deed
+dated in the ninth year of Cyrus describes a field situated opposite the
+gate of Zamama at Babylon, which had been assigned by “the judges” to a
+lady named Ê-Saggil-belit, and afterward mortgaged by her to a slave of
+Itti-Merodach-baladhu, one of the members of the Egibi firm. The lady,
+however, still wanted money, and accordingly proposed to
+Itti-Merodach-baladhu that if he would make her a “present” of 10 shekels
+she would hand over to him her title-deeds. This was done, and the field
+passed into the possession of Itti-Merodach-baladhu, with whom the
+mortgage had really been contracted.
+
+In spite of the privileges possessed by the Babylonian slave, he was
+nevertheless a chattel, like the rest of his master’s property. He could
+constitute the dowry of a wife, could take the place of interest on a debt
+or of the debt itself, and could be hired out to another, the wages he
+earned going into the pocket of his master. In the age of Khammurabi we
+find two brothers hiring the services of two slaves, one of whom belonged
+to their father and the other to their mother, for ten days. The slaves
+were wanted for harvest work, and it was agreed that a _gur_ (or 180
+_qas_) of grain should be paid them. This, of course, ultimately went to
+their owners. In the reign of Cambyses a man and his wife, having borrowed
+80 shekels, gave a slave as security for the repayment of the loan; the
+terms of the contract are the same as if the security had been a house. On
+another occasion a slave is security for only part of a debt which
+amounted to a maneh and twenty shekels, interest being paid upon the
+shekels. His service was regarded as equivalent to the interest upon the
+maneh.
+
+When a slave was sold the seller guaranteed that he was not disobedient,
+that he had not been adopted by a free citizen, that there was no prior
+claim to him, and that he had not been impressed into the royal service,
+or, in the case of female slaves, been a concubine of the king. Purchasers
+had to be on their guard on all these points. Strict honesty was not
+always the rule in the Babylonian commercial world, and a case which came
+before the judges in the early part of the reign of Nabonidos shows that
+ladies were capable of sharp practice as well as men. The judicial record
+states that a certain “Belit-litu gave the following evidence before the
+judges of Nabonidos, King of Babylon: ‘In the month Ab, in the first year
+of Nergal-sharezer, King of Babylon, I sold my slave, Bazuzu, for
+thirty-five shekels of silver to Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Sulâ, the
+descendant of Egibi; he has pretended that I owed him a debt, and so has
+not paid me the money.’ The judges heard the charge, and caused
+Nebo-akhi-iddin to be summoned and to appear before them. Nebo-akhi-iddin
+produced the contract which he had made with Belit-litu; he proved that
+she had received the money and convinced the judges. And Ziria,
+Nebo-sum-lisir and Edillu gave (further) evidence before the judges that
+Belit-litu, their mother, had received the silver. The judges deliberated
+and condemned Belit-litu to (pay) fifty-five shekels (by way of fine), the
+highest fine that could be inflicted on her, and then gave it to
+Nebo-akhi-iddin.”
+
+The prices fetched by slaves varied naturally. We have seen that in the
+Abrahamic age 20 shekels (£3) were given for a white slave from the North,
+the same price as that for which Joseph was sold. In the reign of
+Ammi-zadok 4½ shekels only were paid for a female slave. In later times
+prices were considerably higher, though under Nebuchadnezzar we hear of a
+slave given as part of a dowry who was valued at 30 shekels, and of a
+female slave and her infant child whose cost was only 19 shekels. In the
+first year of Nergal-sharezer a slave-merchant of Harran sold three slaves
+for 45 shekels, while a little later 32 shekels were given for a female
+slave. The same sum was given for a slave who was advanced in years, while
+a slave girl four years of age only was sold for 19 shekels. In the sixth
+year of Cambyses an Egyptian and her child three months old, whom the
+Babylonian Iddin-Nebo had “taken, with his bow,” was sold by him for 2
+manehs or 120 shekels, a bond for 240 _gurs_ of dates being handed over to
+him as security for the payment of the sum. The Egyptian, it may be noted,
+received a Babylonian name before being put up for auction. In the same
+reign we hear of 3 manehs being paid for two slaves, of a maneh for a
+single slave, and of 7 manehs 56 shekels for three female slaves. This
+would be at the rate of 2 manehs 38 shekels or £23 14s. for each. On the
+whole, however, the average price seems to have been about 30 shekels.
+This, at any rate, was the case among the Israelites, not only in the
+Mosaic period (Exod. xxi. 32) but also in the time of the Maccabees (II.
+Macc. viii. 9, 10).
+
+The fact that slaves sometimes ran away from their masters, like
+Barachiel, who pretended to be a free citizen, and that in contracts for
+their sale their obedience is expressly guaranteed, proves that they were
+not always content with their lot. Indeed, it is not strange that it
+should have been so. They were merely chattels, subject to the caprices
+and tyranny of those who owned them, and their lives were as little valued
+as that of an ox. Thus in the fortieth year of Nebuchadnezzar a judgment
+was delivered that, if it could be proved by witnesses that a certain
+Idikhi-ilu had murdered the slave of one of the Arameans settled in the
+town of Pekod, he was to be fined a maneh of silver; that was all the
+slave’s life was worth in the eyes of the law, and even that was paid to
+the master to compensate him for the loss of his property. Sometimes the
+name of the slave was changed; as we have seen, the captive Egyptian woman
+received a Babylonian name, and a contract of the time of Khammurabi,
+relating to the female slave of a Babylonian lady, who had been given to
+her by her husband, and who, it is stipulated, shall not be taken from her
+by his sons after his death, mentions that the name of the slave had been
+changed. In this case, however, the reason seems to have been that the
+girl was adopted by her mistress, though the adoption was not carried out
+in legal form and was therefore technically invalid. The contract
+accordingly describes her by her proper name of Mutibasti, but adds that
+“she is called Zabini, the daughter of Saddasu,” her mistress.
+
+That the law should nevertheless have regarded the slave as a person, and
+as such possessed of definite rights, appears strange. But Babylonian law
+started from the principle of individual responsibility and individual
+possession of property, and since the slave was a human being and could,
+moreover, hold property of his own, it necessarily seemed to place him
+more and more on a footing of equality with the free-born citizen. The
+causes which brought about the legal emancipation of women worked in the
+same direction in favor of the slave. Hence the power he had of purchasing
+his freedom out of his own earnings and of being adopted into a citizen’s
+family. Hence, too, the claim of the law to interfere between the
+slave-owner and his property.
+
+A slave, in fact, could even act as a witness in court, his testimony
+being put on the same legal level as that of a native Babylonian. He could
+also be a party to a suit. Thus we find a slave called Nergal-ritsua, in
+the tenth year of Nabonidos, bringing a suit for the recovery of stolen
+property. He had been intrusted by his master with the conveyance of 480
+_gur_ of fruit to the ships of a Syrian, named Baal-nathan, who undertook
+to carry it to Babylon, and to be responsible for loss. On the way part of
+the fruit was stolen, and Baal-nathan, instead of replacing it, absconded,
+but was soon caught. The slave accordingly appeared against him, and the
+five judges before whom the case was brought gave a verdict in his favor.
+
+A slave could even own another slave. In the twenty-seventh year of
+Nebuchadnezzar, for example, the porter of the temple of the Sun-god at
+Sippara, who was “the slave of Nebo-baladh-yulid,” purchased a female
+slave for two-thirds of a shekel (2s.). The amount was small, but the
+purchaser did not possess so much at the moment, and credit was
+consequently allowed him. The list of witnesses to the contract is headed
+by a slave.
+
+The condition of the slave in Assyria was much what it was in Babylonia.
+The laws and customs of Assyria were modelled after those of Babylonia,
+whence, indeed, most of them had been derived. But there was one cause of
+difference between the two countries which affected the character of
+slavery. Assyria was a military power, and the greater part of its slaves,
+therefore, were captives taken in war. In Babylonia, on the contrary, the
+majority had been born in the country, and between them and their masters
+there was thus a bond of union and sympathy which could not exist between
+the foreign captive and his conqueror. In the northern kingdom slavery
+must have been harsher.
+
+Slaves, moreover, apparently fetched higher prices there, probably on
+account of their foreign origin. They cost on the average as much as a
+maneh (£9) each. A contract, dated in 645 B.C., states that one maneh and
+a half was given for a single female slave. One of the contracting parties
+was a Syrian, and an Aramaic docket is accordingly attached to the deed,
+while among the witnesses to it we find Ammâ, “the Aramean secretary.”
+Ammâ means a native of the land of Ammo, where Pethor was situated. About
+the same time 3 manehs, “according to the standard of Carchemis,” were
+paid for a family of five slaves, which included two children. Under
+Esar-haddon a slave was bought for five-sixths of a maneh, or 50 shekels,
+and in the same year Hoshea, an Israelite, with his two wives and four
+children, was sold for 3 manehs. With these prices it is instructive to
+compare the sum of 43 shekels given for a female slave in Babylonia only
+four years later.
+
+As a specimen of an Assyrian contract for the sale of slaves we may take
+one which was made in 709 B.C., thirteen years after the fall of Samaria,
+and which is noticeable on account of the Israelitish names which it
+contains: “The seal of Dagon-melech,” we read, “the owner of the slaves
+who are sold. Imannu, the woman U——, and Melchior, in all three persons,
+have been approved by Summa-ilâni, the bear-hunter from Kasarin, and he
+has bought them from Dagon-melech for three manehs of silver, according to
+the standard of Carchemish. The money has been fully paid; the slaves have
+been marked and taken. There shall be no reclamation, lawsuit, or
+complaints. Whoever hereafter shall at any time rise up and bring an
+action, whether it be Dagon-melech or his brother or his nephew or any one
+else belonging to him or a person in authority, and shall bring an action
+and charges against Summa-ilâni, his son, or his grandson, shall pay 10
+manehs of silver, or 1 maneh of gold (£140), to the goddess Istar of
+Arbela. The money brings an interest of 10 (_i.e._, 60) per cent. to its
+possessors; but if an action or complaint is brought it shall not be
+touched by the seller. In the presence of Addâ the secretary, Akhiramu the
+secretary, Pekah the governor of the city, Nadab-Yahu (Nadabiah) the
+bear-hunter, Bel-kullim-anni, Ben-dikiri, Dhem-Istar, and Tabnî the
+secretary, who has drawn up the deed of contract.” The date is the 20th of
+Ab, or August, 709 B.C.
+
+The slaves are sold at a maneh each, and bear Syrian names. Addâ, “the man
+of Hadad,” and Ben-dikiri are also Syrian; on the other hand, Ahiram,
+Pekah, and Nadabiah are Israelitish. It is interesting to find them
+appearing as free citizens of Assyria, one of them being even governor of
+a city. It serves to show why the tribes of Northern Israel so readily
+mingled with the populations among whom they were transported; the exiles
+in Assyria were less harshly treated than those in Babylonia, and they had
+no memories of a temple and its services, no strong religious feeling, to
+prevent them from being absorbed by the older inhabitants of their new
+homes.
+
+In Assyria, as in Babylonia, parents could sell their children, brothers
+their sisters, though we do not know under what circumstances this was
+allowed by the law. The sale of a sister by her brother for half a maneh,
+which has already been referred to, took place at Nineveh in 668 B.C. In
+the contract the brother is called “the owner of his sister,” and any
+infringement of the agreement was to be punished by a fine of “10 silver
+manehs, or 1 maneh of gold,” to the treasury of the temple of Ninip at
+Calah. About fifteen years later the services of a female slave “as long
+as she lived” were given in payment of a debt, one of the witnesses to the
+deed being Yavanni “the Greek.” Ninip of Calah received slaves as well as
+fines for the violation of contracts relating to the sale of them; about
+645 B.C., for instance, we find four men giving one to the service of the
+god. Among the titles of the god is that of “the lord of workmen;” and it
+is therefore possible that he was regarded as in a special way the patron
+of the slave-trader.
+
+It seems to have been illegal to sell the mother without the children, at
+all events as long as they were young. In the old Sumerian code of laws it
+was already laid down that if children were born to slaves whom their
+owner had sold while still reserving the power of repurchasing them, he
+could nevertheless not buy them back unless he bought the children at the
+same time at the rate of one and a half shekels each. The contracts show
+that this law continued in force down to the latest days of Babylonian
+independence. Thus the Egyptian woman who was sold in the sixth year of
+Cambyses was put up to auction along with her child. We may gather also
+that it was not customary to separate the husband and wife.(5) When the
+Israelite Hoshea, for instance, was put up for sale in Assyria in the
+reign of Esar-haddon, both his wives as well as his children were bought
+by the purchaser along with him. It may be noted that the slave was
+“marked,” or “tattooed,” after purchase, like the Babylonian cattle. This
+served a double purpose; it indicated his owner and identified him if he
+tried to run away.
+
+In a country where slaves were so numerous the wages of the free workmen
+were necessarily low. There were, however, two classes of free workmen,
+the skilled artisan and the agricultural laborer. The agricultural
+character of the Babylonian state, and the fact that so many of the
+peasantry possessed land of their own, prevented the agriculturist from
+sinking into that condition of serfdom and degradation which the existence
+of slavery would otherwise have brought about. Moreover, the flocks and
+cattle were tended by Bedâwin and Arameans, who were proud of their
+freedom and independence, like the Bedâwin of modern Egypt. In spite,
+therefore, of the fact that so much of the labor of the country was
+performed by slaves, agriculture was in high esteem and the free
+agriculturist was held in honor. Tradition told how Sargon of Akkad, the
+hero of ancient Babylonia, had been brought up by Akki the irrigator, and
+had himself been a gardener, while the god Tammuz, the bridegroom of
+Istar, had tended sheep. Indeed, one of the oldest titles of the
+Babylonian kings had been that of “shepherd.”
+
+At the same time there was a tendency for the free laborer to degenerate
+into a serf, attached to the soil of the farm on which he and his
+forefathers had been settled for centuries. A contract dated in the first
+year of Cyrus is an illustration of the fact. It records the lease of a
+farm near Sippara, which belonged to the temple of the Sun-god, and was
+let to a private individual by the chief priest and the civil governor of
+the temple. The farm contained 60 _gur_ of arable land, and the lease of
+it included “12 oxen, 8 peasants, 3 iron plough-shares, 4 axes, and
+sufficient grain for sowing and for the support of the peasants and the
+cattle.” Here the peasants are let along with the land, and presumably
+would have been sold with it had the farm been purchased instead of being
+let. They were, in fact, irremovable from the soil on which they had been
+born. It must, however, be remembered that the farm was the property of a
+temple, and it is possible that serfdom was confined to land which had
+been consecrated to the gods. In that case the Babylonian serfs would have
+corresponded with the Hebrew Nethinim, and might have been originally
+prisoners of war.
+
+We learn some details of early agricultural life in Babylonia from the
+fragments of an old Sumerian work on farming which formed one of the
+text-books in the Babylonian schools. Passages were extracted from it and
+translated into Semitic for the use of the students, and difficult words
+and expressions were noted and explained. The book seems to have resembled
+the “Works and Days” of the Greek poet Hesiod, except that it was not in
+verse. We gather from it that the agricultural year began, not with Nisan,
+or March, but with Tisri, or September, like the Jewish civil year; at all
+events, it was then that the tenure of the farmer began and that his
+contract was drawn up with the landlord. It was then, too, after the
+harvest, that he took possession of the land, paying his tax to the
+government, repairing or making the fences, and ploughing the soil.
+
+His tenure was of various kinds. Sometimes he undertook to farm the land,
+paying half the produce of it to the landlord or his agent and providing
+the farming implements, the seeds, and the manure himself. Sometimes the
+farm was worked on a co-operative system, the owner of the land and the
+tenant-farmer entering into partnership with one another and dividing
+everything into equal shares. In this case the landlord was required to
+furnish carts, oxen, and seeds. At other times the tenant received only a
+percentage of the profits—a third, a fourth, a fifth, or a tenth,
+according to agreement. He had also to pay the _esrâ_ or tithe.
+
+The most common form of tenure seems to have been that in which a third of
+the produce went to the lessor. Two-thirds of the rent, paid either in
+dates or in their monetary equivalent, was delivered to the landlord on
+the last day of the eighth month, Marchesvan, where the dates had been
+gathered and had been laid out to dry. By the terms of the lease the
+tenant was called upon to keep the farm buildings in order, and even to
+erect them if they did not exist. His own house was separate from that in
+which the farm-servants lived, and it was surrounded by a garden, planted
+for the most part with date-palms. If the farm-buildings were not built or
+were not kept in proper repair a fine was imposed upon him, which in the
+case quoted by the writer of the agricultural work was 10 shekels, or 30s.
+The tenant was furthermore expected to pay the laborers their wages, and
+the landlord had the power of dismissing him if the terms of the contract
+were not fulfilled.
+
+The laborers were partly slaves, partly freemen, the freemen hiring
+themselves out at so much a month. A contract of the age of Khammurabi,
+for instance, states that a certain Ubaru, had thus hired himself out for
+thirty days for half a shekel of silver, or 1s. 6d., but he had to offer a
+guarantee that he would not leave his master’s service before the
+expiration of the month. In other cases it was a slave whose services were
+hired from his owner; thus, in a document from Sippara, of the same age as
+the preceding, we read: “Rimmon-bani hires Sumi-izitim as a laborer for
+his brother, for three months, at a wage of one shekel and a half, 3
+measures of grain and 1½ _qa_ of oil. There shall be no withdrawal from
+the agreement. Ibni-A-murru and Sikni-Ea have confirmed it. Rimmon-bani
+hires the laborer in the presence of Abum-ilu (Abimael), the son of
+Ibni-Samas, Ilisu-ibni, the son of Igas-Rimmon, and Arad-Bel, the son of
+Akhuwam. (Dated) the first day of Sivan.” The wages evidently went to the
+slave, so that he was practically in the position of a free laborer.
+
+When we come down to a later period, we find in contract, dated at the end
+of the second year of a Cyrus, Bunene-sar-uzur, “the son of Sum-yukin,”
+hired, as a servant for a year, “from the month Nisan to the month Adar,”
+for 3 shekels of silver. These were paid beforehand to a third person, and
+the payment was duly witnessed and registered. Bunene-sar-uzur was not a
+slave, though 9 shillings does not seem much as wages for a whole year.
+However, three years later only 1 _pi_, or about 50 quarts of meal, were
+given for a month’s supply of food to some men who were digging a canal.
+The hours of work doubtless lasted from sunrise to sunset, though we have
+a curious document of the Macedonian period, dated in the reign of
+Seleucus II., in which certain persons sell the wages they receive for
+work done in a temple during the “sixth part” of a day. The sum demanded
+was as much as 65 shekels.
+
+The Aramean Bedâwin, who acted as shepherds, or cattle-drovers, probably
+received better wages than the native Babylonians. They were less numerous
+and were in more request; moreover, it was necessary that they should be
+trustworthy. The herds and flocks were left in their charge for weeks
+together, on the west bank of the Euphrates, out of sight of the
+cultivated fields of Babylonia and exposed to the attacks of marauders
+from the desert. Early Babylonian documents give long lists of the
+herdsmen and shepherds, and of the number of sheep or oxen for which they
+were responsible, and which were the property of some wealthy landowner.
+In the seventeenth year of Nabonidos, five of the shepherds received one
+shekel and a half of silver, as well as a _gur_, or about 250 quarts, of
+grain from the royal granary.
+
+Some of the songs have been preserved to us with which the Babylonian
+laborer beguiled his work in the fields. They probably formed part of the
+treatise on agriculture which has already been described; at any rate, we
+owe their preservation to the educational text-books, in which they have
+been embodied, along with Semitic translations of the original Sumerian
+text. Here is one which the peasants sang to the oxen as they returned
+from the field:
+
+My knees are marching,
+My feet are not resting;
+Taking no thought,
+Drive me home.
+
+In a similar strain the ploughman encouraged his team with the words:
+
+A heifer am I,
+To the mule I am yoked.
+Where is the cart?
+Go, look for grass;
+It is high, it is high!
+
+Or again, the oxen, while threshing, would be addressed with the refrain:
+
+Before the oxen,
+As they walk,
+Thresh out the grain.
+
+Ploughing, harrowing, sowing, reaping, and threshing constituted the chief
+events of the agricultural year. The winters were not cold, and the
+Babylonian peasant was consequently not obliged to spend a part of the
+year indoors shivering over a fire. In fact fuel was scarce in the
+country; few trees were grown in it except the palm, and the fruit of the
+palm was too valuable to allow it to be cut down. When the ordinary
+occupations of the farmer had come to an end, he was expected to look
+after his farm buildings and fences, to build walls and clean out the
+ditches.
+
+The ditches, indeed, were more important in Babylonia than in most other
+parts of the world. Irrigation was as necessary as in Egypt, though for a
+different reason. The Chaldean plain had originally been a marsh, and it
+required constant supervision to prevent it from being once more inundated
+by the waters and made uninhabitable. The embankments which hindered the
+overflow of the Euphrates and Tigris and kept them within carefully
+regulated channels, the canals which carried off the surplus water and
+distributed it over the country, needed continual attention. Each year,
+after the rains of the winter, the banks had to be strengthened or re-made
+and the beds of the canals cleared out. The irrigator, moreover, was
+perpetually at work; the rainy season did not last long, and during the
+rest of the year the land was dependent on the water supplied by the
+rivers and canals. Irrigation, therefore, formed a large and important
+part of the farmers’ work, and the bucket of the irrigator must have been
+constantly swinging. Without the irrigator the labors of the farmer would
+have been of little avail.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
+
+
+Babylonia was a land of bricks. Stone was not found nearer than the
+mountains of Elam on the one side or the desert plains of Northern Arabia
+on the other. Clay, on the contrary, was plentiful, and the art of making
+bricks and building a house by means of them must have been invented by
+the first settlers in the country. The bricks were dried in the sun, the
+heat of which was sufficient to harden them. The clay was further bound
+together by being mixed with chopped reeds, though the use of the latter
+was not universal, at all events in the earlier times. In the later days
+of Babylonian history, however, they were generally employed, and we learn
+from the contracts that a bed of reeds grown for the sake of the
+brick-makers’ trade was by no means an unprofitable investment. Either
+clay or bitumen took the place of mortar; the bitumen was procured from
+Hit or from the Kurdish hills, where there are still springs of naphtha;
+after the conquest of Canaan it may have been brought from the
+neighborhood of the Dead Sea. Some scholars have thought that this is
+referred to by Gudea, the priest-king of Lagas (2700 B.C.).
+
+The employment of brick had a very direct effect upon the character of
+Babylonian architecture. Thick walls, supported by buttresses and devoid
+of sculpture, were necessitated by it. The buildings of Babylonia were
+externally plain and flat; masses of brick were piled up in the form of
+towers or else built into long lines of wall of unbroken monotony. The
+roofs were made of the stems of palm-trees, which rested on the stems of
+other palm-trees, where the space between one brick wall and another was
+too great to be safely spanned. The upright stems became columns, which
+were imitated first in brick and then in stone. Babylonia was thus the
+birthplace of columnar architecture, and in the course of centuries
+columns of almost every conceivable shape and kind came to be invented.
+Sometimes they were made to stand on the backs of animals, sometimes the
+animal formed the capital. The column which rested against the wall passed
+into a brick pilaster, and this again assumed various forms.
+
+The monotony of the wall itself was disguised in different ways. The
+pilaster served to break it, and the walls of the early Chaldean temples
+are accordingly often broken up into a series of recessed panels, the
+sides of which are formed by square pilasters. Clay cones were also
+inserted in the wall and brilliantly colored, the colors being arranged in
+patterns. But the most common form of decoration was where the wall was
+covered with painted stucco. This, indeed, was the ordinary mode of
+ornamenting the internal walls of a building; a sort of dado ran round the
+lower part of them painted with the figures of men and animals, while the
+upper part was left in plain colors or decorated only with rosettes and
+similar designs. Ezekiel(6) refers to the figures of the Chaldeans
+portrayed in vermilion on the walls of their palaces, and the composite
+creatures of Babylonian mythology who were believed to represent the first
+imperfect attempts at creation were depicted on the walls of the temple of
+Bel.
+
+Among the tablets which have been found at Tello are plans of the houses
+of the age of Sargon of Akkad. The plans are for the most part drawn to
+scale, and the length and breadth of the rooms and courts contained in
+them are given. The rooms opened one into the other, and along one side of
+a house there usually ran a passage. One of the houses, for example, of
+which we have a plan, contained five rooms on the ground floor, two of
+which were the length of the house. The dimensions of the second of these
+is described as being 8 cubits in breadth and 1 _gardu_ in length. The
+_gardu_ was probably equivalent to 18 cubits or about 30 feet. In another
+case the plan is that of the house of the high priest of Lagas, and at the
+back of it the number of slaves living in it is stated as well as the
+number of workmen employed to build it. It was built, we are told, in the
+year when Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, made the pavement of the temples
+of Bel at Nippur and of Istar at Nin-unu.
+
+The temple and house were alike erected on a platform of brick or earth.
+This was rendered necessary by the marshy soil of Babylonia and the
+inundations to which it was exposed. The houses, indeed, generally found
+the platform already prepared for them by the ruins of the buildings which
+had previously stood on the same spot. Sun-dried brick quickly
+disintegrates, and a deserted house soon became a mound of dirt. In this
+way the villages and towns of Babylonia gradually rose in height, forming
+a _tel_ or mound on which the houses of a later age could be erected.
+
+In contrast to Babylonia the younger kingdom of Assyria was a land of
+stone. But the culture of Assyria was derived from Babylonia, and the
+architectural fashions of Babylonia were accordingly followed even when
+stone took the place of brick. The platform, which was as necessary in
+Babylonia as it was unnecessary in Assyria, was nevertheless servilely
+copied, and palaces and temples were piled upon it like those of the
+Babylonians. The ornamentation of the Babylonian walls was imitated in
+stone, the rooms being adorned with a sculptured dado, the bas-reliefs of
+which were painted in bright colors. Even the fantastic shapes of the
+Babylonian columns were reproduced in stone. Brick, too, was largely used;
+in fact, the stone served for the most part merely as a facing, to
+ornament rather than strengthen the walls.
+
+The Babylonian princes had themselves set the example of employing stone
+for the sake of decoration. Stone was fetched for the purpose from the
+most distant regions, regardless of cost. Gudea, the priest-king of Lagas,
+imported limestone from the Lebanon and from Samalum, near the Gulf of
+Antioch, while the statues which adorned his palace, and are now in the
+Louvre, are carved out of diorite from the Peninsula of Sinai. The diorite
+doubtless came by sea, but the blocks of hewn stone that were brought from
+“the land of the Amorites” must have been conveyed overland.
+
+Even more precious materials than stone were used for decorative purposes.
+Gold and silver, bronze and ivory, lapis-lazuli and colored glass,
+ornamented the cornices and other parts of the interior of the palace.
+Gudea tells us that he had sent to the deserts which bordered on Egypt for
+gold-dust and acacia-wood, to Arabia for copper, and to Mount Amanus for
+beams of cedar. The elephant was still hunted on the banks of the
+Euphrates near the city of Carchemish, and lapis-lazuli was furnished by
+the mountains of Persia.
+
+A garden was planted by the side of the house. The Babylonians were an
+agricultural people, and even the cities were full of the gardens attached
+to the houses of all who could afford to have them. Originally the garden
+was little more than a grove of palms. But herbs and vegetables soon began
+to be grown in it, and as habits of luxury increased, exotic trees and
+shrubs were transplanted to it and flowers were cultivated for the sake of
+their scent. Tiglath-pileser I. of Assyria tells us how he had “taken and
+planted in the gardens of his country cedars” and other trees “from the
+lands he had conquered, which none of the kings his predecessors had ever
+planted before,” and how he had “brought rare vines which did not exist in
+Assyria and had cultivated them in the land of Assyria.” At a later date
+Sennacherib laid out a pleasure-garden or “paradise” by the side of the
+palace he erected, filling it with cypresses and other trees as well as
+fragrant plants, and digging a lake in the midst of it by means of which
+it could be watered. One of the bas-reliefs in the palace of
+Assur-bani-pal represents the King and Queen dining in the royal garden
+under the shadow of its palms, while an attendant drives away the insects
+with a fan. The Assyrians did but imitate their Babylonian neighbors, and
+in the gardens of Nineveh we must see many copies of the gardens that had
+been laid out in Babylonia long ages before. The very word “paradise,”
+which in the Persian age came to signify a pleasure-park, was of
+Babylonian origin. It is given in the exercise-book of a Babylonian
+school-boy as the name of a mythical locality, and an etymological pun
+attempts to derive it from the name of the god Esu.
+
+It was, of course, only the houses of the rich and noble which were
+artistically furnished or provided with a garden. The poorer classes lived
+in mud huts of conical form, which seldom contained more than one or two
+rooms. Air and light were admitted through the door or through small
+apertures in the walls. In the better class of houses, on the other hand,
+the windows were of large size, and were placed near the ceiling. The air
+was excluded by means of curtains which were drawn across them when the
+weather was cold or when it was necessary to keep out the sunlight. The
+houses, moreover, consisted of more than one story, the upper stories
+being approached by a flight of steps which were open to the air. They
+were usually built against one of the sides of a central court, around
+which the rooms were ranged, the rooms on the upper floors communicating
+with one another by means of a covered corridor, or else by doors leading
+from one chamber to the other. The apartments of the women were separate
+from those of the men, and the servants slept either on the ground-floor
+or in an outbuilding of their own.
+
+The furniture, even of the palaces, was scanty from a modern point of
+view. The floor was covered with rugs, for the manufacture of which
+Babylonia was famous, and chairs, couches, and tables were placed here and
+there. The furniture was artistic in form; a seal-cylinder, of the age of
+Ur-Bau, King of Ur, the older contemporary of Gudea, represents a chair,
+the feet of which have been carved into the likeness of those of oxen. If
+we may judge from Egyptian analogies the material of which they were
+formed would have been ivory. The Assyrian furniture of later days
+doubtless followed older Babylonian models, and we can gain from it some
+idea of what they must have been like. The chairs were of various kinds.
+Some had backs and arms, some were mere stools. The seats of many were so
+high that a footstool was required by those who used them. The employment
+of the footstool must go back to a considerable antiquity, since we find
+some of the Tel-el-Amarna correspondents in the fourteenth century before
+our era comparing themselves to the footstool of the King. Chairs and
+stools alike were furnished with cushions which were covered with
+embroidered tapestries. So also were the couches and bedsteads used by the
+wealthier classes. The poor contented themselves with a single mattress
+laid upon the floor, and since everyone slept in the clothes he had worn
+during the day, rising in the morning was not a difficult task.
+
+The tables had four legs, and the wood of which they were composed was
+often inlaid with ivory. Wood inlaid with ivory and other precious
+materials was also employed for the chairs and sofas. Tripods of bronze,
+moreover, stood in different parts of the room, and vases of water or wine
+were placed upon them. Fragments of some of them have been found in the
+ruins of Nineveh, and they are represented in early Babylonian seals. The
+feet of the tripod were artistically shaped to resemble the feet of oxen,
+the clinched human hand, or some similar design. At meals the tripod stood
+beside the table on which the dishes were laid. Those who eat sat on
+chairs in the earlier period, but in later times the fashion grew up, for
+the men at any rate, to recline on a couch. Assur-bani-pal, for example,
+is thus represented, while the Queen sits beside him on a lofty chair.
+Perhaps the difference in manners is an illustration of the greater
+conservatism of women who adhere to customs which have been discarded by
+the men.
+
+Vases of stone and earthenware, of bronze, gold, and silver, were
+plentifully in use. A vase of silver mounted on a bronze pedestal with
+four feet, which was dedicated to his god by one of the high-priests of
+Lagas, has been found at Tello, and stone bowls, inscribed with the name
+of Gudea, and closely resembling similar bowls from the early Egyptian
+tombs, have also been disinterred there. A vase of Egyptian alabaster,
+discovered by the French excavators in Babylonia, but subsequently lost in
+the Tigris, bore upon it an inscription stating it to have been part of
+the spoil obtained by Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Akkad, from his
+conquest of the Sinaitic peninsula. In Assyrian days the vases were
+frequently of porcelain or glass; when these were first introduced is
+still unknown. Various articles of furniture are mentioned in the later
+contracts. Under Nabonidos, 7 shekels, or 21 shillings, were given for a
+copper kettle and cup, the kettle weighing 16 manehs (or 42 pounds troy)
+and the cup 2 manehs (5 pounds 7 ounces troy). These were left, it may be
+noted, in the safe-keeping of a slave, and were bought by a lady. At a
+later date, in the third year of Cambyses, as much as 4 manehs 9 shekels,
+or £36 7s., were paid for a large copper jug and _qulla_, which was
+probably of the same form as the _qullas_ of modern Egypt. The female
+slave who seems to have started an inn in the sixth year of Cambyses
+provided herself with five bedsteads, ten chairs, three dishes, one
+wardrobe (?), three shears, one iron shovel, one syphon, one
+wine-decanter, one chain (?), one brazier, and other objects which cannot
+as yet be identified. The brazier was probably a Babylonian invention. At
+all events we find it used in Judah after contact with Assyria had
+introduced the habits of the farther East among the Jews (Jer. xxxvi. 22),
+like the gnomon or sun-dial of Ahaz (Is. xxxviii. 8), which was also of
+Babylonian origin (Herod., ii., 109). The gnomon seems to have consisted
+of a column, the shadow of which was thrown on a flight of twelve steps
+representing the twelve double hours into which the diurnal revolutions of
+the earth were divided and which thus indicated the time of day.
+
+What the chairs, tables, footstools, and couches were like may be seen
+from the Assyrian bas-reliefs. They were highly artistic in design and
+character, and were of various shapes. The tables or stands sometimes had
+the form of camp-stools, sometimes were three-legged, but more usually
+they were furnished with four legs, which occasionally were placed on a
+sort of platform or stand. At times they were provided with shelves.
+Special stands with shelves were also made for holding vases, though large
+jars were often made to stand on tripods.
+
+If we may judge from the old lists of clothing that have come down to us,
+the Babylonians must have been fond of variety in dress. The names of an
+immense number of different kinds of dress are given, and the monuments
+show that fashions changed from time to time. Thus the earliest remains of
+Chaldean art exhibit three successive changes in the head-dress, and
+similar changes are to be noticed in the dress of the Assyrian kings as it
+is represented in the bas-reliefs.
+
+To the last, however, the principal constituents of Babylonian dress
+remained the same. There were a hat or head-dress, a tunic or shirt, and a
+long robe which reached to the ankles, to which in cold weather was added
+a cloak. The hat or cap was made of some thick substance like felt and was
+sometimes quilted. The Babylonian King Merodach-nadin-akhi (1100 B.C.) is
+represented in a square cap which is ornamented with a row of feathers;
+below these is a band of rosettes. The Assyrian King generally wore a
+lofty tiara; this was a survival of the tiara of the early Babylonians.
+Above his head was carried a parasol to protect him from the sun; but the
+use of the parasol was confined to the upper classes, if not to the royal
+family alone.
+
+The tunic was of linen, or more often of wool, which was manufactured in
+Babylonia on a large scale. It reached half-way down the knees and was
+fastened round the waist by a girdle. Under it a second tunic or vest was
+sometimes worn in cold weather. Drawers were seldom used, though in the
+time of the second Assyrian empire the cavalry and heavy-armed bowmen wore
+tightly fitting drawers of plaited leather, but the custom was probably
+introduced from the north. A bilingual vocabulary, however, gives a
+Sumerian word for this article of dress, which may therefore have been
+occasionally adopted in pre-Semitic days.
+
+The long robe was usually sleeveless and ornamented with a fringe. It
+opened in front, and in walking allowed the left leg to be seen. The
+girdle was often tied around it instead of round the tunic. The Assyrian
+King is sometimes represented as wearing a sort of richly embroidered cape
+over the robe. The cape or cloak, however, was specially characteristic of
+the Babylonians, as the Assyrians found it inconvenient in war or active
+exercise, and accordingly preferred to discard it. Most of them wore it
+only on state occasions or when in full dress.
+
+The feet were shod with sandals, though the Babylonians, as a rule, went
+barefoot. So also did the lower classes among the Assyrians, as well as a
+portion of the army. The sandals were attached to the foot by leather
+thongs, and the heel was protected by a cap. The boot, however, was
+introduced from the colder regions of the north before the twelfth century
+B.C. At all events, Merodach-nadin-akhi is depicted as wearing soft
+leather shoes, and Sennacherib adopted a similar foot-covering. This was
+laced in front like the high-laced boots with which the Assyrian cavalry
+were provided toward the end of the reign of Tiglath-pileser III.
+
+The priest was distinguished by a curiously flounced dress, made perhaps
+of a species of muslin, which descended to the feet, and is often pictured
+on the early seals. Over his shoulders was flung a goat’s skin, the symbol
+of his office, like the leopard’s skin worn by the priests in Egypt.
+
+In the early Babylonian period the dress of all classes was naturally much
+more simple than that of a later date. The poor were contented with a
+short kilt, the King and his family with a long one. One of the early
+rulers of Lagas, for instance, is represented as wearing only a skull-cap
+and a kilt which reaches nearly to the ankles. It was under the Semitic
+empire of Sargon of Akkad that the long robe seems first to have become
+common. But it was worn over the left shoulder only, and as the tunic was
+not yet introduced into ordinary use, the right shoulder was left bare.
+Even Naram-Sin, the conqueror of Sinai, is depicted as clad in this simple
+costume in a bas-relief found near Diarbekr. The robe is quilted, and on
+the King’s head is a conical cap of felt. The statues of the age of Gudea
+also show no sign of the tunic. The development out of the kilt must
+belong to a later age.
+
+The costume of the women does not appear to have differed much from that
+of the men. Both alike adopted the long robe. But representations of women
+are unfortunately rare. The Queen of Assur-bani-pal is dressed in a long,
+sleeveless robe, over which is a fringed frock reaching to the knees, and
+over this again a light cape, also fringed and embroidered with rosettes.
+This may, therefore, be regarded as the official dress of a grand lady in
+the closing days of the Assyrian empire.
+
+Both men and women were fond of jewelry, and adorned themselves with
+rings, bracelets, ear-rings, and necklaces. The women also wore anklets,
+like many of the Oriental women of to-day. The men carried a stick in the
+street, and all who could afford it had a small engraved cylinder of stone
+attached to the wrist by a ring which passed through an orifice in the
+cylinder. The cylinder served the purpose of a seal, and was constantly
+required in business transactions. No deed was valid without the seal or
+mark of the contracting parties; when either of them was too poor to
+possess a seal, a nail-mark was impressed upon the clay of the contract
+tablet, and a note added stating to whom it was that the mark belonged.
+
+The seal-cylinder was a Babylonian invention. In a land where there were
+no stones every pebble was of value, and the Babylonians accordingly
+became expert gem-cutters at a very early period. Gem-cutting, in fact,
+was a highly developed art among them, and the seal-cylinder of
+Ibni-sarru, the librarian of Sargon of Akkad, which is now in a private
+collection in Paris, is one of the most beautiful specimens of the art
+that has ever been produced. The pebble was cut in a cylindrical shape,
+and various figures were engraved upon it. The favorite design was that of
+a god or goddess to whom the owner of the seal is being introduced by a
+priest; sometimes the King takes the place of the deity, at other times it
+is the adventures of Gilgames, the hero of the great Chaldean Epic, that
+are represented upon the stone. The design is usually accompanied by a few
+lines of inscription, giving the name of the owner of the seal, as well as
+that of his father, and stating of what god or King he was “the servant.”
+The seals were often kept in stock by their makers, a blank space being
+left for the inscription, which was to be engraved upon them as soon as
+they had found a purchaser. Hence it is that at times the names have never
+been filled in.
+
+The style and pattern of the cylinder changed in the course of centuries,
+as well as the favorite materials of which it was made. Under the dynasty
+of Ur, which preceded that of Khammurabi, for instance, hæmatite was more
+especially in vogue; in the age of Nebuchadnezzar crystal became
+fashionable. At one period, moreover, or among the artists of a particular
+local school, the representation of a human sacrifice was common. Between
+the inscription on the cylinder, however, and the subjects engraved upon
+it there is seldom, if ever, any connection, except when a portrait is
+given of the god or King of whom the owner calls himself the servant.
+
+A hole was drilled through the length of the cylinder, and through this a
+string was passed. Instead of the string a rod of metal or ivory was often
+employed; this was fixed in a frame of gold or bronze, and the cylinder
+was thus able to turn upon it. When the seal was used it was rolled over
+the soft clay, leaving an indelible impression behind. Among the objects
+found at Tello are balls of clay, which were attached to papyrus
+documents, like the seals of mediæval deeds, and sealed with the cylinders
+of the post-masters of Sargon and Naram-Sin. Above the seal comes the
+address, in one case to Naram-Sin, in another to the high-priest of Lagas.
+It is evident that a postal system had already been established between
+Lagas and Agade or Akkad, the capital of Sargon’s empire. The impressions
+show that the seals must have been very beautiful specimens of
+workmanship. They all belonged to high officials; one to Dada, “the seer
+of the palace,” another to the high-priest of Lagas himself.
+
+Great attention was paid to the hair of the head and beard. But this was
+more especially the case among the Semites, who were a bearded race. The
+older Sumerian population had but little hair upon the face, and to the
+last the typical Babylonian was distinguished from the Assyrian by the
+greater absence of beard. The result was that while the Semite encouraged
+his hair to grow, the Sumerian shaved it except in the case of old men.
+Most of the Sumerian heads which have been discovered in the excavations
+of Tello have smooth faces and shorn heads. The figures represented on the
+so-called Stela of the Vultures, one of the earliest examples of Chaldean
+art, are without beards, and on the early seal-cylinders the gods alone,
+as a rule, are permitted to wear them. We are reminded of the Egyptian
+custom which forbade the beard except to the King and the god. The barber,
+in fact, occupied an important position in ancient Babylonia, and the old
+Sumerian code of laws enjoins that a son who denies his father shall be
+shorn and sold as a slave.
+
+With the rise of Semitic supremacy, however, there is a great change.
+Naram-Sin, in the bas-relief of Diarbekr, wears beard and whiskers and
+mustache like the Assyrians of a later day, and like them also his hair is
+artificially curled, though to a lesser extent. The same long beard also
+distinguishes Khammurabi in a piece of sculpture in which he is entitled
+“the king of the land of the Amorites.” The gods, too, now assume a
+mustache as well as a beard and take upon them a Semitic character.
+
+The use of cosmetics must have become widely spread, and many of the small
+stone vases in which they were kept and which have been found on the sites
+of Babylonian cities were doubtless intended for the hair-dresser. The oil
+that was poured upon the hair made it bright and shining and it was worn
+long whether it grew on the head or on the face. The Babylonians had long
+been known as “the people of the black heads,” perhaps in contrast to the
+fairer inhabitants of the Kurdish mountains to the north, and the black
+hair, frizzled and curled, was now allowed to be visible. The working
+classes bound it with a simple fillet; the wealthier members of society
+protected it with caps and tiaras. But all alike were proud of it; the
+days were past when a beardless race had held rule in Western Asia.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. TRADES, HOUSES, AND LAND; WAGES AND PRICES
+
+
+Babylonia, as we have seen, was essentially an industrial country. In
+spite of its agricultural basis and the vast army of slaves with which it
+was filled, it was essentially a land of trades and manufactures. Its
+manufacturing fame was remembered into classical days. One of the rooms in
+the palace of Nero was hung with Babylonian tapestries, which had cost
+four millions of sesterces, or more than £32,000, and Cato, it is said,
+sold a Babylonian mantle because it was too costly and splendid for a
+Roman to wear. The wool of which the cloths and rugs of Babylonia were
+made was derived from the flocks which fed on the banks of the Euphrates,
+and a large body of artisans was employed in weaving it into tapestries
+and curtains, robes and carpets. They were woven in bright and
+vari-colored patterns; the figures of men and animals were depicted upon
+them and the bas-relief or fresco could be replaced upon the wall by a
+picture in tapestry. The dyes were mainly vegetable, though the kermes or
+cochineal-insect, out of which the precious scarlet dye was extracted, was
+brought from the neighborhood of the Indus. So at least Ktesias states in
+the age of the Persian empire; and since teak was found by Mr. Taylor
+among the ruins of Ur, it is probable that intercourse with the western
+coast of India went back to an early date. Indeed an old bilingual list of
+clothing gives _sindhu_ as the name of a material which is explained to be
+“vegetable wool;” in this we must see the cotton which in the classical
+epoch was imported from the island of Tylos, in the Persian Gulf, but
+which, as its name declares, must have originally been “the Indian” plant.
+
+The looms and weavers of Babylonia are, as is natural, repeatedly referred
+to in the contracts, many of which, moreover, relate to the sale and
+purchase of wool. One of them even shows us Belshazzar, the son and
+heir-apparent of the King Nabonidos, as a wool-merchant on a considerable
+scale. “The sum of 20 manehs for wool,” it says, “the property of
+Belshazzar, the son of the king, which has been handed over to
+Iddin-Merodach, the son of Basa, the son of Nur-Sin, through the agency of
+Nebo-zabit, the servant of the house of Belshazzar, the son of the king,
+and the secretaries of the son of the king. In the month Adar (February)
+of the eleventh year (of Nabonidos) the debtor shall pay the money, 20
+manehs. The house of —— the Persian and all the property of Iddin-Merodach
+in town and country shall be the security of Belshazzar, the son of the
+king, until he shall pay in full the money aforesaid. The money which
+shall (meanwhile) accrue upon (the wool) he shall pay as interest.” Then
+follow the names of five witnesses and a priest, as well as the date and
+the place of registration. This was Babylon, and the priest,
+Bel-akhi-iddin, who helped to witness the deed was a brother of Nabonidos
+and consequently the uncle of Belshazzar.
+
+The weight of the wool that was sold is unfortunately not stated. But
+considering that 20 manehs, or £180, was paid for it, there must have been
+a considerable amount of it. In the reign of Cambyses the amount of wool
+needed for the robe of the image of the Sun-goddess  was as much as 5
+manehs 5 shekels in weight. Wealthy land-owners kept large flocks of
+sheep, chiefly for the sake of their wool. Their prices varied greatly.
+Thus in the fourth year of Nabonidos, 6 shekels, or 18s., were given for a
+sheep, while in the thirteenth year of the same King, 18 sheep fetched
+only 35 shekels, or less than 6s., each. In the first year of Cyrus, 6
+lambs were sold for 8¼ shekels, and 5 other lambs for 7¼ shekels, while 1
+sheep cost only one shekel and a quarter; in his sixth year the price of a
+single sheep had risen to 4 shekels (12s.). Under Cambyses we find sheep
+selling for 7 and 7¼ shekels apiece. In the eighth year of Nabonidos, 100
+sheep were sold for 50 shekels after they had been slaughtered; it is
+clear, therefore, that the dead animal was considered less valuable than
+the living one.
+
+On the other hand, sheep cost a good deal to feed when the grazing season
+was over, and they had to be fed “in the stall.” A document dated in the
+seventh year of Cyrus states that 32 sheep required each day 1 _pi_ 28
+_qas_ (or about 95 quarts) of grain, while 160 full-grown animals consumed
+daily 4 _pi_ 16 _qas_, or more than 240 quarts. In the reign of Cambyses 1
+_pi_ 4 _qas_ of fodder were needed daily for 20 old sheep, 100 _qas_ for
+100 younger sheep, and the same amount also for 200 lambs. At this time 2
+_pi_ of grain cost 6½ shekels; consequently the cost of keeping the 20 old
+sheep alone was about 10s 6d. a day. To this had to be added the wages of
+the shepherds, who were free Bedâwin. Hence, it is not wonderful that the
+owner demanded 7 shekels, or 21s., for the sheep he had to sell.
+
+In the _Edin_ or “field,” however, their keep came to but little. The
+pasturage was common property, and it was only the wages of the Aramean
+shepherds who looked after the flock which involved an outlay. The five
+shepherds who, in the tenth year of Nabonidos, were paid for their
+services by the overseer of the royal flocks in the town of Ruzabu
+received 30 shekels of silver and a _gur_ of grain. The _gur_ contained
+180 _qas_, and since in the first year of Cyrus two men received 2 _pi_ 30
+_qas_, or 102 _qas_, of grain for their support during a month of thirty
+days, we may, perhaps, infer that the wages were intended to cover the
+third part of a month. In this case each man would have been paid at the
+rate of 9 shekels, or 37s., a month. It is, however, possible that the
+wages were really intended for the full month. The ancient Greeks
+considered a quart of wheat a sufficient daily allowance for a grown man,
+and 180 _qas_ would mean about 1⅗ of a quart a day for each man.
+
+We may gather from a contract dated the 5th of Sivan in the eighteenth
+year of Darius that it was not customary to pay for any sheep that were
+sold until they had been driven into the city, the cost of doing so being
+included in the price. The contract is as follows: “One hundred sheep of
+the house of Akhabtum, the mother of Sa-Bel-iddin, the servant of
+Bel-sunu, that have been sold to La-Bel, the son of Khabdiya, on the 10th
+day of the month Ab in the eighteenth year of Darius the king: The sheep,
+200 in number, must be brought into Babylon and delivered to Supêsu, the
+servant of Sa-Bel-iddin. If 15 manehs of silver are not paid for the sheep
+on the 10th of Ab, they must be paid on 20th of the month. If the money,
+amounting to 15 manehs, is not paid, then interest shall be paid according
+to this agreement at the rate of one shekel for each maneh per month.”
+Then come the names of eight witnesses and a priest, the date, and the
+place of registration, which was a town called Tsikhu.
+
+The contract is interesting from several points of view. The sheep, it
+will be seen, belonged to a woman, and not to her son, who was “the
+servant” of a Babylonian gentleman and had another “servant” who acted as
+his agent at Babylon. The father of the purchaser of the sheep bears the
+Hebrew name of ’Abdî, which is transcribed into Babylonian in the usual
+fashion, and the name of the purchaser himself, which may be translated
+“(There is) no Bel,” may imply that he was a Jew. Akhabtum and her son
+were doubtless Arameans, and it is noticeable that the latter is termed a
+“servant” and not a “slave.”
+
+Before entering the city an _octroi_ duty had to be paid upon the sheep as
+upon other produce of the country. The custom-house was at the gate, and
+the duty is accordingly called “gate-money” in the contracts. In front of
+the gate was an open space, the _rébit_, such as may still be seen at the
+entrance to an Oriental town, and which was used as a market-place. The
+_rébit_ of Nineveh lay on the north side of the city, in the direction
+where Sargon built his palace, the ruins of which are now known as
+Khorsabad. But besides the market-place outside the walls there were also
+open spaces inside them where markets could be held and sheep and cattle
+sold. Babylon, it would seem, was full of such public “squares,” and so,
+too, was Nineveh. The _suqi_ or “streets” led into them, long, narrow
+lanes through which a chariot or cart could be driven with difficulty.
+Here and there, however, there were streets of a broader and better
+character, called _suli_, which originally denoted the raised and paved
+ascents which led to a temple. It was along these that the religious
+processions were conducted, and the King and his generals passed over them
+in triumph after a victory. One of these main streets, called Â-ibur-sabu,
+intersected Babylon; it was constructed of brick by Nebuchadnezzar, paved
+with large slabs of stone, and raised to a considerable height. It started
+from the principal gate of the city, and after passing Ê-Saggil, the great
+temple of Bel-Merodach, was carried as far as the sanctuary of Istar. When
+Assur-bani-pal’s army captured Babylon, after a long siege, the
+“mercy-seats” of the gods and the paved roads were “cleansed” by order of
+the Assyrian King and the advice of “the prophets,” while the ordinary
+streets and lanes were left to themselves.
+
+It was in these latter streets, however, that the shops and bazaars were
+situated. Here the trade of the country was carried on in shops which
+possessed no windows, but were sheltered from the sun by awnings that were
+stretched across the street. Behind the shops were magazines and
+store-houses, as well as the rooms in which the larger industries, like
+that of weaving, were carried on. The scavengers of the streets were
+probably dogs. As early as the time of Khammurabi, however, there were
+officers termed _rabiani_, whose duty it was to look after “the city, the
+walls, and the streets.” The streets, moreover, had separate names.
+
+Here and there “beer-houses” were to be found, answering to the
+public-houses of to-day, as well as regular inns. The beer-houses are not
+infrequently alluded to in the texts, and a deed relating to the purchase
+of a house in Sippara, of the age of Khammurabi, mentions one that was in
+a sort of underground cellar, like some of the beer-houses of modern
+Germany.
+
+Sippara lay on both sides of the Euphrates, like Babylon, and its two
+halves were probably connected by a pontoon-bridge, as we know was the
+case at Babylon. Tolls were levied for passing over the latter, and
+probably also for passing under it in boats. At all events a document
+translated by Mr. Pinches shows that the quay-duties were paid into the
+same department of the government as the tolls derived from the bridge.
+The document, which is dated in the twenty-sixth year of Darius, is so
+interesting that it may be quoted in full: “The revenue derived from the
+bridge and the quays, and the guard-house, which is under the control of
+Guzanu, the captain of Babylon, of which Sirku, the son of Iddinâ, has
+charge, besides the amount derived from the tolls levied at the bridge of
+Guzanu, the captain of Babylon, of which Muranu, the son of Nebo-kin-abli,
+and Nebo-bullidhsu, the son of Guzanu, have charge: Kharitsanu and Iqubu
+(Jacob) and Nergal-ibni are the watchmen of the bridge. Sirku, the son of
+Iddinâ, the son of Egibi, and Muranu, the son of Nebo-kin-abli, the son of
+the watchman of the pontoon, have paid to Bel-asûa, the son of
+Nergal-yubal-lidh, the son of Mudammiq-Rimmon, and Ubaru, the son of
+Bel-akhi-erba, the son of the watchman of the pontoon, as dues for a
+month, 15 shekels of white silver, in one-shekel pieces and coined.
+Bel-asûa and Ubaru shall guard the ships which are moored under the
+bridge. Muranu and his trustees, Bel-asûa and Ubaru, shall not pay the
+money derived from the tolls levied at the bridge, which is due each month
+from Sirku in the absence of the latter. All the traffic over the bridge
+shall be reported by Bel-asûa and Ubaru to Sirku and the watchmen of the
+bridge.”
+
+House-property was valuable, especially if it included shops. As far back
+as the reign of Eri-Aku, or Arisch, 2¼ shekels were given for one which
+stood on a piece of ground only 1⅚ _sar_ in area, the _sar_, if Dr.
+Reisner is right, being the eighteen-hundredths part of the _feddan_ or
+acre. In the twentieth year of Assur-bani-pal, just after a war which had
+desolated Babylonia, a house was sold in the provincial town of Erech for
+75 shekels (£11 5s.), and in the beginning of the reign of Nabonidos a
+carpenter’s shop in Borsippa, the suburb of Babylon, which was not more
+than 7 rods, 5 cubits, and 18 inches in length, was bought by the agent of
+the Syrian Ben-Hadad-nathan and his wife for 11½ manehs, or £103 10s. On
+the other hand, in the reign of Cambyses, we hear of smaller prices being
+given for houses in Babylon, 4½ manehs for a house with a piece of land
+attached to it, and 2 manehs for one that had been the joint property of a
+man and his wife; while in the ninth year of Nergal-sharezer a house was
+sold for only 52½ shekels.
+
+Houses, however, were more frequently let than sold. Already, in the age
+of Khammurabi, we have the record of the lease of a house for eight years.
+At a later date contracts relating to the renting of houses are numerous.
+Thus in the sixth year of Cyrus a house was let at a yearly rent of 10
+shekels, part of which was to be paid at the beginning of the year and the
+rest in the middle of it. The tenant was to renew the fences when
+necessary and repair all dilapidations. He was also expected to send a
+present to his landlord thrice a year in the months of Nisan, Tammuz, and
+Kisleu. Other houses in Babylon in the Persian age were let at yearly
+rents of 5 shekels, 5½ shekels, 7½ shekels, 9 shekels, 15 shekels, 20
+shekels, 23 shekels, and 35 shekels, the leases running for two, three,
+five, and more years. The tenant usually undertook to keep the property in
+repair and to make good all dilapidations. Loss in case of fire or other
+accidents also fell upon him. Most of the houses seem to have been
+inhabited by single families; but there were tenements or flats as well,
+the rent of which was naturally lower than that of a whole house. Thus we
+find a woman paying only 2 shekels, or 6s., a year for a tenement in the
+reign of Cambyses.
+
+Any violation of the lease involved a fine, the amount of which was stated
+in the contract. A house, for instance, was let at Babylon in the first
+year of Cambyses for 5 shekels a year, the rent to be paid in two halves
+“at the beginning and in the middle of the year.” In this case a breach of
+the contract was to be punished by a fine of 10 shekels, or double the
+amount of the rent. In other cases the fine was as much as a maneh of
+silver.
+
+Occasionally the primitive custom was retained of paying the rent in kind
+instead of in coin. We even hear of “six overcoats” being taken in lieu of
+rent. The rent of a house might also take the place of interest upon a
+loan, and the property be handed over to the creditor as security for a
+debt. Thus in the second and last year of the reign of Evil-Merodach (560
+B.C.), and on the fourth of the month Ab, the following agreement was
+drawn up at Babylon: “Four manehs of silver belonging to Nadin-akhi, the
+son of Nur-Ea, the son of Masdukku, received from Sapik-zeri, the son of
+Merodach-nazir, the son of Liu-Merodach. The house of Sapik-zeri, which is
+in the street Khuburru, and adjoins the houses of Rimut-Bel, the son of
+Zeriya, the son of the Egyptian, and of Zeriya, the son of Bel-edheru,
+shall be handed over as security to Nadin-akhi. No rent shall be paid for
+it, and no interest demanded for the debt. Sapik-zeri shall have it for
+three years. He must renew the fences and repair all injuries to the
+walls. At the end of the three years Sapik-zeri shall repay the
+money—namely, four manehs—to Nadin-akhi, and the latter shall vacate the
+house. The rent of the warehouse of the eunuch is included, of which
+Sapik-zeri enjoys the use. Whatever doors Nadin-akhi may have added to the
+house during his tenancy he shall take away.” Then come the names of three
+witnesses, one of them being the brother of the creditor, as well as of
+the clerk who drew up the document.
+
+A few years later, in the fifth year of Nabonidos (551 B.C.), we find the
+heir-apparent, Belshazzar, receiving house-property on similar terms. “The
+house of Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Sula, the son of Egibi,” we read,
+“which adjoins the house of Bel-iddin, the son of Birrut, the son of the
+life-guardsman, is handed over for three years as security for a loan of
+1½ manehs to Nebo-kin-akhi, the agent of Belshazzar, the son of the king,
+on the following conditions: no rent shall be paid for the house, and no
+interest paid on the debt. The tenant shall renew the fences and make good
+all dilapidations. At the end of three years the 1½ manehs shall be paid
+by Nebo-akhi-iddin to Nebo-kin-akhi, and Nebo-kin-akhi shall vacate the
+house of Nebo-akhi-iddin. Witnessed by Kab-tiya, the son of Talnea, the
+son of Egibi; by Sapik-zeri, the son of Nergal-yukin, the son of
+Sin-karab-seme; by Nebo-zer-ibni, the son of Ardia, and the clerk,
+Bel-akhi-iqisa, the son of Nebo-balasu-ikbi, at Babylon, the 21st day of
+Nisam (March) and the fifth year of Nabonidos, King of Babylon.”
+
+This was not the only transaction of the kind in which Belshazzar appears,
+though it is true that his business was carried on by means of agents. Six
+years later we have another contract relating to his commercial dealings
+which has already been quoted above. It illustrates the intensely
+commercial spirit of the Babylonians, and we may form some idea of the
+high estimation in which trade was held when we see the eldest son of the
+reigning King acting as a wool merchant and carrying on business like an
+ordinary merchant.
+
+An interesting document, drawn up in Babylonia in the eleventh year of
+Sargon (710 B.C.), shortly after the overthrow of Merodach-Baladan,
+contains an account of a lawsuit which resulted from the purchase of two
+“ruined houses” in Dur-ilu, a town on the frontier of Elam. They had been
+purchased by a certain Nebo-liu for 85 shekels, with the intention of
+pulling them down and erecting new buildings on the site. In order to pay
+the purchase money Nebo-liu demanded back from “Bel-usatu, the son of
+Ipunu,” the sum of 30 shekels which he claimed to have lent him. Bel-usatu
+at first denied the claim, and the matter was brought into court. There
+judgment was given in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendant was
+ordered to pay him 45 shekels, 15, or half the amount claimed, being for
+“costs.” Thereupon Bel-usatu proposed:
+
+“ ‘Instead of the money, take my houses, which are in the town of Der.’
+The title-deeds of these houses, the longer side of which was bounded to
+the east by the house of Bea, the son of Sulâ, and to the west by the
+entrance to a field which partly belonged to the property, while the
+shorter side was bounded to the north by the house of Ittabsi, and to the
+south by the house of Likimmâ, were signed and sealed by Nebo-usatu, who
+pledged himself not to retract the deed or make any subsequent claim, and
+they were then handed over to Nebo-liu.” The troubles of the latter,
+however, were not yet at an end. “Ilu-rabu-bel-sanât, Sennacherib, and
+Labasu, the sons of Rakhaz the [priest] of the great god, said to
+Nebo-liu: ‘Seventy-three shekels of your money you have received from our
+father. Give us, therefore, 50 shekels and we will deliver to you the
+house and its garden which belonged to our father.’ The house, which was
+fit only to be pulled down and rebuilt, along with a grove of forty
+date-bearing palms, was situated on the bank of the canal of Dûtu in
+Dur-ilu, its longer side adjoining on the north the house of Edheru, the
+son of Baniya, the priest of Â, and on the south the canal of Dûtu, while
+its shorter side was bounded on the east by the house of Nergal-epus, and
+on the west by the street Mutaqutu. Nebo-liu agreed, and looked out and
+gave Rakhaz and his sons 50 shekels of silver, together with an overcoat
+and two shekels by way of a _bakshish_ to bind the bargain, the whole
+amounting to 52 shekels, paid in full.” The custom of adding a _bakshish_
+or “present” to the purchase-money at the conclusion of a bargain is still
+characteristic of the East. Other examples of it are met with in the
+Babylonian contracts, and prove how immemorially old it is. Thus in the
+second year of Darius, when the three sons of a “smith” sold a house near
+the Gate of Zamama, at Babylon, to the grandson of another “smith,”
+besides the purchase money for the house, which amounted to 67½ shekels,
+the buyer gave in addition a _bakshish_ of 2½ shekels (7s. 6d.) as well as
+“a dress for the lady of the house.” Three shekels were further given as
+“a present” for sealing the deed. So too, the negotiations for the sale of
+some land in the second year of Evil-Merodach were accompanied by a
+_bakshish_ of 5 shekels.
+
+Lawsuits connected with the sale or lease of houses do not seem to have
+been uncommon. One of the documents which have come down to us from the
+ancient records of Babylon is a list of “the judges before whom
+Sapik-zeri, the son of Zirutu, and Baladhu, the son of Nasikatum, the
+slave of the secretary for the Marshlands,” were called upon to appear in
+a suit relating to “the house and deed which Zirutu, the father of
+Sapik-zeri, had sealed and given to Baladhu,” who had afterward handed
+both of them over to Sapik-zeri. Among the judges we find the governor of
+the Marshlands, who acted as president, the sub-governor, the mayor of
+Erech, the priest of Ur, and one of the governors of the district “beyond”
+the Euphrates. The list is dated the 6th of Nisan or March, in the
+seventeenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.
+
+The value of land was proportionate to that of house-property. In the
+early days of Babylonia its value was fixed by the amount of grain that
+could be grown upon it, and it was accordingly in grain that the owner was
+paid by the purchaser or lessee. Gradually, however, a metal currency took
+the place of the grain, and in the later age of Babylonian history even
+the rent was but rarely paid in kind. We learn from a lawsuit decided in
+the reign of Samsu-iluna, the son of Khammurabi, that it was customary for
+an estate to be “paced round” by the _rabianum_ or “magistrates” of the
+city. The ceremony was equivalent to “beating the bounds” of a parish in
+modern England, and it is probable that it was performed every year. Such
+at least is the custom in Egypt, where the limits of a piece of property
+are measured and fixed annually. The Babylonian document in which the
+custom is referred to relates to a dispute about a plantation of acacias
+which grew in the neighborhood of the modern Tel Sifr. The magistrates,
+before whom it was brought, are described as looking after not only the
+city but also “the walls and streets,” from which we may gather that
+municipal commissioners already existed in the Babylonian towns. The
+plaintiff made oath before them over the copper libation-bowl of the god
+of Boundaries, which thus took the place of the Bible in an English court
+of law.
+
+A few years later, in the reign of Ammi-zadok, three men rented a field
+for three years on terms of partnership, agreeing to give the owner during
+the first two years 1 _gur_ of grain upon each _feddan_ or acre. The whole
+of the third harvest was to go to the lessees, and the partners were to
+divide the crop in equal shares “on the day of the harvest.”
+
+When we come to the twelfth century B.C., however, the maneh and shekel
+have been substituted for the crops of the field. Thus we hear of 704
+shekels and a fraction being paid for a field which was calculated to
+produce 3 _gur_ of corn, and of 110 shekels being given for another estate
+which contained a grove of date-palms and on which 2 _gur_ of grain were
+sown. How much grain could be grown on a piece of land we can gather from
+the official reports of the cadastral survey. In the sixth year of Cyrus,
+for example, the following report was drawn up of the “measurement of a
+corn-field and of the corn in the ear” belonging to a Babylonian taxpayer:
+
+Length of      Length of      Amount of      Value in    Tenant.
+the field on   the field on   crop.          grain.
+its longer     its narrower
+side.          side.
+1020           395            13 _gur_, 18   Each 25     Nadbanu.
+                              _qa_, of       _gur_ is
+                              which 1        worth 300
+                              _gur_, 18      _gur_ of
+                              _qa_, are      grain.
+                              destroyed.
+540            550            10 _gur_, 2    Each 20     Arad-Bel.
+                              _pi_, 29       _gur_ is
+                              _qa_, of       worth 130
+                              which 3        _gur_.
+                              _gur_ are
+                              destroyed.
+
+The cadastral survey for purposes of taxation went back to an early period
+of Babylonian history. It was already at work in the age of Sargon of
+Akkad. The survey of the district or principality of Lagas (now Tello)
+which was drawn up in that remote epoch of history is in our hands, and is
+interesting on account of its reference to a “governor” of the land of the
+Amorites, or Canaan, who bears the Canaanitish name of Urimelech. The
+survey states that the district in question contained 39,694 acres, 1,325
+_sar_, as well as 17 large towns and 8 subdivisions.
+
+Another cadastral survey from Lagas, but of the period of Khammurabi,
+which has recently been published by Dr. Scheil, tells us that the towns
+on the lower banks of “the canal of Lagas” had to pay the treasury each
+year 35⅚ shekels of silver according to the assessment of the
+tax-collector Sin-mustal. One of the towns was that of the Aramean tribe
+of Pekod. Another is called the town of the Brewers, and another is
+described as “the Copper-Foundry.” Most of the towns were assessed at half
+a shekel, though there were some which had to pay a shekel and more. Among
+the latter was the town of Ninâ, which gave its name to the more famous
+Nineveh on the Tigris. The surveyor, it should be added, was an important
+personage in Babylonian society, and the contract tablets of the second
+Babylonian empire not unfrequently mention him.
+
+Assyria, like Babylonia, has yielded us a good many deeds relating to the
+sale and lease of houses and landed estate. We can estimate from them the
+average value of house-property in Nineveh in the time of the second
+Assyrian empire, when the wealth of the Eastern world was being poured
+into it and the Assyrian kings were striving to divert the trade of
+Phœnicia into their own hands. Thus, in 694 B.C., a house with two doors
+was sold for 3 manehs 20 shekels, and two years subsequently another which
+adjoined it was purchased for 1 maneh “according to the royal standard.”
+The contract for the sale is a good example of what an Assyrian deed of
+sale in such a case was like. “The nail-marks of Sar-ludari, Akhassuru,
+and Amat-Suhla, the wife of Bel-suri, the official, the son of the priest,
+and owner of the house which is sold. The house, which is in thorough
+repair, with its woodwork, doors, and court, situated in the city of
+Nineveh and adjoining the houses of Mannu-ki-akhi and Ilu-ittiya and the
+street _Sipru_, has been negotiated for by Zil-Assur, the Egyptian
+secretary. He has bought it for 1 maneh of silver according to the royal
+standard from Sar-ludari, Akhassuru, and Amat-Suhla, the wife of Bel-duri.
+The money has been paid in full, and the house received as bought.
+Withdrawal from the contract, lawsuits, and claims are hereby excluded.
+Whoever hereafter at any time, whether these men or others, shall bring an
+action and claims against Zil-Assur, shall be fined 10 manehs of silver.
+Witnessed by Susanqu-khatna-nis, Murmaza the official, Rasuh the sailor,
+Nebo-dur-uzur the champion, Murmaza the naval captain, Sin-sar-uzur, and
+Zidqa (Zedekiah). The sixteenth of Sivan during the year of office of
+Zaza, the governor of Arpad (692 B.C.).” It is noticeable that the first
+witness has a Syrian name.
+
+One of the characteristics of the Assyrian deeds is that so few of the
+parties who appear in them are able to write their names. Nail-marks take
+the place of seals even in the case of persons who hold official positions
+and who are shown by the contracts to have been men of property. In this
+respect Assyria offers a striking contrast to Babylonia, where “the
+nail-mark” seldom makes its appearance. Closely connected with this
+inability to write is the absence of the seal-cylinder, which was part of
+the ordinary dress of the Babylonian gentleman. In the Assyrian contracts,
+on the other hand, it is conspicuous by its absence. The use of it in
+Assyria was an imitation of Babylonian manners, and was confined for the
+most part to the scribes and higher official class, who had received a
+literary education.
+
+Land in Assyria was measured by homers rather than by _feddans_ or acres
+as in Babylonia. In 674 B.C. an estate of 35 homers, in the town of Sairi,
+was sold for 5 manehs, any infringement of the contract being punished by
+a fine of 10 manehs of silver or one of gold, to be paid into the treasury
+of the temple of Istar. We learn incidentally from this that the value of
+gold to silver at the time was as one to ten. Five years previously 6
+homers of land in another small Assyrian town had been let at an annual
+rent of 1 maneh of silver “according to the standard of Carchemish.” In
+the reign of Assur-bani-pal a homer of corn-land was rented for six years
+for 10 shekels a year. The land was calculated to produce 9 _qas_ of
+grain, and at the end of the first three years it was stipulated that
+there should be a rotation of crops. About the same time two fields,
+enclosing an area of 3⅔ homers, were leased by a certain Rimu-ana-Bel of
+Beth-Abimelech, whose father’s name, Yatanael, shows that he was of Syrian
+origin. The steward of “the son of a king” took them for six years at an
+annual rent of 12 shekels. One of the fields contained a well, and yielded
+15 _qas_ of grain to each homer. It is stated in the contract that the
+fields had no mortgage upon them, and that the lessee had a right to the
+whole of the crop which they produced.
+
+It was not in Assyria only that plots of ground could be leased and sold
+in accordance with the provisions of Assyrian law. Conquest had brought
+landed property into the hands of Assyrians in other parts of the Eastern
+world, and it could be put up to auction at Nineveh, where the proprietors
+lived. About 660 B.C., for instance, a considerable estate was thus sold
+in the oasis of Singara, in the centre of Mesopotamia. It lay within the
+precincts of the temple of Istar, and contained a grove of 1,000 young
+palms. It included, moreover, a field of 2 homers planted with terebinths,
+house-property extending over 6 homers, a house with a corn-field attached
+to it, and another house which stood in the grove of Yarkhu, the Moon-god.
+The whole was sold for 4 shekels of silver “according to the standard of
+Carchemish,” and the penalty for any infringement of the contract was
+again to be the payment of a maneh of gold (£90) to the treasury of the
+goddess Istar. When one of the parties to the contract was of Aramean
+descent, it was usual to add an explanatory docket in Aramaic to the deed
+of sale. Indeed, this seems to have been sometimes done even where there
+were no Arameans in the case, so thoroughly had Aramaic become the common
+language of trade. Thus in the year of Sennacherib’s office as eponym (687
+B.C.) we hear of the sale of three shops in Nineveh on the part of a
+certain Dain-kurban, whose name is written in Aramaic letters on the outer
+envelope of the deed of sale. Thirty shekels were paid for them, and a
+fine of 10 manehs imposed upon anyone who should attempt to invalidate the
+sale. The shops seem to have been situated in the Syrian quarter of the
+city, as we are told that they were opposite the tenement of Nakharau,
+“the man of Nahor.”
+
+It will have been noticed how frequently it is stated that a “plantation”
+or grove of palms is attached to the house or field which is rented and
+sold. In Babylonia, in fact, an estate was not considered complete without
+its garden, which almost invariably included a clump of palms. The
+date-palm was the staple of the country. It was almost the only tree which
+grew there, and it grew in marvellous abundance. Stem, leaves, and fruit
+were all alike turned to use. The columns and roofing-beams of the temples
+and houses were made of its stem, which was also employed for bonding the
+brick walls of the cities. Its fibres were twisted into ropes, its leaves
+woven into baskets. The fruit it bore was utilized in many ways. Sometimes
+the dates were eaten fresh, at other times they were dried and exported to
+foreign lands; out of some of them wine was made, out of others a rich and
+luscious sugar. It was little wonder that the Babylonian regarded the palm
+as the best gift that Nature had bestowed upon him. Palm-land necessarily
+fetched a higher price than corn-land, and we may conclude, from a
+contract of the third year of Cyrus, that its valuation was seven and
+one-half times greater.
+
+Trade partnerships were common, and even commercial companies were not
+unknown. The great banking and money-lending firm which was known in
+Babylonia under the name of its founder, Egibi, and from which so many of
+the contract-tablets have been derived, was an example of the latter. It
+lasted through several generations and seems to have been but little
+affected by the political revolutions and changes which took place at
+Babylon. It saw the rise and fall of the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, and
+flourished quite as much under the Persian as under the native kings.
+
+As far back as the reign of Samsu-iluna we find women entering into
+partnership with men for business purposes on a footing of absolute
+equality. A certain Amat-Samas, for instance, a devotee of the Sun-god,
+did so with two men in order to trade with a maneh of silver which had
+been borrowed from the treasury of the god. It was stipulated in the deed
+which was indentured when the partnership was made that in case of
+disagreement the capital and interest accruing from it were to be divided
+in equal shares among the three partners.
+
+In the later Babylonian period the contract was drawn up in much the same
+form, though with a little more detail. In the report of a trial dated the
+eighth day of Sebat or January, in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar
+II., we have the following reference to one that had been made twenty-one
+years before: “A partnership was entered into between Nebo-yukin-abla and
+his son Nebo-bel-sunu on the one side and Musezib-Bel on the other, which
+lasted from the eighteenth year of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, to the
+eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. The contract was produced before the
+judge of the judges. Fifty shekels of silver were adjudged to
+Nebo-bel-sunu and his father Nebo-yukin-abla. No further agreement or
+partnership exists between the two parties.… They have ended their
+contract with one another. All former obligations in their names are
+rescinded.”
+
+One of the latest Babylonian deeds of partnership that have come down to
+us is dated in the fifth year of Xerxes. It begins with the statement that
+“Bel-edheru, son of Nergal-edheru and Ribâta, son of Kasmani, have entered
+into partnership with one another, contributing severally toward it 2½
+manehs of silver in stamped shekel-pieces and half a maneh of silver, also
+in stamped shekel-pieces. Whatever profits Ribâta shall make on the
+capital—namely, the 3 manehs in stamped shekel-pieces—whether in town or
+country, [he shall divide with] Bel-edheru proportionally to the share of
+the latter in the business. When the partnership is dissolved he shall
+repay to Bel-edheru the [2½] manehs contributed by him. Ribâta, son of
+Kasmani, undertakes all responsibility for the money.” Then come the names
+of six witnesses.
+
+Money, however, was not the only subject of a deed of partnership. Houses
+and other property could be bought and sold and traded with in common.
+Thus we hear of Itti-Merodach-baladh, the grandson of “the Egyptian,” and
+Merodach-sapik-zeri starting as partners with a capital of 5 manehs of
+silver and 130 empty barrels, two slaves acting as agents, and on another
+occasion we find it stipulated that “200 barrels full of good beer, 20
+empty barrels, 10 cups and saucers, 90 _gur_ of dates in the storehouse,
+15 _gur_ of chickpease (?), and 14 sheep, besides the profits from the
+shop and whatever else Bel-sunu has accumulated, shall be shared between
+him” and his partner.
+
+The partners usually contributed in equal parts to the business, and the
+profits were divided equally among them. Where this was not the case,
+provision was made for a proportionate distribution of profit and loss.
+All profits were included, whether made, to use the language of Babylonian
+law, “in town or country.” The partnership was generally entered into for
+a fixed term of years, but could be terminated sooner by death or by
+agreement. One of the partners could be represented by an agent, who was
+often a slave; in some instances we hear of the wife taking the place of
+her husband or other relation during his absence from home. Thus in a deed
+dated in the second year of Nergal-sharezer (559 B.C.) we read: “As long
+as Pani-Nebo-dhemi, the brother of Ili-qanua, does not return from his
+travels, Burasu, the wife of Ili-qanua, shall share in the business of
+Ili-qanua, in the place of Pani-Nebo-dhemi. When Pani-Nebo-dhemi returns
+she shall leave Ili-qanua and hand over the share to Pani-Nebo-dhemi.” As
+one of the witnesses to the document is a “minister of the king” who bears
+the Syrian name of Salammanu, or Solomon the son of Baal-tammuh, it is
+possible that Pani-Nebo-dhemi was a Syrian merchant whose business obliged
+him to reside in a foreign country.
+
+That partnerships in Babylonia were originally made for the sake of
+foreign trade seems probable from the name given to them. This is
+_kharran_, which properly means a “road” or “caravan.” The earliest
+partners in trade would have been the members of a caravan, who clubbed
+together to travel and traffic in foreign lands and to defend themselves
+in common from the perils of the journey.
+
+The products of the Babylonian looms must have been among the first
+objects which were thus sent abroad. We have already described the
+extensive industry which brought wealth into Babylonia and made it from
+the earliest ages the centre of the trade in rugs and tapestries, cloths
+and clothing. A large part of the industrial population of the country
+must have been employed in the factories and shops where the woven and
+embroidered fabrics were produced and made ready for sale. Long lists
+exist giving the names of the various articles of dress which were thus
+manufactured. The goodly “Babylonish garment” carried off by Achan from
+the sack of Jericho was but one of the many which found their way each
+year to the shores of the Mediterranean.
+
+The trades of the dyer and the fuller flourished by the side of that of
+the cloth-maker. So, too, did the trade of the tanner, leather being much
+used and finely worked. The shoes of the Babylonian ladies were famous;
+and the saddles of the horses were made with elaborate care.
+
+The smith, too, occupied an honorable position. In the earlier period of
+Babylonian history, gold, silver, copper, and bronze were the metals which
+he manufactured into arms, utensils, and ornaments. At a later date,
+however, iron also came to be extensively used, though probably not before
+the sixteenth century B.C. The use of bronze, moreover, does not seem to
+go back much beyond the age of Sargon of Akkad; at all events, the oldest
+metal tools and weapons found at Tello are of copper, without any
+admixture of tin. Most of the copper came from the mines of the Sinaitic
+Peninsula, though the metal was also found in Cyprus, to which reference
+appears to be made in the annals of Sargon. The tin was brought from a
+much greater distance. Indeed, it would seem that the nearest sources for
+it—at any rate in sufficient quantities for the bronze of the Oriental
+world—were India and the Malayan Peninsula on the one hand, and the
+southern extremity of Cornwall on the other. It is not surprising,
+therefore, that it should have been rare and expensive, and that
+consequently it was long before copper was superseded by the harder
+bronze. Means, however, were found for hardening the copper when it was
+used, and copper tools were employed to cut even the hardest of stones.
+
+The metal, after being melted, was run into moulds of stone or clay. It
+was in this way that most of the gold and silver ornaments were
+manufactured which we see represented in the sculptures. Stone moulds for
+ear-rings have been found on the site of Nineveh, and the inscriptions
+contain many references to jewelry. The gold was also worked by the hand
+into beaded patterns, or incised like the silver seals, some of which have
+come down to us. Most of the gold was originally brought from the north;
+in the fifteenth century before our era the gold mines in the desert on
+the eastern side of Egypt provided the precious metal for the nations of
+Western Asia.
+
+A document found among the records of the trading firm of Murasu at
+Nippur, in the fifth century B.C., shows that the goldsmith was required
+to warrant the excellence of his work before handing it over to the
+customer, and it may be presumed that the same rule held good for other
+trades also. The document in question is a guarantee that an emerald has
+been so well set in a ring as not to drop out for twenty years, and has
+been translated as follows by Professor Hilprecht: “Bel-akh-iddina and
+Bel-sunu, the sons of Bel, and Khatin, the son of Bazuzu, have made the
+following declaration to Bel-nadin-sumu, the son of Murasu: As to the gold
+ring set with an emerald, we guarantee that for twenty years the emerald
+will not fall out of the ring. If it should fall out before the end of
+twenty years, Bel-akh-iddina [and the two others] shall pay Bel-nadin-sumu
+an indemnity of ten manehs of silver.” Then come the names of seven
+witnesses and of the clerk who drew up the deed, and the artisans add
+their nail-marks in place of seals.
+
+Many of the articles of daily use in the houses of the people, such as
+knives, tools of all kinds, bowls, dishes, and the like, were made of
+copper or bronze. They were, however, somewhat expensive, and as late as
+the reign of Cambyses we find that a copper libation-bowl and cup cost as
+much as 4 manehs 9 shekels, (£37 7s.), and about the same time 22 shekels
+(£3 3s.) were paid for two copper bowls 7½ manehs in weight. If the weight
+in this case were equivalent to that of the silver maneh the cost would
+have been nearly 4d. per ounce. It must be remembered that, as in the
+modern East, the workman expected the metal to be furnished by his
+customer; and accordingly we hear of 3 manehs of iron being given to a
+smith to be made into rods for bows. Three manehs of iron were also
+considered sufficient for the manufacture of six swords, two oboe-rings,
+and two bolts. All this, of course, belongs to the age of the second
+Babylonian empire, when iron had taken the place of bronze.
+
+The carpenter’s trade is another handicraft to which there is frequent
+allusion in the texts. Already, before the days of Sargon of Akkad, beams
+of wood were fetched from distant lands for the temples and palaces of
+Chaldea. Cedar was brought from the mountains of Amanus and Lebanon, and
+other trees from Elam. The palm could be used for purely architectural
+purposes, for boarding the crude bricks of the walls together, or to serve
+as the rafters of the roof, but it was unsuitable for doors or for the
+wooden panels with which the chambers of the temple or palace were often
+lined. For such purposes the cedar was considered best, and burnt panels
+of it have been found in the sanctuary of Ingurisa at Tello. Down to the
+latest days panels of wood were valuable in Babylonia, and we find it
+stipulated in the leases of houses that the lessee shall be allowed to
+remove the doors he has put up at his own expense.
+
+But the carpenter’s trade was not confined to inartistic work. From the
+earliest age of Babylonian history he was skilled in making household
+furniture, which was often of a highly artistic description. On a
+seal-cylinder, now in the British Museum, the King is represented as
+seated on a chair which, like those of ancient Egypt, rested on the feet
+of oxen, and similarly artistic couches and chests, inlaid with ivory or
+gold, were often to be met with in the houses of the rich. The Assyrian
+sculptures show to what perfection the art of the joiner had attained at
+the time when Nineveh was the mistress of the civilized world.
+
+The art of the stone-cutter had attained an even higher perfection at a
+very remote date. Indeed, the seal-cylinders of the time of Sargon of
+Akkad display a degree of excellence and finish which was never surpassed
+at any subsequent time. The same may be said of the bas-relief of
+Naram-Sin discovered at Diarbekr. The combination of realism and artistic
+finish displayed in it was never equalled even by the bas-reliefs of
+Assyria, admirable as they are from many points of view.
+
+The early stone-cutters of Chaldea tried their skill upon the hardest
+materials, and engraved upon them the minutest and most delicate designs.
+Hæmatite was a favorite material for the seal-cylinder; the statues of
+Tello are carved out of diorite, which was brought from the Sinaitic
+Peninsula, and stones of similar hardness were manufactured into vases.
+That such work should have been attempted in an age when iron and steel
+were as yet unknown seems to us astonishing. Even bronze was scarce, and
+the majority of the tools employed by the workmen were made of copper,
+which was artificially hardened when in use. Emery powder or sand was also
+used, and the lathe had long been known. When iron was first introduced
+into the workshops of Babylonia is doubtful. That the metal had been
+recognized at a very early period is clear from the fact that in the
+primitive picture-writing of the country, out of which the cuneiform
+syllabary developed, it was denoted by two characters, representing
+respectively “heaven” and “metal.” It would seem, therefore, that the
+first iron with which the inhabitants of the Babylonian plain were
+acquainted was of meteoric origin.
+
+In the age of the Egyptian empire in Asia, at the beginning of the
+seventeenth century B.C., iron was passing into general use. Objects of
+iron are referred to in the inscriptions, and a couple of centuries later
+we hear of iron chariots among the Canaanites, and of ironsmiths in
+Palestine, who repair the shattered vehicles of Egyptian travellers in
+that country. It must have been at this time that the bronzesmith in
+Babylonia became transformed into an ironsmith.
+
+Carving in ivory was another trade followed in Babylonia and Assyria. The
+carved ivories found on the site of Nineveh are of great beauty, and from
+a very early epoch ivory was used for the handles of sceptres, or for the
+inlaid work of wooden furniture. The “ivory couches” of Babylonia made
+their way to the West along with the other products of Babylonian culture,
+and Amos (vi. 4) denounces the wealthy nobles of Israel who “lie upon beds
+of ivory.” Thothmes III. of Egypt, in the sixteenth century B.C., hunted
+the elephant on the banks of the Euphrates, not far from Carchemish, and,
+as late as about 1100 B.C., Tiglath-pileser I. of Assyria speaks of doing
+the same. In the older period of Babylonian history, therefore, the
+elephant would have lived on the northern frontier of Babylonian
+domination, and its tusks would have been carried down the Euphrates along
+with other articles of northern trade.
+
+Quite as old as the trade of the carver in ivory was that of the
+porcelain-maker. The walls of the palaces and temples of Babylonia and
+Assyria were adorned with glazed and enamelled tiles on which figures and
+other designs were drawn in brilliant colors; they were then covered with
+a metallic glaze and fired. Babylonia, in fact, seems to have been the
+original home of the enamelled tile and therewith of the manufacture of
+porcelain. It was a land of clay and not of stone, and while it thus
+became necessary to ornament the plain mud wall of the house, the clay
+brick itself, when painted and protected by a glaze, was made into the
+best and most enduring of ornaments. The enamelled bricks of Chaldea and
+Assyria are among the most beautiful relics of Babylonian civilization
+that have survived to us, and those which adorned the Persian palace of
+Susa, and are now in the Museum of the Louvre, are unsurpassed by the most
+elaborate productions of modern skill.
+
+Our enumeration of Babylonian trades would not be complete without mention
+being made of that of the brick-maker. The manufacture of bricks was
+indeed one of the chief industries of the country, and the brick-maker
+took the position which would be taken by the mason elsewhere. He erected
+all the buildings of Babylonia. The walls of the temples themselves were
+of brick. Even in Assyria the slavish imitation of Babylonian models
+caused brick to remain the chief building material of a kingdom where
+stone was plentiful and clay comparatively scarce. The brick-yards stood
+on the outskirts of the cities, where the ground was low and where a thick
+bed of reeds grew in a pond or marsh. These reeds were an important
+requisite for the brick-maker’s art; when dried they formed a bed on which
+the bricks rested while they were being baked by the sun; cut into small
+pieces they were mixed with the clay in order to bind it together; and if
+the bricks were burnt in a kiln the reeds were used as fuel. They were
+accordingly artificially cultivated, and fetched high prices. Thus, in the
+fourteenth year of Nabonidos, we hear of 2 shekels being given for 200
+bundles of reeds for building a bridge across a canal, and a shekel for
+100 bundles to be made into torches. At the same time 55 shekels were paid
+for 8,000 loads of brick. The possession of a bed of reeds added to the
+value of an estate, and it is, therefore, always specified in deeds
+relating to the sale of property. One, situated at Sippara, was owned by a
+scribe, Arad-Bel, who has drawn up several contracts, as we learn
+incidentally from a document dated in the seventh year of Cyrus, in which
+Ardi, the grandson of “the brick-maker,” agrees to pay two-thirds of the
+bricks he makes to Arad-Bel, on condition of being allowed to manufacture
+them in the reed-bed of the latter. This is described as adjoining “the
+reed-bed of Bel-baladan and the plantation of the Sun-god.”
+
+The brick-maker was also a potter, and the manifold products of the
+potter’s skill, for which Babylonia was celebrated, were manufactured in
+the corner of the brick-field. Here also were made the tablets, which were
+handed to the professional scribe or the ordinary citizen to be written
+upon, and so take the place of the papyrus of ancient Egypt or the paper
+of to-day. The brick-maker was thus not only a potter, but the provider of
+literary materials as well. He might even be compared with the printer of
+the modern world, since texts were occasionally cut in wood and so
+impressed upon moulds of clay, which, after being hardened, were used as
+stamps, by means of which the texts could be multiplied, impressions of
+them being mechanically reproduced on other tablets or cylinders of clay.
+
+Another Babylonian trade which must be noticed was that of the vintner.
+Wine was made from dates as well as from grapes, while beer, called
+_sikaru_, was also manufactured, probably from some cereal grain. Mention
+is found of a “wine” that was made from sesame. The vine was not a native
+of Babylonia, but must have been introduced into it from the highlands of
+Armenia at a very early date, as it was known there long before the days
+of Sargon of Akkad. Large quantities of wine and beer were drunk in both
+Babylonia and Assyria, and reference has already been made to the
+bas-relief in which the Assyrian King, Assur-bani-pal, and his Queen are
+depicted drinking wine in the gardens of his palace, while the head of his
+vanquished foe, the King of Elam, hangs from the branch of a neighboring
+tree. A receipt, dated the eleventh day of Iyyar, in the first year of
+Nabonidos, is for the conveyance of “75 _qas_ of meal and 63 _qas_ of beer
+for the sustenance of the artisans;” and in the thirty-eighth year of
+Nebuchadnezzar 20 shekels were paid for “beer,” the amount of which,
+however, is unfortunately not stated. But two “large” casks of new wine
+cost 11 shekels, and five other smaller casks 10 shekels. Moreover, the
+inventory of goods to be handed over to the slave Khunnatu, in the sixth
+year of Cambyses, includes fifty casks of “good beer,” which, together
+with the cup with which it was drawn, was valued at 60 shekels (£9).
+
+Whether any grape-wine was made in Babylonia itself was questionable; at
+any rate, the greater part of that which was drunk there was imported from
+abroad, more especially from Armenia and Syria. The wines of the Lebanon
+were specially prized, the wine of Khilbunu, or Helbon, holding a chief
+place among them. The wines, some of which were described as “white,” were
+distinguished by the names of the localities where they were made or in
+which the vines were grown, and Nebuchadnezzar gives the following list of
+them: The wine of Izalla, in Armenia; of Tuhimmu, of Zimmini, of Helbon,
+of Amabanu, of the Shuhites, of Bit-Kubati, in Elam; of Opis and of
+Bitati, in Armenia. To these another list adds: “The wine reserved for the
+king’s drinking,” and the wines of Nazahzê, of Lahû, and of the Khabur.
+
+The wine was kept in wine-cellars, and among the Assyrian letters that
+have come down to us are some from the cellarers of the King. In one of
+them it is stated that the wine received in the month Tebet had been
+bottled, and that there was no room in the royal cellars in which it could
+be stored. The King is therefore asked to allow new cellars to be made.
+
+The various trades formed guilds or corporations, and those who wished to
+enter one of these had to be apprenticed for a fixed number of years in
+order to learn the craft. As we have seen, slaves could be thus
+apprenticed by their owners and in this way become members of a guild.
+What the exact relation was between the slave and the free members of a
+trading guild we do not know, but it is probable that the slave was
+regarded as the representative of his master or mistress, who accordingly
+became, instead of himself, the real member of the corporation. We perhaps
+have a parallel in modern England, where a person can be elected a member
+of one of the “city companies,” or trade guilds, without being in any way
+connected with the trade himself. Since women in Babylonia were able to
+carry on a business, there would be no obstacle to a slave being
+apprenticed to a trade by his mistress. Hence it is that we find a
+Babylonian lady named Nubtâ, in the second year of Cyrus, apprenticing a
+slave to a weaver for five years. Nubtâ engaged to provide the apprentice
+with clothing and 1 _qa_ (nearly 2 quarts) of grain each day. As in
+ancient Greece a quart of grain was considered a sufficient daily
+allowance for a man, the slave’s allowance would seem to have been ample.
+The teacher was to be heavily fined if he failed to teach the trade, or
+overworked the apprentice and so made him unable to learn it, the fine
+being fixed at 6 _qas_ (about 10 quarts) _per diem_. Any infringement of
+the contract on either side was further to be visited with a penalty of 30
+shekels of silver.
+
+As 30 shekels of silver were equivalent to £4 10s., 6 _qas_ of wheat at
+the time when the contract was drawn up would have cost about 1s. 3d.
+Under Nebuchadnezzar we find 12 _qas_, or the third part of an ardeb, of
+sesame sold for half a shekel, which would make the cost of a single quart
+a little more than a penny. In the twelfth year of Nabonidos 60 shekels,
+or £9, were paid for 6 _gur_ of sesame, and since the _gur_ contained 5
+ardebs, according to Dr. Oppert’s calculation, the quart of sesame would
+have been a little less than 1½d. When we come to the reign of Cambyses we
+hear of 6½ shekels being paid for 2 ardebs, or about 100 quarts, of wheat;
+that would give 2½d. as the approximate value of a single _qa_. It would
+therefore have cost Nubtâ about 2½d. a day to feed a slave.
+
+It must, however, be remembered that the price of grain varied from year
+to year. In years of scarcity the price rose; when the crops were
+plentiful it necessarily fell. To a certain extent the annual value was
+equalized by the large exportation of grain to foreign countries, to which
+reference is made in many of the contract-tablets; the institution of
+royal or public store-houses, moreover, called _sutummê_, tended to keep
+the price of it steady and uniform. Nevertheless, bad seasons sometimes
+occurred, and there were consequent fluctuations in prices. This was more
+especially the case as regards the second staple of Babylonian food and
+standard of value—dates. These seem to have been mostly consumed in
+Babylonia itself, and, though large quantities of them were accumulated in
+the royal storehouses, it was upon a smaller scale than in the case of the
+grain. Hence we need not be surprised if we find that while in the seventh
+year of Nebuchadnezzar a shekel was paid for 1-1/3 ardebs of dates, or
+about a halfpenny a quart, in the thirtieth year of the same reign the
+price had fallen to one-twenty-fifth of a penny per quart. A little later,
+in the first year of Cambyses, 100 _gur_ of dates was valued at 2½ shekels
+(7s. 6d.), the _gur_ containing 180 _qas_, which gives 2d. per each _qa_,
+and in the second year of Cyrus a receipt for the payment of “the workmen
+of the overseer” states that the following amount of dates had been given
+from “the royal store-house” for their “food” during the month Tebet:
+“Fifty _gur_ for the 50 workmen, 10 _gur_ for 10 shield-bearers, 2 _gur_
+for the overseer, 1 _gur_ for the chief overseer; in all, 63 _gurs_ of
+dates.” It was consequently calculated that a workman would consume a
+_gur_ of dates a month, the month consisting of thirty days.
+
+About the same period, in the first year of Cyrus, after his conquest of
+Babylon, we hear of two men receiving 2 _pi_ 30 _qas_ (102 _qas_) of grain
+for the month Tammuz. Each man accordingly received a little over a _qa_ a
+day, the wage being practically the same as that paid by Nubtâ to the
+slave. On the other hand, a receipt dated in the fifteenth year of
+Nabonidos is for 2 _pi_ (72 _qas_) of grain, and 54 _qas_ of dates were
+paid to the captain of a boat for the conveyance of mortar, to serve as
+“food” during the month Tebet. As “salt and vegetables” were also added,
+it is probable that the captain was expected to share the food with his
+crew. A week previously 8 shekels had been given for 91 _gur_ of dates
+owed by the city of Pallukkatum, on the Pallacopas canal, to the temple of
+Uru at Sippara, but the money was probably paid for porterage only. At all
+events, five years earlier a shekel and a quarter had been paid for the
+hire of a boat which conveyed three oxen and twenty-four sheep, the
+offering made by Belshazzar “in the month Nisan to Samas and the gods of
+Sippara,” while 60 _qas_ of dates were assigned to the two boatmen for
+food. This would have been a _qa_ of dates _per diem_ for each boatman,
+supposing the voyage was intended to last a month. In the ninth year of
+Nabonidos 2 _gur_ of dates were given to a man as his nourishment for two
+months, which would have been at the rate of 6 _qas_ a day. In the
+thirty-second year of the same reign 36 _qas_ of dates were valued at a
+shekel, or a penny a _qa_.
+
+In the older period of Babylonian history prices were reckoned in grain,
+and, as might be expected, payment was made in kind rather than in coin.
+In the reign of Ammi-zadok, for instance, 3 homers 24⅔ _qas_ of oil,
+though valued at 20⅔ shekels of silver, were actually bought with “white
+Kurdish slaves,” it being stipulated that if the slaves were not
+forthcoming the purchaser would have to pay for the oil in cash. A
+thousand years later, under Merodach-nadin-akhi, cash had become the
+necessary medium of exchange. A cart and harness were sold for 100
+shekels, six riding-horses for 300 shekels, one “ass from the West” for
+130 shekels, one steer for 30 shekels, 34 _gur_ 56 _qas_ of grain for 137
+shekels, 2 homers 40 _qas_ of oil for 16 shekels, two long-sleeved robes
+for 12 shekels, and nine shawls for 18 shekels.
+
+From this time forward we hear no more of payment in kind, except where
+wages were paid in food, or where tithes and other offerings were made to
+the temples. Though the current price of wheat continued to fix the market
+standard of value, business was conducted by means of stamped money. The
+shekel and the maneh were the only medium of exchange.
+
+There are numerous materials for ascertaining the average prices of
+commodities in the later days of Babylonian history. We have already seen
+what prices were given for sheep and wool, as well as the cost of some of
+the articles of household use. In the thirty-eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar
+100 _gur_ of wheat were valued at only 1 maneh—that is to say, the _qa_ of
+wheat was worth only the hundredth part of a shilling—while at the same
+time the price of dates was exactly one-half that amount. On the other
+hand, in the fourth year of Cambyses 72 _qas_ of sesame were sold at
+Sippara for 6½ shekels, or 19s. 6d. This would make the cereal worth
+approximately 1½d. a quart, the same price as that at which it was sold in
+the twelfth year of Nabonidos. In the second year of Nergal-sharezer
+twenty-one strings of onions fetched as much as 10 shekels, and a year
+later 96 shekels were given for onion bulbs for planting. Sheep in the
+reign of Cambyses fetched 7 and 7¼ shekels each, while 10 shekels were
+given for an ox, and 22½ shekels for a steer two years old. In the
+twenty-fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar 13 shekels had been paid for a
+full-grown ox, and as much as 67 shekels in the fourth year of Nabonidos,
+while in the first year of Evil-Merodach a cow was sold for 15 shekels.
+The ass was in more request, especially if it was of “Western” breed. In
+the reign of Merodach-nadin-akhi, it will be remembered, as much as 130
+shekels had been paid for one of these, as compared with 30 shekels given
+for an ox, and though at a subsequent period the prices were lower, the
+animal was still valued highly. In the year of the death of Cyrus a
+Babylonian gentleman bought “a mouse-colored ass, eight years old, without
+blemish,” for 50 shekels (£7 10s.), and shortly afterward another was
+purchased for 32 shekels. At the same time, however, an ass of inferior
+quality went for only 13 shekels. When we consider that only three years
+later a shekel was considered sufficient wages for a butcher for a month’s
+work, we can better estimate what these prices signify. Nevertheless, the
+value of the ass seems to have been steadily going down in Babylonia; at
+all events, in the fourth year of Nabonidos, 1 maneh, or 60 shekels, was
+demanded for one, and the animal does not seem to have been in any way
+superior to another which was sold for 50 shekels a few years afterward.
+
+Clothes and woven stuffs were naturally of all prices. In the time of
+Nebuchadnezzar a cloak or overcoat used by the mountaineers cost only 4½
+shekels, though under Cambyses we hear of 58 shekels being charged for
+eight of the same articles of dress, which were supplied to the “bowmen”
+of the army. Three years earlier 7½ shekels had been paid for two of these
+cloaks. About the same time ten sleeved gowns cost 35 shekels.
+
+Metal was more expensive. As has already been noticed, a copper
+libation-bowl and cup were sold for 4 manehs 9 shekels (£37 7s.), and two
+copper dishes, weighing 7½ manehs (19 pounds 8 ounces. troy), were valued
+at 22 shekels. The skilled labor expended upon the work was the least part
+of the cost. The workman was supplied with his materials by the customer,
+and received only the value of his labor. What this was can be gathered
+from a receipt dated the 11th day of Chisleu, in the fourteenth year of
+Nabonidos, recording the payment of 4 shekels to “the ironsmith,” Suqâ,
+for making certain objects out of 3⅚ manehs of iron which had been handed
+over to him.
+
+The cost of bricks and reeds has already been described. Bitumen was more
+valuable. In the fourteenth year of Nabonidos a contract was made to
+supply five hundred loads of it for 50 shekels, while at the same time the
+wooden handle of an ax was estimated at one shekel. Five years previously
+only 2 shekels had been given for three hundred wooden handles, but they
+were doubtless intended for knives. In the sixth year of Nabonidos the
+grandson of the priest of Sippara undertook to supply “bricks, reeds,
+beams, doors, and chopped straw for building the house of Rimut” for 12
+manehs of silver, or £108. The wages of the workmen were not included in
+the contract.
+
+With these prices it is instructive to compare those recorded on
+contract-tablets of the age of the third dynasty of Ur, which preceded
+that under which Abraham was born. These tablets, though very numerous,
+have as yet been but little examined, and the system of weights and
+measures which they contain is still but imperfectly known. We learn from
+them that bitumen could be purchased at the time at the rate of half a
+shekel of silver for each talent of 60 manehs, and that logs of wood
+imported from abroad were sold at the rate of eight, ten, twelve, and
+sixty logs a shekel, the price varying according to the nature of the
+wood. Prices, however, as might be expected, are usually calculated in
+grain, oil, and the like, and the exact relation of these to the shekel
+and maneh has still to be determined.
+
+The average wages of the workmen can be more easily fixed. Contracts dated
+in the reign of Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, and found at Sippara,
+show that it was at the rate of about 4 shekels a year, the laborer’s food
+being usually thrown in as well. Thus in one of these contracts we read:
+“Rimmon-bani has hired Sumi-izzitim for his brother, as a laborer, for
+three months, his wages to be one shekel and a half of silver, three
+measures of flour, and 1 _qa_ and a half of oil. There shall be no
+withdrawal from the agreement. Ibni-amurru and Sikni-Anunit have endorsed
+it. Rimmon-bani has hired the laborer in the presence of Abum-ilu
+(Abimael), the son of Ibni-samas, of Ili-su-ibni, the son of Igas-Rimmon;
+and Arad-Bel, the son of Akhuwam.”(7) Then follows the date. Another
+contract of the same age is of much the same tenor. “Nur-Rimmon has taken
+Idiyatum, the son of Ili-kamma, from Naram-bani, to work for him for a
+year at a yearly wage of 4½ shekels of silver. At the beginning of the
+month Sebat, Idiyatum shall enter upon his service, and in the month Iyyar
+it shall come to an end and he shall quit it. Witnessed by Beltani, the
+daughter of Araz-za; by Beltani, the daughter of Mudadum; by Amat-Samas,
+the daughter of Asarid-ili; by Arad-izzitim, the son of Samas-mutasi; and
+by Amat-Bau, the priestess (?); the year when the Temple of the Abundance
+of Rimmon (was built by Khammurabi).” It will be noticed that with one
+exception the witnesses to this document are all women.
+
+There was but little rise in wages in subsequent centuries. A butcher was
+paid only 1 shekel for a month’s work in the third year of Cambyses, as
+has been noticed above, and even skilled labor was not much better
+remunerated. In the first year of Cambyses, for instance, only half a
+shekel was paid for painting the stucco of a wall, though in the same year
+67 shekels (£10 1s.) were given to a seal-cutter for a month’s labor.
+Slavery prevented wages from rising by flooding the labor market, and the
+free artisan had to compete with a vast body of slaves. Hence it was that
+unskilled work was still so commonly paid in kind rather than in coin, and
+that the workman was content if his employer provided him with food. Thus
+in the second year of Nabonidos we are told that the “coppersmith,”
+Libludh, received 7 _qas_ (about 8½ quarts) of flour for overlaying a
+chariot with copper, and in the seventeenth year of the same reign half a
+shekel of silver and 1 _gur_ of wheat from the royal storehouse were paid
+to five men who had brought a flock of sheep to the King’s administrator
+in the city of Ruzabu. The following laconic letter also tells the same
+tale: “Letter from Tabik-zeri to Gula-ibni, my brother. Give 54 _qas_ of
+meal to the men who have dug the canal. The 9th of Nisan, fifth year of
+Cyrus, King of Eridu, King of the World.” The employer had a right to the
+workman’s labor so long as he furnished him with food and clothing.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE MONEY-LENDER AND BANKER
+
+
+Among the professions of ancient Babylonia, money-lending held a foremost
+place. It was, in fact, one of the most lucrative of professions, and was
+followed by all classes of the population, the highest as well the lowest.
+Members of the royal family did not disdain to lend money at high rates of
+interest, receiving as security for it various kinds of property. It is
+true that in such cases the business was managed by an agent; but the
+lender of the money, and not the agent, was legally responsible for all
+the consequences of his action, and it was to him that all the profits
+went.
+
+The money-lender was the banker of antiquity. In a trading community like
+that of Babylonia, where actual coin was comparatively scarce, and the
+gigantic system of credit which prevails in the modern world had not as
+yet come into existence, it was impossible to do without him. The taxes
+had to be paid in cash, which was required by the government for the
+payment of a standing army, and a large body of officials. The same causes
+which have thrown the fellahin of modern Egypt into the hands of Greek
+usurers were at work in ancient Babylonia.
+
+In some instances the money-lender founded a business which lasted for a
+number of generations and brought a large part of the property of the
+country into the possession of the firm. This was notably the case with
+the great firm of Egibi, established at Babylon before the time of
+Sennacherib, which in the age of the Babylonian empire and Persian
+conquest became the Rothschilds of the ancient world. It lent money to the
+state as well as to individuals, it undertook agencies for private
+persons, and eventually absorbed a good deal of what was properly
+attorney’s business. Deeds and other legal documents belonging to others
+as well as to members of the firm were lodged for security in its
+record-chambers, stored in the great earthenware jars which served as
+safes. The larger part of the contract-tablets from which our knowledge of
+the social life of later Babylonia is derived has come from the offices of
+the firm.
+
+In the early days of Babylonia the interest upon a loan was paid in kind.
+
+But the introduction of a circulating medium goes back to an ancient date,
+and it was not long before payment in grain or other crops was replaced by
+its equivalent in cash. Already before the days of Amraphel and Abraham,
+we find contracts stipulating for the payment of so many silver shekels
+per month upon each maneh lent to the borrower. Thus we have one written
+in Semitic-Babylonian which reads: “Kis-nunu, the son of Imur-Sin, has
+received one maneh and a half of silver from Zikilum, on which he will pay
+12 shekels of silver (a month). The capital and interest are to be paid on
+the day of the harvest as guaranteed. Dated the year when Immerum dug the
+Asukhi canal.” Then follow the names of three witnesses.
+
+The obligation to repay the loan on “the day of the harvest” is a survival
+from the time when all payments were in kind, and the creditor had a right
+to the first-fruits of the debtor’s property. A contract dated in the
+reign of Khammurabi, or Amraphel, similarly stipulates that interest on a
+loan made to a certain Arad-ilisu by one of the female devotees of the
+Sun-god, should be paid into the treasury of the temple of Samas “on the
+day of the harvest.” The interest was reckoned at so much a month, as in
+the East to-day; originally it had to be paid at the end of each month,
+according to the literal terms of the agreement, but as time went on it
+became usual to reserve the payment to the end of six months or a year. It
+was only where the debtor was not considered trustworthy or the security
+was insufficient that the literal interpretation of the agreement was
+insisted on.
+
+The rate of interest, as was natural, tended to be lower with the lapse of
+time and the growth of wealth. In the age of the Babylonian empire and the
+Persian conquest the normal rate was, however, still as high as 1 shekel a
+month upon each maneh, or twenty per cent. But we have a contract dated in
+the fifth year of Nebuchadnezzar in which a talent of silver is lent, and
+the interest charged upon it is not more than half a shekel per month on
+the maneh, or ten per cent. Three years later, in another contract, the
+rate of interest is stated to be five-sixths of a shekel, or sixteen and
+two-thirds per cent, while in the fifteenth year of Samas-sum-yukin the
+interest upon a loan of 16 shekels is only a quarter of a shekel. At this
+time Babylonia was suffering from the results of its revolt from Assyria,
+which may explain the lowness of the rate of interest. At all events, six
+years earlier, Remut, one of the members of the Egibi firm, lent a sum of
+money to a man and his wife without charging any interest at all upon it,
+and stipulating only that the money should be repaid when the land was
+again prosperous.
+
+At times, however, money was lent upon the understanding that interest
+would be charged upon it only if it were not repaid by a specified date.
+Thus in the ninth year of Samas-sum-yukin half a maneh was lent by Suma to
+Tukubenu on the fourth of Marchesvan, or October, upon which no interest
+was to be paid up to the end of the following Tisri, or September, which
+corresponded with “the day of the harvest” of the older contracts; but
+after that, if the money were still unpaid, interest at the rate of half a
+shekel a month, or ten per cent., would be charged. At other times the
+interest was paid by the year, as with us, and not by the month; in this
+case it was at a lower rate than the normal twenty per cent. In the
+fourteenth year of Nabopolassar, for example, a maneh of silver was lent
+at the rate of 7 shekels on each maneh per annum—that is to say, at eleven
+and two-thirds per cent.—and under Nebuchadnezzar money was borrowed at
+annual interest of 8 shekels for each maneh, or thirteen and one-third per
+cent.
+
+Full security was taken for a loan, and the contract relating to it was
+attested by a number of witnesses. Thus the following contract was drawn
+up in the third year of Nabonidos, a loan of a maneh of silver having been
+made by one of the members of the Egibi firm to a man and his wife: “One
+maneh of silver, the property of Nadin-Merodach, the son of Iqisa-bel, the
+son of Nur-sin, has been received by Nebo-baladan, the son of Nadin-sumi,
+and Bau-ed-herat, the daughter of Samas-ebus. In the month Tisri
+(September) they shall repay the money and the interest upon it. Their
+upper field, which adjoins that of Sum-yukin, the son of Sa-Nebo-sû, as
+well as the lower field, which forms the boundary of the house of the
+Seer, and is planted with palm-trees and grass, is the security of
+Nadin-Merodach, to which (in case of insolvency) he shall have the first
+claim. No other creditor shall take possession of it until Nadin-Merodach
+has received in full the capital and interest. In the month Tisri the
+dates which are then ripe upon the palms shall be valued, and according to
+the current price of them at the time in the town of Sakhrin,
+Nadin-Merodach shall accept them instead of interest at the rate of
+thirty-six _qas_ (fifty quarts) the shekel (3s.). The money is intended to
+pay the tax for providing the soldiers of the king of Babylon with arms.
+Witnessed by Nebo-bel-sunu, the son of Bau-akhi, the son of Dahik;
+Nebo-dîni-ebus, the son of Kinenunâ; Nebo-zira-usabsi, the son, Samas-ibni
+Bazuzu, the son of Samas-ibni; Merodach-erba, the son of Nadin; and the
+scribe Bel-iddin, the son of Bel-yupakhkhir, the son of Dabibu. Dated at
+Sakhrinni, the 28th day of Iyyar (April), the third year of Nabonidos,
+King of Babylon.”
+
+In Assyria the rate of interest was a good deal higher than it was in
+Babylonia. It is true that in a contract dated 667 B.C., one of the
+parties to which was the son of the secretary of the municipality of
+Dur-Sargon, the modern Khorsabad, it is twenty per cent., as in Babylonia,
+but this is almost the only case in which it is so. Elsewhere, in deeds
+dated 684 B.C., 656, and later, the rate is as much as twenty-five per
+cent., while in one instance—a deed dated 711 B.C.—it rises to
+thirty-three and a third per cent. Among the witnesses to the
+last-mentioned deed are two “smiths,” one of whom is described as a
+“coppersmith,” and the other bears the Armenian name of Sihduri or
+Sarduris. The money is usually reckoned according to the standard of
+Carchemish. That the rate of interest should have been higher in Assyria
+than in Babylonia is not surprising. Commerce was less developed there,
+and the attention of the population was devoted rather to war and
+agriculture than to trade. It seems to have been the conquest of Western
+Asia, the subjugation of the Phœnician cities, and above all the
+incorporation of Babylonia in the empire, which introduced a commercial
+spirit into Nineveh, and made it in the latter days of its existence an
+important centre of trade. Indeed, one of the objects of the Assyrian
+campaigns in Syria was to divert the trade of the Mediterranean into
+Assyrian hands; the fall of Carchemish made Assyria mistress of the
+caravan-road which led across the Euphrates, and of the commerce which had
+flowed from Asia Minor, while the ruin of Tyre and Sidon meant prosperity
+to the merchants of Nineveh. Nevertheless, the native population of
+Assyria was slow to avail itself of the commercial advantages which had
+fallen to it, and a large part of its trading classes were Arameans or
+other foreigners who had settled in the country. So large, indeed, was the
+share in Assyrian trade which the Arameans absorbed that Aramaic became
+the _lingua panca_, the common medium of intercommunication, in the
+commercial world of the second Assyrian empire, and, as has been already
+stated, many of the Assyrian contract-tablets are provided with Aramaic
+dockets, which give a brief abstract of their contents.
+
+A memorandum signed by “Basia, the son of Rikhi,” furnishes us with the
+relative value of gold and silver in the age of Nebuchadnezzar. “Two
+shekels and a quarter of gold for twenty-five shekels and three-quarters
+of silver, one shekel worn and deficient in weight for seven shekels of
+silver, two and a quarter shekels, also worn, for twenty-two and
+three-quarters shekels of silver; in all five and a half shekels of gold
+for fifty-five and a half shekels of silver.” Gold, therefore, at this
+time would have been worth about eleven times more than silver. A few
+years later, however, in the eleventh year of Nabonidos, the proportion
+had risen and was twelve to one. We learn this from a statement that the
+goldsmith Nebo-edhernapisti had received in that year, on the 10th day of
+Ab, 1 shekel of gold, in 5-shekel pieces, for 12 shekels of silver. The
+coinage, if we may use such a term, was the same in both metals, the
+talent being divided into 60 manehs and the maneh into 60 shekels. There
+seems also to have been a bronze coinage, at all events in the later age
+of Assyria and Babylonia, but the references to it are very scanty, and
+silver was the ordinary medium of exchange. One of the contract-tablets,
+however, which have come from Assyria and is dated in the year 676 B.C.,
+relates to the loan of 2 talents of bronze from the treasury of Istar at
+Arbela, which were to be repaid two months afterward. Failing this,
+interest was to be charged upon them at the rate of thirty-three and a
+third per cent., and it is implied that the payment was to be in bronze.
+
+The talent, maneh, and shekel were originally weights, and had been
+adopted by the Semites from their Sumerian predecessors. They form part of
+that sexagesimal system of numeration which lay at the root of Babylonian
+mathematics and was as old as the invention of writing. So thoroughly was
+sixty regarded as the unit of calculation that it was denoted by the same
+single wedge or upright line as that which stood for “one.” Wherever the
+sexagesimal system of notation prevailed we may see an evidence of the
+influence of Babylonian culture.
+
+It was the maneh, however, and not the talent, which was adopted as the
+standard. The talent, in fact, was too heavy for such a purpose; it
+implied too considerable an amount of precious metal and was too seldom
+employed in the daily business of life. The Babylonian, accordingly,
+counted up from the maneh to the talent and down to the shekel.
+
+The standard weight of the maneh, which continued in use up to the latest
+days of Babylonian history, had been fixed by Dungi, of the dynasty of Ur,
+about 2700 B.C. An inscription on a large cone of dark-green stone, now in
+the British Museum, tells us that the cone represents “one maneh standard
+weight, the property of Merodach-sar-ilani, and a duplicate of the weight
+which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the son of Nabopolassar, king of
+Babylon, had made in exact imitation of the standard weight established by
+the deified Dungi, an earlier king.” The stone now weighs 978.309 grammes,
+which, making the requisite deductions for the wear and tear of time,
+would give 980 grammes, or rather more than 2 pounds 2 ounces avoirdupois.
+The Babylonian maneh, as fixed by Dungi and Nebuchadnezzar, thus agrees in
+weight rather with the Hebrew maneh of gold than with the “royal” maneh,
+which was equivalent to 2 pounds 7½ ounces.
+
+It was not, however, the only maneh in use in Babylonia. Besides the
+“heavy” or “royal” maneh there was also a “light” maneh, like the Hebrew
+silver maneh of 1 pound 11 ounces, while the Assyrian contract-tablets
+make mention of “the maneh of Carchemish,” which was introduced into
+Assyria after the conquest of the Hittite capital in 717 B.C. Mr. Barclay
+V. Head has pointed out that this latter maneh was known in Asia Minor as
+far as the shores of the Ægean, and that the “tongues” or bars of silver
+found by Dr. Schliemann on the site of Troy are shekels made in accordance
+with it.(8)
+
+A similar “tongue” of gold “of fifty shekels weight” is referred to in
+Josh. vii. 21, in connection with that “goodly Babylonish garment” which
+was carried away by Achan from among the spoils of Jericho. It is probable
+that the shekels and manehs of Babylonia were originally cast in the same
+tongue-like form. In Egypt they were in the shape of rings and spirals,
+but there is no evidence that the use of the latter extended beyond the
+valley of the Nile. In Western Asia it was rather bars of metal that were
+employed.
+
+At first the value of the bar had to be determined by its being weighed
+each time that it changed hands. But it soon came to be stamped with an
+official indication of its weight and value. A Cappadocian tablet found
+near Kaisariyeh, which is at least as early as the age of the Exodus and
+may go back to that of Abraham, speaks of “three shekels of sealed” or
+“stamped silver.” In that distant colony of Babylonian civilization,
+therefore, an official seal was already put upon some of the money in
+circulation. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar the coinage was still more
+advanced. There were “single shekel” pieces, pieces of “five shekels” and
+the like, all implying that coins were issued representing different
+fractions of the maneh. The maneh itself was divided into pieces of
+five-sixths, two-thirds, one-third, one-half, one-quarter, and
+three-quarters. It is often specified whether a sum of money is to be paid
+in single shekel pieces or in 5-shekel pieces, and the word “stamped” is
+sometimes added. The invention of a regular coinage is generally ascribed
+to the Lydians; but it was more probably due to the Babylonians, from whom
+both Lydians and Greeks derived their system of weights as well as the
+term _mina_ or maneh.
+
+The Egibi firm was not the only great banking or trading establishment of
+which we know in ancient Babylonia. The American excavators at Niffer have
+brought to light the records of another firm, that of Murasu, which,
+although established in a provincial town and not in the capital, rose to
+a position of great wealth and influence under the Persian kings
+Artaxerxes I. (464-424 B.C.) and Darius II. (424-405 B.C.). The tablets
+found at Tello also indicate the existence of similarly important trading
+firms in the Babylonia of 2700 B.C., though at this period trade was
+chiefly confined to home products, cattle and sheep, wool and grain, dates
+and bitumen.
+
+The learned professions were well represented. The scribes were a large
+and powerful body, and in Assyria, where education was less widely
+diffused than in Babylonia, they formed a considerable part of the
+governing bureaucracy. In Babylonia they acted as librarians, authors, and
+publishers, multiplying copies of older books and adding to them new works
+of their own. They served also as clerks and secretaries; they drew up
+documents of state as well as legal contracts and deeds. They were
+accordingly responsible for the forms of legal procedure, and so to some
+extent occupied the place of the barristers and attorneys of to-day. The
+Babylonian seems usually, if not always, to have pleaded his own case; but
+his statement of it was thrown into shape by the scribe or clerk like the
+final decision of the judges themselves. Under Nebuchadnezzar and his
+successors such clerks were called “the scribes of the king,” and were
+probably paid out of the public revenues. Thus in the second year of
+Evil-Merodach it is said of the claimants to an inheritance that “they
+shall speak to the scribes of the king and seal the deed,” and the seller
+of some land has to take the deed of quittance “to the scribes of the
+king,” who “shall supervise and seal it in the city.” Many of the scribes
+were priests; and it is not uncommon to find the clerk who draws up a
+contract and appears as a witness to be described as “the priest” of some
+deity.
+
+The physician is mentioned at a very early date. Thus we hear of
+“Ilu-bani, the physician of Gudea,” the High-priest of Lagas (2700 B.C.),
+and a treatise on medicine, of which fragments exist in the British
+Museum, was compiled long before the days of Abraham. It continued to be
+regarded as a standard work on the subject even in the time of the second
+Assyrian empire, though its prescriptions are mixed up with charms and
+incantations. But an attempt was made in it to classify and describe
+various diseases, and to enumerate the remedies that had been proposed for
+them. The remedies are often a compound of the most heterogeneous drugs,
+some of which are of a very unsavory nature. However, the patient, or his
+doctor, is generally given a choice of the remedies he might adopt. Thus
+for an attack of spleen he was told either to “slice the seed of a reed
+and dates in palm-wine,” or to “mix calves’ milk and bitters in
+palm-wine,” or to “drink garlic and bitters in palm-wine.” “For an aching
+tooth,” it is laid down, “the plant of human destiny (perhaps the
+mandrake) is the remedy; it must be placed upon the tooth. The fruit of
+the yellow snakewort is another remedy for an aching tooth; it must be
+placed upon the tooth.… The roots of a thorn which does not see the sun
+when growing is another remedy for an aching tooth; it must be placed upon
+the tooth.” Unfortunately it is still impossible to assign a precise
+signification to most of the drugs that are named, or to identify the
+various herbs contained in the Babylonian pharmacopœia.
+
+As time passed on, the charms and other superstitious practices which had
+at first played so large a part in Babylonian medicine fell into the
+background and were abandoned to the more uneducated classes of society.
+The conquest of Western Asia by the Egyptian Pharaohs of the eighteenth
+dynasty brought Babylonia into contact with Egypt, where the art of
+medicine was already far advanced. It is probable that from this time
+forward Babylonian medicine also became more strictly scientific. We have
+indeed evidence that the medical system and practice of Egypt had been
+introduced into Asia. When the great Egyptian treatise on medicine, known
+as the Papyrus Ebers, was written in the sixteenth century B.C., one of
+the most fashionable oculists of the day was a “Syrian” of Gebal, and as
+the study of the disease of the eye was peculiarly Egyptian, we must
+assume that his science had been derived from the valley of the Nile. It
+must not be supposed, however, that the superstitious beliefs and
+practices of the past were altogether abandoned, even by the most
+distinguished practitioners, any more than they were by the physicians of
+Europe in the early part of the last century. But they were invoked only
+when the ordinary remedies had failed, and when no resource seemed left
+except the aid of spiritual powers. Otherwise the doctor depended upon his
+diagnosis of the disease and the prescriptions which had been accumulated
+by the experience of past generations.
+
+At the head of the profession stood the court-physician, the Rab-mugi or
+Rab-mag as he was called in Babylonia. In Assyria there was more than one
+doctor attached to the royal person, but letters have come down to us from
+which we learn that the royal physicians were at times permitted to attend
+private individuals when they were sick. Thus we have a letter of thanks
+to the Assyrian King from one of his subjects full of gratitude to the
+King for sending his own doctor to the writer, who had accordingly been
+cured of a dangerous disease. “May Istar of Erech,” he says, “and Nana (of
+Bit-Anu) grant long life to the king my lord, for he has sent Basa, the
+royal physician, to save my life, and he has cured me; may the great gods
+of heaven and earth be therefore gracious to the king my lord, and may
+they establish the throne of the king my lord in heaven for ever, since I
+was dead and the king has restored me to life.” Another letter contains a
+petition that one of the royal physicians should be allowed to visit a
+lady who was ill. “To the king my lord,” we read, “thy servant,
+Saul-miti-yuballidh, sends salutation to the king my lord: may Nebo and
+Merodach be gracious to the king my lord for ever and ever. Bau-gamilat,
+the handmaid of the king, is constantly ill; she cannot eat a morsel of
+food. Let the king send orders that some physician may go and see her.” In
+this case, however, it is possible that the lady, who seems to have been
+suffering from consumption, belonged to the harîm of the monarch, and it
+was consequently needful to obtain the royal permission for a stranger to
+visit her, even though he came professionally.
+
+We can hardly reckon among Babylonian professions that of the poet. It is
+true that a sort of poet-laureate existed at the court, and that we hear
+of a piece of land being given by the King to one of them for some verses
+which he had composed in honor of the sovereign. But poetry was not a
+separate profession, and the poet must be included in the class of
+scribes, or among those educated country gentlemen who possessed estates
+of their own. He was, however, fully appreciated in Babylonia. The names
+of the chief poets of the country were never forgotten, and the poems they
+had written passed through edition after edition down to the later days of
+Babylonian history. Sin-liqi-unnini, the author of the “Epic of Gilgames,”
+Nis-Sin, the author of the “Adventures of Etana,” and many others, never
+passed out of literary remembrance. There was a large reading public, and
+the literary language of Babylonia changed but little from century to
+century.
+
+It was otherwise with the musicians. They formed a class to themselves,
+though whether as a trade or as a profession it is difficult to say. We
+must, however, distinguish between the composer and the performer. The
+latter was frequently a slave or captive, and occupied but an humble place
+in society. He is frequently depicted in the Assyrian bas-reliefs, and in
+one instance is represented as wearing a cap of great height and shaped
+like a fish. Musical instruments were numerous and various. We find among
+them drums and tambourines, trumpets and horns, lyres and guitars, harps
+and zithers, pipes and cymbals. Even the speaking-trumpet was employed. In
+a sculpture which represents the transport of a colossal bull from the
+quarries of Balad to the palace of Sennacherib, an overseer is made to
+stand on the body of the bull and issue orders through a trumpet to the
+workmen.
+
+Besides single musicians, there were bands of performers, and at times the
+music was accompanied by dancing or by clapping the hands. The bands were
+under the conduct of leaders, who kept time with a double rod. In one
+instance the Assyrian artist has represented three captives playing on a
+lyre, an interesting illustration of the complaint of the Jewish exiles in
+Babylonia that their conquerors required from them “a song.”
+
+The artist fared no better than the musical performer. The painter of the
+figures and scenes on the walls of the chamber, the sculptor of the
+bas-reliefs which adorned an Assyrian palace, or of the statues which
+stood in the temples of Babylonia, the engraver of the gems and seals,
+some of which show such high artistic talent, were all alike skilled
+artisans and nothing more. We have already seen what wages they received,
+and what consequently must have been the social admiration in which they
+were held. Behind the workman, however, stood the original artist, who
+conceived and drew the first designs, and to whom the artistic inspiration
+was primarily due. Of him we still know nothing. Probably he belonged in
+general to the class of priests or scribes, and would have disdained to
+receive remuneration for his art. As yet the texts have thrown no light
+upon him, and it may be that they never will do so. The Babylonians were a
+practical and not an artistic people, and the skilled artisan gave them
+all that they demanded in the matter of art.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE ARMY
+
+
+The conception of the state in Babylonia was intensely theocratic. The
+kings had been preceded by high-priests, and up to the last they performed
+priestly functions, and represented the religious as well as the civil
+power. At Babylon the real sovereign was Bel Merodach, the true “lord” of
+the city, and it was only when the King had been adopted by the god as his
+son that he possessed any right to rule. Before he had “taken the hands”
+of Bel, and thereby become the adopted son of the deity, he had no
+legitimate title to the throne. He was, in fact, the vicegerent and
+representative of Bel upon earth; it was Bel who gave him his authority
+and watched over him as a father over a son.
+
+The Babylonian sovereign was thus quite as much a pontiff as he was a
+king. The fact was acknowledged in the titles he bore, as well as in the
+ceremony which legitimized his accession to the throne. Two views
+prevailed, however, as to his relation to the god. According to one of
+these, sonship conferred upon him actual divinity; he was not merely the
+representative of a god, but a god himself. This was the view which
+prevailed in the earlier days of Semitic supremacy. Sargon of Akkad and
+his son Naram-Sin are entitled “gods;” temples and priests were dedicated
+to them during their lifetime, and festivals were observed in their honor.
+Their successors claimed and received the same attributes of divinity.
+Under the third dynasty of Ur even the local prince, Gudea, the
+high-priest of Tello, was similarly deified. It was not until Babylonia
+had been conquered by the foreign Kassite dynasty from the mountains of
+Elam that a new conception of the King was introduced. He ceased to be a
+god himself, and became, instead, the delegate and representative of the
+god of whom he was the adopted son. His relation to the god was that of a
+son during the lifetime of his father, who can act for his father, but
+cannot actually take the father’s place so long as the latter is alive.
+
+Some of the earlier Chaldean monarchs call themselves sons of the
+goddesses who were worshipped in the cities over which they held sway.
+They thus claimed to be of divine descent, not by adoption, but by actual
+birth. The divinity that was in them was inherited; it was not merely
+communicated by a later and artificial process. The “divine right,” by
+grace of which they ruled, was the right of divine birth.
+
+At the outset, therefore, the Babylonian King was a pontiff because he was
+also a god. In him the deities of heaven were incarnated on earth. He
+shared their essence and their secrets; he knew how their favor could be
+gained or their enmity averted, and so mediated between god and man. This
+deification of the King, however, cannot be traced beyond the period when
+Semitic rule was firmly established in Chaldea. It is true that Sumerian
+princes, like Gudea of Lagas, were also deified; but this was long after
+the rise of Semitic supremacy, and the age of Sargon of Akkad, and when
+Sumerian culture was deeply interpenetrated by Semitic ideas. So far as we
+know at present the apotheosis of the King was of Semitic origin.
+
+It is paralleled by the apotheosis of the King in ancient Egypt. There,
+too, the Pharaoh was regarded as an incarnation of divinity, to whom
+shrines were erected, priests ordained, and sacrifices offered. In early
+times he was, moreover, declared to be the son of the goddess of the city
+in which he dwelt; it was not till the rise of the fifth historical
+dynasty that he became the “Son of the Sun-god” of Heliopolis, rather than
+Horus, the Sun-god, himself. This curious parallelism is one of many facts
+which point to intercourse between Babylonia and Egypt in the prehistoric
+age; whether the deification of the King originated first on the banks of
+the Euphrates or of the Nile must be left to the future to decide.
+
+Naram-Sin is addressed as “the god of Agadê,” or Akkad, the capital of his
+dynasty, and long lists have been found of the offerings that were made,
+month by month, to the deified Dungi, King of Ur, and his vassal, Gudea of
+Lagas. Here, for example, are Dr. Scheil’s translations of some of them:
+“I. Half a measure of good beer and 5 _gin_ of sesame oil on the new moon,
+the 15th day, for the god Dungi; half a measure of good beer and half a
+measure of herbs for Gudea the High-priest, during the month Tammuz. II.
+Half a measure of the king’s good beer, half a measure of herbs, on the
+new moon, the 15th day, for Gudea the High-priest. One measure of good
+wort beer, 5 _qas_ of ground flour, 3 _qas_ of cones (?), for the planet
+Mercury: during the month of the festival of the god Dungi. III.… Half a
+measure of good beer, half a measure of herbs, on the new moon, the 15th
+day, for the god Gudea the High-priest: during the month Elul, the first
+year of Gimil-Sin, king [of Ur].”
+
+The conception of the King as a visible god upon earth was unable to
+survive the conquest of Babylonia by the half-civilized mountaineers of
+Elam and the substitution of foreigners for the Semitic or Semitized
+Sumerian rulers of the country. As the doctrine of the divine right of
+kings passed away in England with the rise of the Hanoverian dynasty, so,
+too, in Babylonia the deified King disappeared with the Kassite conquest.
+But he continued to be supreme pontiff to the adopted son of the god of
+Babylon. Babylon had become the capital of the kingdom, and Merodach, its
+patron-deity, was, accordingly, supreme over the other gods of Chaldea. He
+alone could confer the royal powers that the god of every city which was
+the centre of a principality had once been qualified to grant. By “taking
+his hands” the King became his adopted son, and so received a legitimate
+right to the throne.
+
+It was the throne not only of Babylonia, but of the Babylonian empire as
+well. It was never forgotten that Babylonia had once been the mistress of
+Western Asia, and it was, accordingly, the sceptre of Western Asia that
+was conferred by Bel Merodach upon his adopted sons. Like the Holy Roman
+Empire in the Middle Ages, Babylonian sovereignty brought with it a legal,
+though shadowy, right to rule over the civilized kingdoms of the world. It
+was this which made the Assyrian conquerors of the second Assyrian empire
+so anxious to secure possession of Babylon and there “take the hands of
+Bel.” Tiglath-pileser III., Shalmaneser IV., and Sargon were all alike
+usurpers, who governed by right of the sword. It was only when they had
+made themselves masters of Babylon and been recognized by Bel and his
+priesthood that their title to govern became legitimate and unchallenged.
+
+Cyrus and Cambyses continued the tradition of the native kings. They, too,
+claimed to be the successors of those who had ruled over Western Asia, and
+Bel, of his own free choice, it was alleged, had rejected the unworthy
+Nabonidos and put Cyrus in his place. Cyrus ruled, not by right of
+conquest, but because he had been called to the crown by the god of
+Babylon. It was not until the Zoroastrean Darius and Xerxes had taken
+Babylon by storm and destroyed the temple of Bel that the old tradition
+was finally thrust aside. The new rulers of Persia had no belief in the
+god of Babylon; his priesthood was hostile to them, and Babylon was
+deposed from the position it had so long occupied as the capital of the
+world.
+
+In Assyria, in contrast to Babylonia, the government rested on a military
+basis. It is true that the kings of Assyria had once been the high-priests
+of the city of Assur, and that they carried with them some part of their
+priestly functions when they were invested with royal power. But it is no
+less true that they were never looked upon as incarnations of the deity or
+even as his representative upon earth. The rise of the Assyrian kingdom
+seems to have been due to a military revolt; at any rate, its history is
+that of a succession of rebellious generals, some of whom succeeded in
+founding dynasties, while others failed to hand down their power to their
+posterity. There was no religious ceremony at their coronation like that
+of “taking the hands of Bel.” When Esar-haddon was made King he was simply
+acclaimed sovereign by the army. It was the army and not the priesthood to
+whom he owed his title to reign.
+
+The conception of the supreme god himself differed in Assyria and
+Babylonia. In Babylonia, Bel-Merodach was “lord” of the city; in Assyria,
+Assur was the deified city itself. In the one case, therefore, the King
+was appointed vicegerent of the god over the city which he governed and
+preserved; in the other case the god represented the state, and, in so far
+as the King was a servant of the god, he was a servant also of the state.
+
+In both countries there was an aristocracy of birth based originally on
+the possession of land. But in Babylonia it tended at an early period to
+be absorbed by the mercantile and priestly classes, and in later days it
+is difficult to find traces even of its existence. The nobles of the age
+of Nebuchadnezzar were either wealthy trading families or officers of the
+Crown. The temples, and the priests who lived upon their revenues, had
+swallowed up a considerable part of the landed and other property of the
+country, which had thus become what in modern Turkey would be called
+_wakf_. In Assyria many of the great princes of the realm still belonged
+to the old feudal aristocracy, but here again the tendency was to replace
+them by a bureaucracy which owed its position and authority to the direct
+favor of the King. Under Tiglath-pileser III. this tendency became part of
+the policy of the government; the older aristocracy disappeared, and
+instead of it we find military officers and civil officials, all of whom
+were appointed by the Crown.
+
+While, accordingly, Babylonia became an industrial and priestly state,
+Assyria developed into a great military and bureaucratic organization. It
+taught the world how to organize and administer an empire. Tiglath-pileser
+III. inaugurated a course of policy which his successors did their best to
+carry out. He aimed at reviving the ancient empire of Sargon of Akkad, of
+uniting the civilized world of Western Asia under one head, but upon new
+principles and in a more permanent way. The campaigns which his
+predecessors had carried on for the sake of booty and military fame were
+now conducted with a set purpose and method. The raid was replaced by a
+carefully planned scheme of conquest. The vanquished territories were
+organized into provinces under governors appointed by the Assyrian King
+and responsible to him alone. By the side of the civil governor was a
+military commander, who kept watch upon the other’s actions, while under
+them was a large army of administrators. Assyrian colonies were planted in
+the newly acquired districts, where they served as a garrison, and the
+native inhabitants were transported to other parts of the Assyrian empire.
+In this way an attempt was made to break the old ties of patriotism and
+local feeling, and to substitute for them fidelity to the Assyrian
+government and the god Assur, in whose name its conquests were made.
+
+The taxes of the empire were carefully regulated. A cadastral survey was
+an institution which had long been in existence; it had been borrowed from
+Babylonia, where, as we have seen, it was already known at a very early
+epoch. The amount to be paid into the treasury by each town and province
+was fixed, and the governor was called upon to transmit it each year to
+Nineveh. Thus in the time of Sennacherib the annual tribute of Carchemish
+was 100 talents, that of Arpad 30, and that of Megiddo 15, while, at home,
+Nineveh was assessed at 30 talents, and the district of Assur at 20, which
+were expended on the maintenance of the fleet, the whole amount of revenue
+raised from Assyria being 274 talents. Besides this direct taxation, there
+was also indirect taxation, as well as municipal rates. Thus a tax was
+laid upon the brick-fields, which in Babylonia were economically of
+considerable importance, and there was an _octroi_ duty upon all goods,
+cattle, and country produce which entered a town. Similar tolls were
+exacted from the ships which moored at the quays, as well as from those
+who made use of the pontoon-bridges which spanned the Euphrates or passed
+under them in boats.
+
+Long lists of officials have been preserved. Certain of the governors or
+satraps were allowed to share with the King the privilege of giving a name
+to the year. It was an ingenious system of reckoning time which had been
+in use in Assyria from an early period and was introduced into Cappadocia
+by Assyrian colonists. From Asia Minor it probably spread to Greece; at
+all events, the eponymous archons at Athens, after whom the several years
+were named, corresponded exactly with the Assyrian _limmi_ or eponyms.
+Each year in succession received its name from the eponym or officer who
+held office during the course of it, and as lists of these officers were
+carefully handed down it was easy to determine the date of an event which
+had taken place in the year of office of a given eponym. The system was of
+Assyrian invention and never prevailed in Babylonia. There time was dated
+by the chief occurrences of a king’s reign, and at the end of the reign a
+list of them was drawn up beginning with his accession to the throne and
+ending with his death and the name of his successor. These lists went back
+to an early period of Babylonian history and provided the future historian
+with an accurate chronology.
+
+Immediately attached to the person of the Assyrian monarch was the
+Rab-saki, “the chief of the princes,” or vizier. He is called the
+Rab-shakeh in the Old Testament, by the side of whom stood the Rab-saris,
+the Assyrian Rab-sa-risi, or “chief of the heads” of departments. They
+were both civil officers. The army was under the command of the Tartannu,
+or “Commander-in-Chief,” the Biblical Tartan, who, in the absence of the
+King, led the troops to battle and conducted a campaign. When Shalmaneser
+II., for example, became too old to take the field himself, his armies
+were led by the Tartan Daian-Assur, and under the second Assyrian empire
+the Tartan appears frequently, sometimes in command of a portion of the
+forces, while the King is employing the rest elsewhere, sometimes in place
+of the King, who prefers to remain at home. In earlier days there had been
+two Tartans, one of whom stood on the right hand side of the King and the
+other on his left. In order of precedence both of them were regarded as of
+higher rank than the Rab-shakeh.
+
+The army was divided into companies of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and
+ten, and we hear of captains of fifty and captains of ten. Under
+Tiglath-pileser III. and his successors it became an irresistible engine
+of attack. No pains were spared to make it as effective as possible; its
+discipline was raised to the highest pitch of perfection, and its arms and
+accoutrements constantly underwent improvements. As long as a supply of
+men lasted, no enemy could stand against it, and the great military empire
+of Nineveh was safe.
+
+It contained cavalry as well as foot-soldiers. The cavalry had grown out
+of a corps of chariot-drivers, which was retained, though shrunken in size
+and importance, long after the more serviceable horsemen had taken its
+place. The chariot held a driver and a warrior. When the latter was the
+King he was accompanied by one or two armed attendants. They all rode
+standing and carried bows and spears. The chariot itself ran upon two
+wheels, a pair of horses being harnessed to its pole. Another horse was
+often attached to it in case of accidents.
+
+The chariots were of little good when the fighting had to be done in a
+mountainous country. In the level parts of Western Asia, where good roads
+had existed for untold centuries, they were a powerful arm of offence, but
+the Assyrians were constantly called upon to attack the tribes of the
+Kurdish and Armenian mountains who harassed their positions, and in such
+trackless districts the chariots were an incumbrance and not a help. Trees
+had to be cut down and rocks removed in order to make roads along which
+they might pass. The Assyrian engineers indeed were skilled in the
+construction of roads of the kind, and the inscriptions not infrequently
+boast of their success in carrying them through the most inaccessible
+regions, but the necessity for making them suitable for the passage of
+chariots was a serious drawback, and we hear at times how the wheels of
+the cars had to be taken off and the chariots conveyed on the backs of
+mules or horses. It was not wonderful, therefore, that the Assyrian kings,
+who were practical military men, soon saw the advantage of imitating the
+custom of the northern and eastern mountaineers, who used the horse for
+riding purposes rather than for drawing a chariot. The chariot continued
+to be employed in the Assyrian army, but rather as a luxury than as an
+effective instrument of war.
+
+At first the cavalry were little more than mounted horsemen. Their only
+weapons were the bow and arrow, and they rode without saddles and with
+bare legs. At a later period part of the cavalry was armed with spears,
+saddles were introduced, and the groom who had run by the side of the
+horse disappeared. At the same time, under Tiglath-pileser III., the
+rider’s legs were protected by leathern drawers over which high boots were
+drawn, laced in front. This was an importation from the north, and it is
+possible that many of the horsemen were brought from the same quarter.
+Sennacherib still further improved the dress by adding to it a closely
+fitting coat of mail.
+
+The infantry outnumbered the cavalry by about ten to one, and were divided
+into heavy-armed and light-armed. Their usual dress, at all events, up to
+the foundation of the second Assyrian empire, consisted of a peaked helmet
+and a tunic which descended half-way down the thighs, and was fastened
+round the waist by a girdle. From the reign of Sargon onward they were
+divided into two bodies, one of archers, the other of spearmen, the
+archers being partly light-armed and partly heavy-armed. The heavy-armed
+were again divided into two classes, one of them wearing sandals and a
+coat-of-mail over the tunic, while the other was dressed in a long,
+fringed robe reaching to the feet, over which a cuirass was worn. They
+also carried a short sword, and had sandals of the same shape as those
+used by the other class. Each had an attendant waiting upon him with a
+long, rectangular shield of wicker-work, covered with leather. The
+light-armed archers were encumbered with but little clothing, consisting
+only of a kilt and a fillet round the head. The spearmen, on the contrary,
+were protected by a crested helmet and circular shield, though their legs
+and face were usually bare.
+
+Changes were introduced by Sennacherib, who abolished the inconveniently
+long robe of the second class of heavy-armed archers, and gave them
+leather greaves and boots. The first class, on the other hand, are now
+generally represented without sandals, and with an embroidered turban with
+lappets on the head. Sennacherib also established a corps of slingers, who
+were clad in helmet and breastplate, leather drawers, and short boots, as
+well as a company of pioneers, armed with double-headed axes, and clothed
+with conical helmets, greaves, and boots. These pioneers were especially
+needed for engineering the way through the pathless defiles and rugged
+ground over which the extension of the empire more and more required the
+Assyrian army to make its way.
+
+The heads of the spears and arrows were of metal, usually of bronze, more
+rarely of iron. The helmets also were of bronze or iron, a leather cap
+being worn underneath them, and the coats-of-mail were formed of bronze
+scales sewn to a leather shirt. Many of the shields, moreover, were of
+metal, though wicker-work covered with leather seems to have been
+preferred. Battering-rams and other engines for attacking a city were
+carried on the march.
+
+Baggage wagons were also carried, as well as standards and tents. The
+tents of the officers were divided into two partitions, one of which was
+used as a dining-room, while the royal tent was accompanied by a kitchen.
+Tables, chairs, couches, and various utensils formed part of its
+furniture. One of these chairs was a sort of palanquin in the shape of an
+arm-chair with a footstool, which was borne on the shoulders of
+attendants.
+
+The Assyrian army was originally recruited from the native peasantry, who
+returned to their fields at the end of a campaign with the spoil that had
+been taken from the enemy. Under the second Assyrian empire, however, it
+became a standing army, a part of which was composed of mercenaries, while
+another part consisted of troops drafted from the conquered populations.
+Certain of the soldiers were selected to serve as the body-guard of the
+King; they had a commander of their own and doubtless possessed special
+privileges. The army was recruited by conscription, the obligation to
+serve in it being part of the burdens which had to be borne by the
+peasantry. They could be relieved of it by the special favor of the
+government just as they could be relieved of the necessity of paying
+taxes.
+
+The Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors was modelled on
+that of the Assyrians. We can gather from the receipts for the provisions
+and accoutrements furnished to it how the army of Tiglath-pileser or
+Sennacherib must have been fed and paid. Thus in the first year of
+Nabonidos, 75 _qas_ of flour and 63 _qas_ (nearly 100 quarts) of beer were
+provided for the troops in the camp near Sippara, and in the second year
+of the same King 54 _qas_ of beer were sent on the 29th of Nisan for “the
+soldiers who had marched from Babylon.” Similarly in the tenth year of the
+same reign we have a receipt for the despatch of 116 _qas_ of food on the
+14th of Iyyar for “the troops which had marched [to Sippara] from
+Babylon,” as well as for 18 _qas_ of “provisions” provided each day for
+the same purpose from the 15th to the 18th of the same month. In the first
+year of Nabonidos 3 _gur_ of sesame had been ordered for the archers
+during the first two months of the year, and as in his thirteenth year 5
+_gur_ of wheat were provided for fifteen soldiers, we may calculate that
+rather more than two and one-half bushels were allotted to each man. It
+may be added that at the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign we find a
+contractor guaranteeing “the excellence of the beer” that had been
+furnished for the “army that had entered Babylon,” though it is possible
+that here artisans rather than soldiers are meant.
+
+A register of the soldiers was kept, but it would seem that those who were
+in charge of it sometimes forgot to strike off the names of those who were
+dead or discharged, and pocketed their pay. At any rate, the following
+official document has come down to us:—“(The names) of the deserters and
+dead soldiers which have been overlooked in the paymaster’s account, the
+8th day of Nisan, the eighth year of Cyrus, king of Babylon and of the
+world: Samas-akhi-iddin, son of Samas-ana-bitisu, deserted;
+Muse-zib-Samas, son of the Usian, _ditto_; Itti-Samas-eneya junior, of the
+family of Samas-kin-abli, _ditto_; Itti-Samas-baladhu, son of Samas-erba
+_ditto_; Taddannu, son of Rimut, _ditto_; Samas-yuballidh, his brother,
+_ditto_; Kalbâ, son of Samas-kin-abli, son of the painter(?), _ditto_; in
+all seven deserters. Libludh, son of Samas-edher, dead; Nebo-tuktê-tirri,
+_ditto_; Samas-mupakhkhiranni, _ditto_; Samas-akhi-erba, son of
+Samas-ana-bitisu, _ditto_; in all four dead. Altogether eleven soldiers
+who have deserted or are dead.”
+
+If Babylonia copied Assyria in military arrangements, the converse was the
+case as regards a fleet. “The cry of the Chaldeans,” according to the Old
+Testament, was “in their ships,” and in the earliest age of Babylonian
+history, Eridu, which then stood on the sea-coast, was already a sea-port.
+But Assyria was too far distant from the sea for its inhabitants to become
+sailors, and the rapid current of the Tigris made even river navigation
+difficult. In fact, the rafts on which the heavy monuments were
+transported, and which could float only down stream, or the small, round
+boats, resembling the _kufas_ that are still in use, were almost the only
+means employed for crossing the water. When the Assyrian army had to pass
+a river, either pontoons were thrown across it, or the soldiers swam
+across the streams with the help of inflated skins. The _kufa_ was made of
+rushes daubed with bitumen, and sometimes covered with a skin.
+
+So little accustomed were the Assyrians to navigation that, when
+Sennacherib determined to pursue the followers of Merodach-baladan across
+the Persian Gulf to the coast of Elam, he was obliged to have recourse to
+the Phœnician boat-builders and sailors. Two fleets were built for him by
+Phœnician and Syrian workmen, one at Tel-Barsip, near Carchemish, on the
+Euphrates, the other at Nineveh on the Tigris; these he manned with
+Syrian, Sidonian, and Ionian sailors, and after pouring out a libation to
+Ea, the god of the sea, set sail from the mouth of the Euphrates. It was
+probably for the support of this fleet that the 20 talents (£10,800)
+annually levied on the district of Assur were intended. The Phœnician
+ships employed by the Assyrians were biremes, with two tiers of oars.
+
+Of the Babylonian fleet we know but little. It does not seem to have taken
+part in the defence of the country at the time of the invasion of Cyrus.
+But the sailors who manned it were furnished with food, like the soldiers
+of the army, from the royal storehouse or granary. Thus in the sixteenth
+year of Nabonidos we have a memorandum to the effect that 210 _qas_ of
+dates were sent from the storehouse in the month Tammuz “for the
+maintenance of the sailors.” The King also kept a state-barge on the
+Euphrates, like the dahabias of Egypt. In the twenty-fourth year of
+Darius, for instance, a new barge was made for the monarch, two
+contractors undertaking to work upon it from the beginning of Iyyar, or
+April, to the end of Tisri, or September, and to use in its construction a
+particular kind of wood.
+
+While we hear but little about the fleet, cargo and ferry-boats are
+frequently mentioned in letters and contracts. Reference has already been
+made to the shekel and a quarter paid by the agent of Belshazzar for the
+hire of a boat which conveyed three oxen and twenty-four sheep to the
+temple of the Sun-god at Sippara, in order that they might be sacrificed
+at the festival of the new year. Sixty _qas_ of dates were at the same
+time given to the boatmen. In the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 3 shekels were
+paid for the hire of a grain-boat, and in the thirty-sixth year of the
+same King 4½ shekels were given for the hire of another boat for the
+transport of wool.
+
+Some documents translated by Mr. Pinches throw light on the building and
+cost of the ships. One of them is as follows: “A ship of six by the cubit
+beam, twenty by the cubit the seat of its waters, which Nebo-baladan, the
+son of Labasi, the son of Nur-Papsukal, has sold to Sirikki, the son of
+Iddinâ, the son of Egibi, for four manehs, ten shekels of silver, in
+one-shekel pieces, which are not standard, and are in the shape of a
+bird’s tail (?). Nebo-baladan takes the responsibility for the management
+(?) of the ship. Nebo-baladan has received the money, four manehs ten
+shekels of white (silver), the price of his ship, from the hands of
+Sirikki.” The contract, which was signed by six witnesses, one of whom was
+“the King’s captain,” was dated at Babylon in the twenty-sixth year of
+Darius. Another contract relates to one of the boats of the pontoon-bridge
+which ran across the Euphrates and connected the two parts of Babylon
+together: “[Two] manehs ten shekels of white (silver), coined in
+one-shekel pieces, not standard, from Musezib, the son of Pisaram, to
+Sisku, the son of Iddinâ, the son of Egibi. Musezibtum and Narum, his
+female slaves—the wrist of Musezibtum is tattooed with the name of Iddinâ,
+the father of Sisku, and the wrist of Narum is tattooed with the name of
+Sisku—are the security of Musezib. There is no hire paid for the slaves or
+interest on the money. Another possessor shall not have power over them
+until Musezib receives the money, two manehs ten shekels of white silver,
+in one-shekel pieces. Sisku, the son of Iddinâ, takes the responsibility
+for the non-escape of Musezibtum and Narum. The day when Musezibtum and
+Narum go elsewhere Sisku shall pay Musezib half a measure of grain a day
+by way of hire. The money, which is for a ship for the bridge, has been
+given to Sisku.” This contract is also dated in the twenty-sixth year of
+Darius.
+
+A letter written in the time of Khammurabi, or Amraphel, throws some light
+on the profits that were made by conveying passengers. There were ships
+which conveyed foreign merchants to Babylon if they were furnished with
+passports allowing them to travel and trade in the dominions of the
+Babylonian King. They took their goods and commodities along with them; on
+one occasion, we are told, the boat in which some of them travelled had
+been used for the conveyance of 10 talents of lead. It must, therefore,
+have been of considerable size and draught.
+
+That the army and navy should have been recruited from abroad was in
+accordance with that spirit of liberality toward the foreigner which had
+distinguished the Babylonians from an early period. It was partly due to
+the mixed character of the race, partly to the early foundation of an
+empire which embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, partly, and
+more especially, to the commercial instincts of the people. We find among
+them none of that jealous exclusiveness which characterized most of the
+nations of antiquity. They were ready to receive into their midst both the
+foreigner and his gods. Among Assyrian and Babylonian officials we meet
+with many who bear foreign names, and among the gods whose statues found a
+place in the national temples of Assyria were Khaldis of Armenia, and the
+divinities of the Bedâwin. The policy of deporting a conquered nation was
+dictated by the same readiness to admit the stranger to the rights and
+privileges of a home-born native. The restrictions placed upon Babylonian
+and Assyrian citizenship seem to have been but slight.
+
+When Abraham was born at Ur of the Chaldees, Babylonia was governed by a
+dynasty of South Arabian origin whose names had to be translated into the
+Babylonian language. Throughout the country there were colonies of
+“Amorites,” from Syria and Canaan, doubtless established there for the
+purposes of trade, who enjoyed the same rights as the native Babylonians.
+They could hold and bequeath land and other property, could buy and sell
+freely, could act as witnesses in a case where natives alone were
+concerned, and could claim the full protection of Babylonian law.
+
+One of these colonies, known as “the district of the Amorites,” was just
+outside the walls of Sippara. In the reign of Ammi-zadok, the fourth
+successor of Khammurabi, a dispute arose about the title to some land
+included within it, and the matter was tried before the four royal judges.
+The following record of the judgment was drawn up by the clerk of the
+court: “Twenty acres by thirteen of land in the district of the Amorites
+which was purchased by Ibni-Hadad, the merchant. Arad-Sin, the son of
+Edirum, has pleaded as follows before the judges: The building land, along
+with the house of my father, he did not buy; Ibku-Anunit and Dhab-Istar,
+the sons of Samas-nazir, sold (it) for money to Ibni-Hadad, the merchant.
+Iddatum and Mazitum, the sons of Ibni-Hadad the merchant, appeared before
+the judges; they lifted up (their hands) and swore that it had been put up
+for sale; it had been bought by Edirum and Sin-nadni-sû who handed it over
+to Samas-nazir and Ibku-Anunit, selling it to them for money. The estate,
+consisting of twenty-two acres of land enclosed by thirty other acres, as
+well as eleven trees [and] a house, in the district of the Amorites,
+bounded at the upper end by the estate of ——, and at the lower end by the
+river Bukai (?), is contracted in width, and is of the aforesaid nature.
+Judgment has been given for Arad-Sin, the son of Edirum, as follows: At
+the entrance to Sippara the property is situated (?), and after being put
+up for sale was bought by Samas-nazir and Ibku-Anunit, to whom it was
+handed over; power of redemption is allowed (?) to Arad-Sin; the estate is
+there, let him take it. Before Uruki-mansum the judge, Sin-ismeani the
+judge, Ibku-Anunit the judge, and Ibku-ilisu the judge. The 6th day of the
+month Tammuz, the year when Ammi-zadok the king constructed the very great
+aqueduct (?) for the mountain and its fountain (?) for the house of Life.”
+
+If we may argue from the names, Arad-Sin, who brought the action, was of
+Babylonian descent; and in this case native Babylonians as well as
+foreigners could hold land in the district in which the Amorites had
+settled. At any rate, in the eyes of the law, the native and the foreign
+settler must have been upon an equal footing; they were tried before the
+same judges, and the law which applied to the one applied equally to the
+other. It is clear, moreover, that the foreigner had as much right as the
+native to buy, sell, or bequeath the soil of Babylonia.
+
+Whether or not this right was restricted to particular districts, we do
+not know. In Syria, in later days, “streets,” or rows of shops in a city,
+could be assigned to the members of another nationality by special treaty,
+as we learn from I Kings xx. 34, and at the end of the Egyptian eighteenth
+dynasty we hear of a quarter at Memphis being given to a colony of Hittite
+merchants, but such special assignments of land may not have been the
+custom in ancient Chaldea. The Amorites of Canaan may have been allowed to
+settle wherever they liked, and the origin of the title “district of the
+Amorites” may have simply been due to the tendency of foreign settlers to
+establish themselves in the same locality. The fact that Arad-Sin seems to
+have been a Babylonian, and that his action was brought before Babylonian
+judges, is in favor of the view that such was the case.
+
+Moreover, as Mr. Pinches has pointed out, Amorites could rise to the
+highest offices of state. Not only could they serve as witnesses to a
+deed, to which all the other parties were native Babylonians, they could
+also hold civil and military appointments. On the one hand we find the son
+of Abi-ramu, or Abram, who is described as “the father of the Amorite,”
+acting as a witness to a contract dated in the reign of the grandfather of
+Khammurabi, or Amraphel; on the other hand, “an Amorite” has the same
+title of “servant” of the King as the royal judge Ibku-Anunit, and among
+the Assyrians of the second empire, who were slavish imitators of
+Babylonian custom and law, we meet with more than one example of a
+foreigner in the service of the Assyrian government. Thus, in the reign of
+Sargon, thirteen years after the fall of Samaria, the Israelites, Pekah
+and Nadabiah, who appear as witnesses to the sale of some slaves, are
+described, the one as “the governor of the city,” the other as a
+departmental secretary. The founder, again, of one of the leading
+commercial families at Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors is
+entitled “the Egyptian,” and the clerk who draws up a contract in the
+first year of Cambyses is the grandson of a Jew, Bel-Yahu, “Bel is
+Yahveh,” while his father’s name, Ae-nahid, “Ae is exalted,” implies that
+the Israelitish Yahveh had been identified with the Babylonian Ae. Hebrew
+and Canaanite names appear in legal and commercial documents of the age of
+Khammurabi and earlier by the side of names of purely native stamp;
+Jacob-el and Joseph-el, for instance, Abdiel and Ishmael, come before us
+with all the rights and privileges of Babylonian citizens. The name of
+Ishmael, indeed, is already met with on a marble slab from Sippara, which
+is as early as about 4,000 B.C. In the time of Sargon of Akkad the
+Babylonian “governor” of Syria and Canaan bears the Canaanitish name of
+Uru-Malik, or Urimelech, and under the later Assyrian empire, the “tartan”
+of Comagene, with the Hittite name of Mar-lara, was an eponym, who gave
+his name to the year.
+
+Mr. Pinches is probably right in seeing the name “Israel” itself in that
+of a high-priest who lived in the district of the Amorites outside Sippara
+in the reign of Ammi-zadok. His name is written Sar-ilu, and it was by his
+order that nine acres of ground “in the district of the Amorites” were
+leased for a year from two nuns, who were devotees of the Sun-god, and
+their nieces. Six measures of grain on every ten acres were to be paid to
+the Sun-god at the gate of Malgia, the women themselves receiving a shekel
+of silver as rent, and the field was to be handed back to them at
+harvest-time, the end of the agricultural year. That the women in the
+Amorite settlements enjoyed the same freedom and powers as the women of
+Babylonia is shown by two documents, one dated in the reign of the second
+King of the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged, the other in the reign
+of Khammurabi’s great-grandfather. In the first, Kuryatum, the daughter of
+an Amorite, receives a field of more than four acres of which she had been
+wrongfully deprived; in the second, the same Kuryatum and her brother
+Sumu-rah are sued by the three children of an Amorite, one of whom is a
+woman, for the recovery of a field, house, slaves, and date-palms. The
+case was brought before “the judges of Bit-Samas,” “the Temple of the
+(Babylonian) Sun-god,” who rejected the claim.
+
+At a very early period of Babylonian history the Syrian god Hadad, or
+Rimmon, had been, as it were, domesticated in Babylonia, where he was
+known as Amurru, “the Amorite.” He had come with the Amorite merchants and
+settlers, and was naturally their patron-deity. His wife, Asratu, or
+Asherah, was called, by the Sumerians, Nin-Marki, “the mistress of the
+Amorite land,” and was identified with their own Gubarra. Nin-Marki, or
+Asherah, presided over the Syrian settlements, the part of the city where
+the foreigners resided being under her protection like the gate which led
+to “the district of the Amorites” beyond the walls. The following lawsuit
+which came before the courts in the reign of Khammurabi shows that there
+were special judges for cases in which Amorites were concerned and that
+they sat at “the gate of Nin-Marki.” “Concerning the garden of Sin-magir
+which Nahid-Amurri bought for money. Ilu-bani claimed it for the royal
+stables, and accordingly they went to the judges, and the judges sent them
+to the gate of Nin-Marki and the judges of the gate of Nin-Marki. In the
+gate of Nin-Marki Ilu-bani pleaded as follows: I am the son of Sin-magir;
+he adopted me as his son, and the seal of the document has never been
+broken. He further pleaded that ever since the reign of the deified
+Rim-Sin (Arioch) the garden and house had been adjudged to Ilu-bani. Then
+came Sin-mubalidh and claimed the garden of Ilu-bani, and they went to the
+judges and the judges pronounced that ‘to us and the elders they have been
+sent and in the gate of the gods Merodach, Sussa, Nannar, Khusa, and
+Nin-Marki, the daughter of Merodach, in the judgment-hall, the disputants
+(?) have stood, and the elders before whom Nahid-Amurri first appeared in
+the gate of Nin-Marki have heard the declaration of Ilu-bani.’ Accordingly
+they adjudged the garden and house to Ilu-bani, forbidding Sin-mubalidh to
+return and claim it. Oaths have been taken in the name of the Moon-god,
+the Sun-god, Merodach, and Khammurabi, the king. Before Sin-imguranni the
+president, Edilka-Sin, Amil-izzitim, Ubarrum, Zanbil-arad-Sin, Ak-hiya,
+Kabdu-gumi, Samas-bani, the son of Abia-rak-has, Zanik-pisu, Izkur-Ea the
+steward, and Bauila. The seals of the parties are attached. The fourth day
+of Tammuz, the year when Khammurabi the king offered up prayer to Tasmit.”
+
+While a portion of the land was thus owned by foreigners, there was a
+considerable part of it which belonged to the temples. Another part
+consisted of royal domains, the revenue of which went to the privy purse
+of the King. The King could make grants of this to his favorites, or as a
+reward for services to the state. The Babylonian King Nebo-baladan, for
+example, gave one of his officials a field large enough, it was
+calculated, to be sown with 3 _gur_ of seed, and Assur-bani-pal of Assyria
+made his vizier, Nebo-sar-uzur, the gift of a considerable estate on
+account of his loyalty from the time that the King was a boy. All the
+vizier’s lands, including the serfs upon them, were declared free from
+taxation and every kind of burden, the men upon them were not to be
+impressed as soldiers, nor the cattle and flocks to be carried away. It
+was also ordered that Nebo-sar-uzur, on his decease, should be buried
+where he chose, and not in the common cemetery outside the walls of the
+city. Like the monarch, he might have his tomb in the royal palace or in
+his own house, and imprecations were called down on the head of anyone who
+wished to disturb his final resting-place. The deed of gift and privilege
+was sealed, we are told, with the King’s own “signet-ring.”
+
+A grant of immunity from taxation and other burdens could be made to the
+inhabitants of a whole district. A deed exists, signed by a large number
+of witnesses, in which Nebuchadnezzar I. of Babylon (about 1200 B.C.)
+makes a grant of the kind to the district of Bit-Karziyabku in the
+mountains of Namri to the east of Babylonia. We read in it that,
+throughout the whole district, neither the royal messengers nor the
+governor of Namri shall have any jurisdiction, no horses, foals, mares,
+asses, oxen, or sheep shall be carried off by the tax-gatherers, no
+stallions shall be sent to the royal stables, and no taxes of grain and
+fruit shall be paid to the Babylonian treasury. Nor shall any of the
+inhabitants be impressed for military service. It speaks volumes for the
+commercial spirit of the Babylonians that a royal decree of this character
+should have been thrown into legal form, and that the names of witnesses
+should have been attached to it, just as if it had been a contract between
+two private persons. The contrast is striking with the decree issued by
+the Assyrian King, Assur-bani-pal, to his faithful servant Nebo-sar-uzur.
+All that was needed where the King of Assyria was concerned was his
+signet-seal and royal command. But Assur-bani-pal was an autocrat at the
+head of a military state. The Babylonian sovereign governed a commercial
+community and owed his authority to the priests of Bel.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE LAW
+
+
+Babylonian law was of early growth. Among the oldest records of the
+country are legal cases, abstracts of which have been transcribed for
+future use. The first law-book, in fact, was ascribed to Ea, the god of
+culture, and it was told how he had enacted that the King should deal
+uprightly and administer justice to his people. “If he regard not
+justice,” it was said, “Ea, the god of destiny, shall change his fortune
+and replace him by another.… But if he have regard to the injunction of
+Ea, the great gods shall establish him in wisdom and the knowledge of
+righteousness.”
+
+The Ea of the cuneiform text seems to be the Oannes of the Chaldean
+historian Berossos, who was said to have risen out of the waters of the
+Persian Gulf, bringing with him the elements of civilization and the code
+of laws which were henceforth to prevail in Babylonia. The code of Oannes
+has perished, but fragments of another and more historical one have been
+preserved to us in a reading-book which was intended to teach the Semitic
+pupil the ancient language of the Sumerians. The original Sumerian text is
+given with its Semitic equivalent, as well as a list of technical legal
+terms. “If a son,” it is said, “denies his father, his hair shall be cut,
+he shall be put into chains and sold for silver. If he denies his mother,
+his hair also shall be cut, city and land shall collect together and put
+him in prison.… If the wife hates her husband and denies him, they shall
+throw her into the river. If the husband divorces his wife, he must pay
+her fifty shekels of silver. If a man hires a servant, and kills, wounds,
+beats, or ill-uses him or makes him ill, he must with his own hand measure
+out for him each day half a measure of grain.”
+
+We have already seen that the last regulation was in force up to the
+latest period of Babylonian history. It betrays a humane spirit in the
+early legislation and shows that the slave was regarded as something more
+than a mere chattel. It provided against his being over-worked; as soon as
+the slave was rendered unfit for labor by his hirer’s fault, the latter
+was fined, and the fine was exacted as long as the slave continued ill or
+maimed. The law which pronounced sentence of death by drowning upon the
+unfaithful wife was observed as late as the age of Khammurabi. Such at
+least is the evidence of some curious documents, from which we learn that
+a certain Arad-Samas married first a daughter of Uttatu and subsequently a
+half-sister of his wife. In the contract of marriage it is stipulated that
+unfaithfulness to the husband on the part of both the wives would be
+punished with drowning, on the part of the second only with slavery. On
+the other hand he could divorce them on payment of a maneh of silver—that
+is to say, of 30 shekels apiece. Under Nebuchadnezzar the old power of
+putting the wife to death in case of adultery was still possessed by the
+husband, where the wife was of lower rank than himself and little better
+than a concubine. It was a survival of the _patria potestas_ which had
+once belonged to him. The wife who came from a wealthy and respectable
+family, however, stood on a footing of equality with her husband, and he
+could not venture to put in force against her the provisions of the
+ancient Sumerian law.
+
+Babylonian law resembled that of England in being founded upon precedents.
+The code which was supposed to have been revealed by Ea, or Oannes,
+belonged to the infancy of Chaldean society and contained only a
+rudimentary system of legislation. The actual law of the country was a
+complicated structure which had been slowly built up by the labors of
+generations. An abstract was made of every important case that came before
+the judges and of the decision given in regard to it; these abstracts were
+carefully preserved, and formed the basis of future judgments.
+
+The judges before whom the cases were brought were appointed by the King,
+and acted in his place. They sat under a president, and were usually four
+or five in number. They had to sign their names at the end of their
+judgments, after which the date of the document was added. It is probable
+that they went on circuit like Samuel in Israel and the “royal judges” of
+Persia.
+
+Where foreigners were involved the case was first tried before special
+judges, who probably belonged to the same nationality as the parties to
+the suit; if one of the latter, however, was a Babylonian it was afterward
+brought again before a native tribunal. Sometimes in such cases the
+primitive custom was retained of allowing “the elders” of the city to sit
+along with the judges and pronounce upon the question in dispute. They
+thus represented to a certain extent an English jury. Whether they
+appeared in cases in which Babylonians alone were engaged is doubtful. We
+hear of them only where one at least of the litigants is an Amorite from
+Canaan, and it is therefore possible that their appearance was a
+concession to Syrian custom. In Babylonia they had long been superseded by
+the judges, the royal power having been greater there from the outset than
+in the more democratic West, and consequently there would have been but
+little need for their services. If, however, the foreign settlers had been
+accustomed at home to have their disputes determined by a council of
+elders, we can understand why they were still allowed in Babylonia to
+plead before a similar tribunal, though it could do little more than
+second the decisions of the judges.
+
+Plaintiff and defendant pleaded their own causes, which were drawn up in
+legal form by the clerks of the court. Witnesses were called and examined
+and oaths were taken in the names of the gods and of the King.
+
+The King, it must be remembered, was in earlier times himself a god. In
+later days the oaths were usually dropped, and the evidence alone
+considered sufficient. Perhaps experience had taught the bench that
+perjury was not a preventable crime.
+
+Each case was tried by a select number of judges, who were especially
+appointed to inquire into it, as we may gather from a document dated at
+Babylon the 6th day of Nisan in the seventeenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.
+“[These are] the judges,” it runs, “before whom Sapik-zeri, the son of
+Zirutu, [and] Baladhu, the son of Nasikatum, the servant of the secretary
+of the Marshlands, have appeared in their suit regarding a house. The
+house and deed had been duly sealed by Zirutu, the father of Sapik-zeri,
+and given to Baladhu. Baladhu, however, had come to terms with Sapik-zeri
+and handed the house over to him and had taken the deed (from the
+record-office) and had given it to Sapik-zeri. Nebo-edher-napisti, the
+prefect of the Marshlands; Nebo-suzzizanni, the sub-prefect of the
+Marshlands; Merodach-erba, the mayor of Erech; Imbi-ilu, the priest of Ur,
+Bel-yuballidh, the son of Merodach-sum-ibni, the prefect of the western
+bank; Abtâ, the son of Suzubu, the son of Babutu; Musezib-Bel, the son of
+Nadin-akhi, the son of the adopted one; Baniya, the son of Abtâ, the
+priest of the temple of Sadu-rabu; and Sa-mas-ibni, the priest of
+Sadu-rabu.” The list of judges shows that the civil governors could act as
+judges and that the priests were also eligible for the post. Neither the
+one class nor the other, however, is usually named, and we must conclude,
+therefore, that, though the governor of a province or the mayor of a town
+had a right to sit on the judicial bench, he did not often avail himself
+of it.
+
+The charge was drawn up in the technical form and attested by witnesses
+before it was presented to the court. We have an example of this dated at
+Sippara, the 28th day of Adar in the eighth year of Cyrus as King of
+Babylon: “Nebo-akhi-bullidh, the son of Su—, the governor of Sakhrin, on
+the 28th of Adar, the eighth year of Cyrus, king of Babylon and of the
+world, has brought the following charge against Bel-yuballidh, the priest
+of Sippara: I have taken Nanâ-iddin, son of Bau-eres, into my house
+because I am your father’s brother and the governor of the city. Why,
+then, have you lifted up your hand against me? Rimmon-sar-uzur, the son of
+Nebo-yusezib; Nargiya and Erba, his brothers; Kutkah-ilu, the son of
+Bau-eres; Bel-yuballidh, the son of Barachiel; Bel-akhi-uzur, the son of
+Rimmon-yusallim; and Iqisa-abbu, the son of Samas-sar-uzur, have committed
+a crime by breaking through my door, entering into my house, and leaving
+it again after carrying away a maneh of silver.” Then come the names of
+five witnesses and the clerk.
+
+A suit might be compromised by the litigants before it came into court. In
+the reign of Nebuchadnezzar a certain Imliya brought witnesses to the door
+of the house of an official called Bel-iddin, and accused Arrali, the
+superintendent of the works, of having stolen an overcoat and a loin-cloth
+belonging to himself. But it was agreed that there would be no need on the
+part of the plaintiff to summon witnesses; the stolen goods were returned
+without recourse to the law.
+
+The care taken not to convict without sufficient evidence, and the
+thoroughness with which each case was investigated, is one of the most
+striking features in the records of the Babylonian lawsuits which have
+come down to us. Mention has already been made of the case of the runaway
+slave Barachiel, who pretended to be a free citizen and the adopted son of
+a Babylonian gentleman. Every effort seems to have been made to get at the
+truth, and some of the higher officials were associated with the judges
+before whom the matter was brought. Eventually cross-examination compelled
+Barachiel to confess the actual facts. It is noticeable that no torture
+was used to compel confession, even though the defendant was not a free
+citizen. No allusion, in fact, is ever made to torture, whether by the
+bastinado or otherwise; the evidence of witnesses and the results of
+cross-examination are alone depended upon for arriving at the truth. In
+this respect the legal procedure of Babylonia offers an honorable contrast
+to that of ancient Greece or Rome, or even of Europe down to the middle of
+the last century.
+
+Two cases which were pleaded before the courts in the reign of Nabonidos
+illustrate the carefulness with which the evidence was examined. One of
+them was a case of false witness. Beli-litu, the daughter of Bel-yusezib,
+the wine merchant (?), “gave the following testimony before the judges of
+Nabonidos, king of Babylon: In the month Ab, the first year of
+Nergal-sharezer, king of Babylon, I sold my slave Bazuzu for thirty-five
+shekels of silver to Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Sula of the family of
+Egibi, but he now asserts that I owed him a debt and so has not paid me
+the money. The judges heard the charge, and caused Nebo-akhi-iddin to be
+summoned and to appear before them. Nebo-akhi-iddin produced the contract
+which he had made with Beli-litu; he proved that she had received the
+money, and convinced the judges. And Ziriya, Nebo-suma-lisir, and Edillu
+gave further testimony before the judges that Beli-litu, their mother, had
+received the silver.” The judges deliberated and condemned Beli-litu to a
+fine of 55 shekels, the highest fine that could be inflicted on her, and
+then gave it to Nebo-akhi-iddin. It is possible that the prejudice which
+has always existed against the money-lender may have encouraged Beli-litu
+to commit her act of dishonesty and perjury. That the judges should have
+handed over the fine to the defendant, instead of paying it to the court
+or putting it into their own pockets, is somewhat remarkable in the
+history of law.
+
+The second case is that of some Syrians who had settled in Babylonia and
+there been naturalized. The official abstract of it is as follows:
+“Bunanitum, the daughter of the Kharisian, brought the following complaint
+before the judges of Nabonidos, king of Babylon: Ben-Hadad-nathan, the son
+of Nikbaduh, married me and received three and one-half manehs of silver
+as my dowry, and I bore him a daughter. I and Ben-Hadad-nathan, my
+husband, traded with the money of my dowry, and we bought together a house
+standing on eight roods of ground, in the district on the west side of the
+Euphrates in the suburb of Borsippa, for nine and one-third manehs of
+silver, as well as an additional two and one-half manehs, which we
+received on loan without interest from Iddin-Merodach, the son of
+Iqisa-ablu, the son of Nur-Sin, and we invested it all in this house. In
+the fourth year of Nabonidos, king of Babylon, I claimed my dowry from my
+husband Ben-Hadad-nathan, and he of his own free will gave me, under deed
+and seal, the house in Borsippa and the eight roods on which it stood, and
+assigned it to me for ever, stating in the deed he gave me that the two
+and one-half manehs which Ben-Hadad-nathan and Bunanitum had received from
+Iddin-Merodach and laid out in buying this house had been their joint
+property. This deed he sealed and called down in it the curse of the great
+gods (upon whoever should violate it). In the fifth year of Nabonidos,
+king of Babylon, I and my husband, Ben-Hadad-nathan, adopted
+Ben-Hadad-amara as our son and subscribed to the deed of adoption, and at
+the same time we assigned two manehs ten shekels of silver and the
+furniture of the house as a dowry for my daughter Nubtâ. My husband died,
+and now Aqabi-ilu (Jacob-el), the son of my father-in-law, has raised a
+claim to the house and property which was willed and assigned to me, as
+well as (a claim) to Nebo-nur-ilani, whom we bought for money through the
+agency of Nebo-akhi-iddin.
+
+“I have brought him before you; pass judgment. The judges heard their
+pleas; they read the deeds and contracts which Bunanitum produced in
+court, and disallowed the claim of Aqabi-ilu to the house in Borsippa,
+which had been assigned to Bunanitum in lieu of her dowry, as well as to
+Nebo-nur-ilani, whom she and her husband had bought, and to the rest of
+the property of Ben-Hadad-nathan; they confirmed Bunanitum and
+Ben-Hadad-amara in their titles. (It was further added that)
+Iddin-Merodach should receive in full the sum of two and one-half manehs
+which he had given toward the purchase of the house, and that then
+Bunanitum should take in full three and one-half manehs, the amount of her
+dowry, and that part of the property (which had not been bequeathed to
+Nubtâ). Nebo-nur-ilani was to be given to Nubtâ in accordance with the
+will of her father. The following judges were present at the delivery of
+this judgment: Nergal-banunu the judge, the son of the architect;
+Nebo-akhi-iddin the judge, the son of Egibi; Nebo-sum-ukin the judge, the
+son of Irani; Bel-akhi-iddin the judge, the son of ——; Nebo-balasu-iqbi
+the judge, the son of ——; and the clerks Nadin and Nebo-sum-iskun.
+Babylon, the 29th day of Elul, the ninth year of Nabonidos, king of
+Babylon.”
+
+The term used in reference to the loan made by Iddin-Merodach implies that
+the lender accepted a share in the property that was bought instead of
+demanding interest for his money. Hence it was that, when the estate came
+to be settled after the death of Ben-Hadad-nathan, it was necessary to pay
+him off. What the grounds were upon which Aqabi-ilu laid claim to the
+property we are not told, and the _dossier_ in which it was set forth has
+not been found. His name, however, is interesting, as it proves that the
+old Western Semitic name of Jacob-el, of which the Biblical Jacob is a
+shortened form, still survived in a slightly changed shape among the
+Syrian settlers in Babylonia. Indeed, Iqubu, or Jacob itself, is found in
+a contract of the tenth year of Nabonidos as the name of a coppersmith at
+Babylon. Two thousand years before there had been other Semitic settlers
+in Babylonia from Western Asia who had also taken part in the legal
+transactions of the country, and among whom the name of Ya’qub-ilu was
+known. The name had even spread to the Assyrian colonists near Kaisarîyeh,
+in Cappadocia, who have left us inscriptions in uniform characters, and
+among them it appears as Iqib-ilu. Iqib-ilu and Aqabi-ilu are alike
+kindred forms of Ya’qub-ilu (or Yaqub-ilu), the Jacob-el of Canaan.
+
+Death, more especially with “an iron sword,” was the punishment of the
+more serious offences; imprisonment and scourging of lighter ones.
+Imprisonment might be accompanied by chains or the stock, but the prisoner
+might also be left unfettered and be allowed to range freely through the
+court or cell of the prison. Whether the penalty of imprisonment with hard
+labor was ever inflicted is questionable; in a country where slavery
+existed and the _corvée_ was in force there would have been but little
+need for it.
+
+The prisoner could be released on bail, his surety being responsible for
+his appearance when it was required. Thus in the seventh year of Cyrus one
+of the officials of the temple of the Sun-god at Sippara was put into
+“iron fetters” by the chief priest of the god, but was afterward released,
+bail being given for him by another official of the temple. The latter
+undertook to do the work of the prisoner if he absconded. The bail was
+offered and accepted before “the priests and elders of the city,” and the
+registration of the fact was duly dated and attested by witnesses. At a
+later date a citizen of Nippur was allowed to become surety for the
+release of his nephew from prison on condition that the latter did not
+leave the city without permission. The prison is called _bit-karê_, or
+“House of Walls.”(9)
+
+There was another _bit-karê_, which had a very different meaning and was
+used for a very different purpose. This was “the House of Cereals,” the
+storehouse or barn in which were stored such tithes of the temples as were
+paid in grain. The name is also sometimes applied to the _sutumme_, or
+royal storehouses, where the grain and dates collected by the
+tax-gatherers were deposited, and from which the army and the civil
+servants were provided with food. The superintendent of these storehouses
+was an important personage; he was the paymaster of the state officials,
+in so far as they received their salaries in kind, and the loyalty of the
+standing army could be trusted only so long as it could be fed. Similar
+storehouses existed in Egypt, from the age of the eighteenth dynasty
+downward, and it is probable that the adoption of them was due to
+Babylonian influence. They gave the King a powerful hold upon his
+subjects, by enabling him to supply them with grain in the years of
+scarcity, or to withhold it except upon such terms as he chose to make
+with them.
+
+The exportation of the grain, moreover, was a yearly source of wealth and
+revenue which flowed into the royal exchequer. In Babylonia, as in Egypt,
+the controller of the granaries was master of the destinies of the people.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. LETTER-WRITING
+
+
+We are apt to look upon letter-writing as a modern invention, some of us,
+perhaps, as a modern plague. But as a matter of fact it is an invention
+almost as old as civilization itself. As soon as man began to invent
+characters by means of which he could communicate his thoughts to others,
+he began to use them for holding intercourse with his absent friends. They
+took the place of the oral message, which was neither so confidential nor
+so safe. Classical scholars have long been familiar with the fact that
+letter-writing was one of the accomplishments of an educated Greek and
+Roman. The letters of Cicero and Pliny are famous, and the letters of
+Plato and Aristotle have been studied by a select few. Even Homer, who
+seems to avoid all reference to the art of writing as if it were an
+unclean thing, tells us of “the baleful characters” written on folded
+tablets, and sent by Prœtos to the King of Lycia. Criticism, it is true,
+not so long ago doubted the facts of the story and tried to resolve the
+characters and the tablets into a child’s drawings on the slate. But
+archæology has come to the rescue of Prœtos, and while we now know that
+letters passed freely backward and forward in the world in which he is
+supposed to have moved, Mr. Arthur Evans has discovered the very symbols
+which he is likely to have used. Even the Lycians, to whom the letter was
+sent, have been found, not only on the Egyptian monuments, but also in the
+tablets of Tel-el-Amarna.
+
+Letter-writing in the East goes back to a remote antiquity. In the book of
+Chronicles it is stated that the messages that passed between Hiram and
+Solomon were in writing, but the age of Solomon was modern when compared
+with that to which some of the letters we now possess actually belong.
+Centuries earlier the words “message” and “letter” had become synonymous
+terms, and in Hebrew the word which had originally signified a “message”
+had come to mean a “book.” Not only is a message conceived of as always
+written, but even the idea of a book is taken from that of a letter.
+Nothing can show more plainly the important place occupied by literary
+correspondence in the ancient Oriental world or the antiquity to which the
+art of the letter-writer reaches back.
+
+While in Egypt the letter was usually written upon papyrus, in Western
+Asia the ordinary writing material was clay. Babylonia had been the nurse
+and mother of its culture, and the writing material of Babylonia was clay.
+Originally pictorial hieroglyphics had been drawn upon the clay, but just
+as in Egypt the hieratic or running-hand of the scribe developed out of
+the primitive pictographs, so too in Babylonia the pictures degenerated
+into cuneiform characters which corresponded with the hieratic characters
+of the Egyptian script. What we call cuneiform is essentially a cursive
+hand.
+
+As for books, so also for letters the clay tablet was employed. It may
+seem to us indeed a somewhat cumbrous mode of sending a letter; but it had
+the advantage of being solid and less likely to be injured or destroyed
+than other writing materials. The characters upon it could not be
+obliterated by a shower of rain, and there was no danger of its being
+torn. Moreover, it must be remembered that the tablet was usually of small
+size. The cuneiform system of writing allows a large number of words to be
+compressed into a small space, and the writing is generally so minute as
+to try the eyes of the modern decipherer.
+
+Some of the letters which have been discovered during the last few years
+go back to the early days of the Babylonian monarchy. Many of them are
+dated in the reign of Khammurabi, or Amraphel, among them being several
+that were written by the King himself. That we should possess the
+autograph letters of a contemporary of Abraham is one of the romances of
+historical science, for it must be remembered that the letters are not
+copies, but the original documents themselves. What would not classical
+scholars give for the autograph originals of the letters of Cicero, or
+theologians for the actual manuscripts that were written by the
+Evangelists? And yet here we have the private correspondence of a prince
+who took part in the campaign against Sodom and Gomorrah!
+
+One of the letters which has found a resting-place in the Museum of
+Constantinople refers to another of the actors in the campaign against the
+cities of the cunei-plain. This was the King of Elam, Chedor-laomer, whose
+name is written Kudur-Loghghamar in the form. The Elamites had invaded
+Babylonia and made it subject and tributary. Sin-idinnam, the King of
+Larsa, called Ellasar in the book of Genesis, had been compelled to fly
+from his ancestral kingdom in the south of Chaldea, and take refuge in
+Babylon at the court of Khammurabi. Eri-Aku, or Arioch, the son of an
+Elamite prince, was placed on the throne of Larsa, while Khammurabi also
+had to acknowledge himself a vassal of the Elamite King. But a time came
+when Khammurabi believed himself strong enough to shake off the Elamite
+yoke, and though the war at first seemed to go against him, he ultimately
+succeeded in making himself independent. Arioch and his Elamite allies
+were driven from Larsa, and Babylon became the capital of a united
+monarchy. It was after the overthrow of the Elamites that the letter was
+written in which mention is made of Chedor-laomer. Its discoverer, Père
+Scheil, gives the following translation of it: “To Sin-idinnam, Khammurabi
+says: I send you as a present (the images of) the goddesses of the land of
+Emutalum as a reward for your valor on the day of (the defeat of)
+Chedor-laomer. If (the enemy) annoy you, destroy their forces with the
+troops at your disposal, and let the images be restored in safety to their
+old habitations.”(10)
+
+The letter was found at Senkereh, the ancient Larsa, where, doubtless, it
+had been treasured in the archive-chamber of the palace. Two other letters
+of Khammurabi, which are now at Constantinople, have also been translated
+by Dr. Scheil. One of them is as follows: “To Sin-idinnam, Khammurabi
+says: When you have seen this letter you will understand in regard to
+Amil-Samas and Nur-Nintu, the sons of Gis-dubba, that if they are in
+Larsa, or in the territory of Larsa, you will order them to be sent away,
+and that one of your servants, on whom you can depend, shall take them and
+bring them to Babylon.” The second letter relates to some officials about
+whom, it would seem, the King of Larsa had complained to his suzerain
+lord: “To Sin-idinnam, Khammurabi says: As to the officials who have
+resisted you in the accomplishment of their work, do not impose upon them
+any additional task, but oblige them to do what they ought to have
+performed, and then remove them from the influence of him who has brought
+them.”
+
+Long before the age of Khammurabi a royal post had been established in
+Babylon for the conveyance of letters. Fragments of clay had been found at
+Tello, bearing the impressions of seals belonging to the officials of
+Sargon of Akkad and his successor, and addressed to the viceroy of Lagas,
+to King Naram-Sin and other personages. They were, in fact, the envelopes
+of letters and despatches which passed between Lagas and Agadê, or Akkad,
+the capital of the dynasty.
+
+Sometimes, however, the clay fragment has the form of a ball, and must
+then have been attached by a string to the missive like the seals of
+mediæval deeds. In either case the seal of the functionary from whom the
+missive came was imprinted upon it as well as the address of the person
+for whom it was intended. Thousands of letters seem to have passed to and
+fro in this manner, making it clear that the postal service of Babylonia
+was already well organized in the time of Sargon and Naram-Sin. The
+Tel-el-Amarna letters show that in the fifteenth century before our era a
+similar postal service was established throughout the Eastern world, from
+the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Nile. To what an antiquity it
+reached back it is at present impossible to say.
+
+At all events, when Khammurabi was King, letters were frequent and common
+among the educated classes of the population. Most of those which have
+been preserved are from private individuals to one another, and
+consequently, though they tell us nothing about the political events of
+the time, they illustrate the social life of the period and prove how like
+it was to our own. One of them, for instance, describes the writer’s
+journey to Elam and Arrapakhitis, while another relates to a ferry-boat
+and the boat-house in which it was kept. The boat-house, we are told, had
+fallen into decay in the reign of Khammurabi, and was sadly in want of
+repair, while the chief duty of the writer, who seems to have been the
+captain of the boat, was to convey the merchants who brought various
+commodities to Babylon. If the merchant, the letter states, was furnished
+with a royal passport, “we carried him across” the river; if he had no
+passport, he was not allowed to go to Babylon. Among other purposes for
+which the vessel had been used was the conveyance of lead, and it was
+capable of taking as much as 10 talents of the metal. We further gather
+from the letter that it was the custom to employ Bedâwin as messengers.
+
+Among the early Babylonian documents found at Sippara, and now in the
+Museum at Constantinople, which have been published by Dr. Scheil, are two
+private letters of the same age and similar character. The first is as
+follows: “To my father, thus says Zimri-eram: May the Sun-god and Merodach
+grant thee everlasting life! May your health be good! I write to ask you
+how you are; send me back news of your health. I am at present at Dur-Sin
+on the canal of Bit-Sikir. In the place where I am living there is nothing
+to be had for food. So I am sealing up and sending you three-quarters of a
+silver shekel. In return for the money, send some good fish and other
+provisions for me to eat.” The second letter was despatched from Babylon,
+and runs thus: “To the lady Kasbeya thus says Gimil-Merodach: May the
+Sun-god and Merodach for my sake grant thee everlasting life! I am writing
+to enquire after your health; please send me news of it. I am living at
+Babylon, but have not seen you, which troubles me greatly. Send me news of
+your coming to me, so that I may be happy. Come in the month of Marchesvan
+(October). May you live for ever for my sake!”
+
+It is plain that the writer was in love with his correspondent, and had
+grown impatient to see her again. Both belonged to what we should call the
+professional classes, and nothing can better illustrate how like in the
+matter of correspondence the age of Abraham was to our own. The old
+Babylonian’s letter might easily have been written to-day, apart from the
+references to Merodach and the Sun-god. It must be noticed, moreover, that
+the lady to whom the letter is addressed is expected to reply to it. It is
+taken for granted that the ladies of Babylon could read and write as well
+as the men. This, however, is only what might have been concluded from the
+other facts of Babylonian social life, and the footing of equality with
+the man upon which the woman was placed in all matters of business. The
+fact that she could hold and bequeath property, and trade with it
+independently, implies that she was expected to know how to read and
+write. Even among the Tel-el-Amarna we find one or two from a lady who
+seems to have taken an active part in the politics of the day. “To the
+king my lord,” she writes in one of them, “my gods, my Sun-god, thus says
+Nin, thy handmaid, the dust of thy feet. At the feet of the king my lord,
+my gods, my Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself. Let the king my
+lord wrest his country from the hand of the Bedâwin, in order that they
+may not rob it. The city of Zaphon has been captured. This is for the
+information of the king my lord.”
+
+The letters of Tel-el-Amarna bridge over the gulf that separates the early
+Babylonia of Khammurabi from the later Assyria of Tiglath-pileser III. and
+his successors. The inner life of the intervening period is still known to
+us but imperfectly. No library or large collection of tablets belonging to
+it has as yet been discovered, and until this is the case we must remain
+less intimately acquainted with it than we are with the age of Khammurabi
+on the one hand, or that of the second Assyrian empire on the other.
+
+It is true that the library of Nineveh, of which Assur-bani-pal was such a
+munificent patron, has preserved copies of some of the earlier epistolary
+literature of the country. Thus we have from it a fragment of a letter
+written by a King of Babylonia to two kings of Assyria, at a time when
+Assyria still acknowledged the supremacy of Babylon. But such documents
+are very rare, and apart from the Tel-el-Amarna tablets we have to descend
+to the days of the second Assyrian empire before we find again a
+collection of letters.
+
+These are the letters addressed to the Assyrian government, or more
+generally to the King, in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III., Shalmaneser
+IV., Sargon, Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and Assur-bani-pal. They were
+preserved in the royal library of Nineveh, principally on account of their
+political and diplomatic importance, and are now in the British Museum. As
+might have been expected from their character, they throw more light on
+the politics of the day than on the social condition of the people. A few
+of them, however, are private communications to the King on other than
+political matters, and we also find among them reports in the form of
+letters from the royal astronomers, as well as upon such subjects as the
+importation of horses from Asia Minor for the royal stud. The letters have
+been copied by Professor R. F. Harper, who is now publishing them in a
+series of volumes. How numerous the letters are may be gathered from the
+fact that no less than 1,575 of them (including fragments) have come from
+that part of the library alone which was excavated by Sir A. H. Layard,
+and was the first to be brought to England.
+
+Many of them are despatches from generals in the field or from the
+governors of frontier towns who write to inform the Assyrian government of
+the movements of the enemy or of the political events in their own
+neighborhood. It is from these letters, for example, that we learn the
+name of the King of Ararat who was the antagonist of Sennacherib and the
+predecessor of the King Erimenas, to whom his murderers fled for
+protection. The details, again, of the long Elamite war, which eventually
+laid Susa at the feet of Assyria, have been given us by them. It is
+needless, therefore, to insist upon the value they possess for the
+historian.
+
+Among them, however, as has been already said, are some of a more private
+character. Here, for instance, is one which reminds us that human nature
+is much the same in all ages of the world: “To the king my lord, thy
+servant, Saul-miti-yuballidh: Salutation to the king my lord; may Nebo and
+Merodach for ever and ever be gracious to the king my lord. Bau-gamilat,
+the handmaid of the king, is constantly ill; she cannot eat a morsel of
+food; let the king send orders that some physician may go and see her.” In
+another letter the writer expresses his gratitude to the King for his
+kindness in sending him his own doctor, who had cured him of a serious
+disease. “May Istar of Erech,” he says, “and Nana (of Bit-Ana) grant long
+life to the king my lord, for he sent Basa the physician of the king my
+lord to save my life and he has cured me; therefore may the great gods of
+heaven and earth be gracious to the king my lord, and may they establish
+the throne of the king my lord in heaven for ever; since I was dead, and
+the king has restored me to life.” In fact there are a good many letters
+which relate to medical matters. Thus Dr. Johnston gives the following
+translation of a letter from a certain Arad-Nana, who seems to have been a
+consulting physician, to Esar-haddon about a friend of the prince who had
+suffered from violent bleeding of the nose: “As regards the patient who
+has a bleeding from the nose, the Rab-Mag (or chief physician) reports:
+‘Yesterday, toward evening, there was a good deal of hæmorrhage.’ The
+dressings have not been properly applied. They have been placed outside
+the nostrils, oppressing the breathing and coming off when there is
+hæmorrhage. Let them be put inside the nostrils and then the air will be
+excluded and the hæmorrhage stopped. If it is agreeable to my lord the
+king I will go to-morrow and give instructions; (meanwhile) let me know
+how the patient is.” Another letter from Arad-Nana translated by the same
+Assyriologist is as follows: “To the king my lord, thy servant Arad-Nana:
+May there be peace for ever and ever to the king my lord. May Ninip and
+Gula grant health of soul and body to the king my lord. All is going on
+well with the poor fellow whose eyes are diseased. I had applied a
+dressing covering the face. Yesterday, toward evening, undoing the bandage
+which held it (in place), I removed the dressing. There was pus upon the
+dressing, the size of the tip of the little finger. If any of your gods
+set his hand thereto, let him say so. Salutation for ever! Let the heart
+of the king my lord be rejoiced. Within seven or eight days the patient
+will recover.”
+
+The doctors were not alone in writing to the Assyrian King. Besides the
+reports which they were bound to make, the astronomers also sent letters
+to him on the results of their observations. Among the letters published
+by Professor Harper is an interesting one—unfortunately defaced and
+imperfect—which was sent to Nineveh from one of the observatories in
+Babylonia. After the ordinary compliments the writer, Abil-Istar, says:
+“As for the eclipse of the moon about which the king my lord has written
+to me, a watch was kept for it in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, and
+Nippur. We observed it ourselves in the city of Akkad.” Abil-Istar then
+goes on to describe the progress of the eclipse, but the lines are so
+broken as to be untranslatable, and when the text becomes perfect again we
+find him saying that he had written an exact report of the whole
+occurrence and sent it in a letter to the King. “And whereas the king my
+lord ordered me to observe also the eclipse of the sun, I watched to see
+whether it took place or not, and what passed before my eyes I now report
+to the king my lord. It was an eclipse of the moon that took place.… It
+was total over Syria and the shadow fell on the land of the Amorites, the
+land of the Hittites, and in part on the land of the Chaldees.” We gather
+from this letter that there were no less than three observatories in
+Northern Babylonia: one at Akkad, near Sippara; one at Nippur, now Niffer;
+and one at Borsippa, within sight of Babylon. As Borsippa possessed a
+university, it was natural that one of the three observatories should be
+established there.
+
+As nothing is said about the eclipse of the sun which the astronomers at
+the Assyrian court had led the King to expect, it is probable that it did
+not take place, or at all events that it did not occur so soon as was
+anticipated. The expression “the land of the Amorites (and) the land of
+the Hittites” is noteworthy on account of its biblical ring; in the mind
+of the Assyrian, however, it merely denoted Palestine and Northern Syria.
+The Babylonians at an early age called Palestine “the land of the
+Amorites,” the Assyrians termed it “the land of the Hittites,” and it
+would appear that in the days of the second Assyrian empire, when
+Babylonia had become a province of its Assyrian rival, the two names were
+combined together in order to denote what we should entitle “Syria.”
+
+Letters, however, were written to the King by all sorts of people, and
+upon all sorts of business. Thus we find Assur-bani, the captain of a
+river-barge, writing about the conveyance of some of those figures of
+colossal bulls which adorned the entrance to the palace of Sennacherib.
+The letter is short and to the point: “To the king my lord, thy servant
+Assur-bani: Salutation to the king my lord. Assur-mukin has ordered me to
+transport in boats the colossal bulls and cherubim of stone. The boats are
+not strong enough, and are not ready. But if a present be kindly made to
+us, we will see that they _are_ got ready and ascend the river.” The
+unblushing way in which _bakshish_ is here demanded shows that in this
+respect, at all events, the East has changed but little.
+
+Of quite a different character is a letter about some wine that was sent
+to the royal cellars. The writer says in it: “As for the wine about which
+the king my lord has written to me, there are two homers of it for
+keeping, as well as plenty of the best oil.” Later on, in the same letter,
+reference is made to a _targu-manu,_ or “dragoman,” who was sent along
+with the wine, which probably came from the Armenian highlands. It may be
+noted that in another letter mention is made of a “master of languages,”
+who was employed in deciphering the despatches from Ararat.
+
+A letter from the cellarers of the palace has been translated as follows
+by Dr. Johnston: “To the king our lord, thy servants … Bel-iqisa and
+Babi-lû: Salutation to the king our lord! May Assur, … Bel, and Nebo grant
+long life and everlasting years to the king our lord! Let the king our
+lord know that the wine received during the month Tebet has been bottled,
+but that there is no room for it, so we must make (new) cellars for the
+king our lord. Let the king our lord give orders that a (place for) the
+cellars be shown to us, and we shall be relieved from our embarrassment
+(?). The wine that has come for the king our lord is very considerable.
+Where shall we put it?”
+
+A good deal of the correspondence relates to the importation of horses
+from Eastern Asia Minor for the stables of the Assyrian King. The
+following is a specimen of what they are like: “To the king my lord, thy
+servant Nebo-sum-iddin: Salutation to the king my lord; for ever and ever
+may Nebo and Merodach be gracious to the king my lord. Thirteen horses
+from the land of Kusa, 3 foals from the land of Kusa—in all 16
+draught-horses; 14 stallions; altogether 30 horses and 9 mules—in all 39
+from the city of Qornê: 6 horses from the land of Kusa; 3 foals from
+Kusa—in all 9 draught-horses; 14 stallions; altogether 23 horses and 9
+mules—in all 28 from the city of Dâna (Tyana): 19 horses of Kusa and 39
+stallions—altogether 57 from the city of Kullania (Calneh); 25 stallions
+and 6 mules—in all 31 from the city of Arpad. All are gelded. Thirteen
+stallions and 10 mules—altogether 23 from the city of Isana. In all 54
+horses from Kusa and 104 stallions, making 148 horses and 30
+mules—altogether 177 have been imported. (Dated) the second day of Sivan.”
+
+The land of Kusa is elsewhere associated with the land of Mesa, which must
+also have lain to the north-west of Syria among the valleys of the Taurus.
+Kullania, which is mentioned as a city of Kusa, is the Calneh of the Old
+Testament, which Isaiah couples with Carchemish, and of which Amos says
+that it lay on the road to Hamath. The whole of this country, including
+the plains of Cilicia, has always been famous for horse-breeding, and one
+of the letters to the Assyrian King specially mentions Melid, the modern
+Malatiyeh, as exporting them to Nineveh.
+
+Here the writer, after stating that he had “inscribed in a register the
+number of horses” that had just arrived from Arrapakhitis, goes on to say:
+“What are the orders of the king about the horses which have arrived this
+very day before the king? Shall they be stabled in the garden-palace, or
+shall they be put out to grass? Let the king my lord send word whether
+they shall be put out to grass or whether they are to be stabled?”
+
+As is natural, several of the letters are upon religious matters. Among
+those which have been translated by Dr. Johnston there is one which throws
+light on the religious processions which were held in honor of the gods.
+“To the son of the king my lord, thy servant Nebo-sum-iddina: salutation
+to the son of the king my lord for ever and ever! May Nebo and Merodach be
+gracious unto the son of the king my lord! On the third day of the month
+Iyyar the city of Calah will consecrate the couch of Nebo, and the god
+will enter the bed-chamber. On the fourth day Nebo will return. The son of
+the king my lord has (now) received the news. I am the governor of the
+temple of Nebo thy god, and will (therefore) go. At Calah the God will
+come forth from the interior of the palace, (and) from the interior of the
+palace will go to the grove. A sacrifice will be offered. The charioteer
+of the gods will go from the stable of the gods, will take the god out of
+it, will carry him in procession and bring him back. This is the course of
+the procession. Of the vase-bearers, whoever has a sacrifice to make will
+offer it. Whoever offers up one _qa_ of his food may enter the temple of
+Nebo. May the offerers fully accomplish the ordinances of the gods, to the
+life and health of the son of the king my lord. What (commands) has the
+son of the king my lord to send me? May Bel and Nebo, who granted help in
+the month Sebat, protect the life of the son of the king my lord, and
+cause thy sovereignty to continue to the end of time!”
+
+There is another letter in which, if Dr. Johnston’s rendering is correct,
+reference is made to the inscriptions that were written on the walls of
+the temples like the texts which the book of Deuteronomy orders to be
+inscribed on the door-posts and gates (Deut. vi. 9, and xi. 20). “To the
+king my lord, thy servant Istar-Turi: salutation to the king my lord! I am
+sending Nebo-sum-iddina and Nebo-erba, the physicians of whom I spoke to
+the king, [with] my messenger to the presence of the king my lord. Let
+them be admitted to the presence of the king my lord; let the king my lord
+converse with them. I have not disclosed to them the real facts, and tell
+them nothing. As the king my lord commands, so is it done. Samas-bel-utsur
+sends word from the city of Der that ‘there are no inscriptions which we
+can place on the walls of the Beth-el.’ I send accordingly to the king my
+lord in order that an inscription may be written and despatched, (and)
+that the rest may be soon written and placed on the walls of the Beth-el.
+There has been a great deal of rain, (but) the harvest is gathered. May
+the heart of the king my lord rejoice!”
+
+While the letters which have been found on the site of Nineveh come from
+the royal archives and are therefore with few exceptions addressed to the
+King, those which have been discovered in Babylonia have more usually been
+sent by one private individual to another. They represent for the most
+part the private correspondence of the country, and prove how widely
+education must have been diffused there. Most of them, moreover, belong to
+the age of Khammurabi or that of the kings of Ur who preceded the dynasty
+to which he belonged, and thus cast an unexpected light on the life of the
+Babylonian community in the times of Abraham. Here, for example, is one
+that was written by a tenant to his landlord: “To my lord says Ibgatum,
+your servant. As, my lord, you have heard, an enemy has carried away my
+oxen. Though I never before wrote to you, my lord, now I send this letter
+(_literally_ tablet). O my lord, send me a cow! I will lie up five shekels
+of silver and send them to my lord, even to you. O my lord, by the command
+of Merodach you determine whatever place you prefer (to be in); no one can
+hinder you, my lord. O my lord, as I will send you by night the five
+shekels of silver which I am tying up, so do you put them away at night. O
+my lord, grant my request and do glorify my head, and in the sight of my
+brethren my head shall not be humbled. As to what I send you, O my lord,
+my lord will not be angry (?). I am your servant; your wishes, O my lord,
+I have performed superabundantly; therefore entrust me with the cow which
+you, my lord, shall send, and in the town of Uru-Batsu your name, O my
+lord, shall be celebrated for ever. If you, my lord, will grant me this
+favor, send [the cow] with Ili-ikisam my brother, and let it come, and I
+will work diligently at the business of my lord, if he will send the cow.
+I am tying up the five shekels of silver and am sending them in all haste
+to you, my lord.”
+
+Ibgatum was evidently the lessee of a farm, and he does his best to get a
+cow out of his landlord in order to make up for the loss of his oxen. The
+5 shekels probably represented the rent due to the landlord, and his
+promptitude in sending them was one of the arguments he used to get the
+cow. The word rendered “tie up” means literally “to yoke,” so that the
+shekels would appear to have been in the form of rings rather than bars of
+metal.
+
+A letter in the collection of Sir Henry Peck, which has been translated by
+Mr. Pinches, is addressed to the landlord by his agent or factor, whose
+duty it was to look after his country estates. It runs as follows: “Letter
+from Daian-bel-ussur to Sirku my lord. I pray to-day to Bel and Nebo for
+the preservation of the life of my lord. As regards the oxen which my lord
+has sent, Bel and Nebo know that there is an ox [among them] for them from
+thee. I have made the irrigation-channel and wall. I have seen thy servant
+with the sheep, and thy servant with the oxen; order also that an ox may
+be brought up thence [as an offering?] unto Nebo, for I have not purchased
+a single ox for money. I saw fifty-six of them on the 20th day, when I
+offered sacrifice to Samas. I have caused twenty head to be sent from his
+hands to my lord. As for the garlic, which my lord bought from the
+governor, the owner of the field took possession of it when [the sellers]
+had gone away, and the governor of the district sold it for silver; so the
+plantations also I am guarding there [?], and my lord has asked: Why hast
+thou not sent my messenger and [why] hast thou measured the ground? about
+this also I send thee word. Let a messenger take and deliver [?] thy
+message.”
+
+Another letter of the same age is interesting as showing that the name of
+the national God of Israel, Yahum or Yahveh, was known in Babylonia at a
+much earlier date than has hitherto been suspected: “To Igas-Nin-sagh thus
+says Yahum-ilu: As thou knowest, Adâ-ilu has obtained for me the money …
+for the maid-servant Khisam-ezib. Mida [?] the merchant has settled the
+price with me [?]. Now let the notary of Babylon send Arad-Istar in …, the
+three shekels of silver which you have in hand and the two shekels which
+you have put out at interest, and I will straightway bring the money [and]
+Arad-Istar. Do not hinder Arad-Istar and I will straightway bring him to
+the government.”
+
+Yahum-ilu is the Joel of the Old Testament, with the final _m_ which
+distinguished the languages of early Babylonia and Southern Arabia, and
+the name probably belonged to one of those “Amorites” or natives of Syria
+and Palestine who were settled in Babylonia. Yahum-ilu, however, might
+also have been a native of Southern Arabia. The important fact is the
+occurrence of the name at so early a date.
+
+That the clay tablet should ever have been used for epistolary purposes
+seems strange to us who are accustomed to paper and envelopes. But it
+occupied no more space than many modern official letters, and was lighter
+to carry than most of the packages that pass through the parcel-post. Now
+and then it was enveloped in an outer covering of clay, on which the
+address and the chief contents of it were noted; but the public were
+usually prevented from knowing what it contained in another way. Before it
+was handed over to the messenger or postman it was “sealed,” which
+generally appears to mean that it was deposited in some receptacle,
+perhaps of leather or linen, which was then tied up and sealed. In fact,
+Babylonian and Assyrian letters were treated much as ours are when they
+are put into a post-bag to which the seals of the post-office are
+attached. There were excellent roads all over Western Asia, with
+post-stations at intervals where relays of horses could be procured. Along
+these all letters to or from the King and the government were carried by
+royal messengers. It is probable that the letters of private individuals
+were also carried by the same hands.
+
+The letters of Tel-el-Amarna give us some idea of the wide extension of
+the postal system and the ease with which letters were constantly being
+conveyed from one part of the East to another. The foreign correspondence
+of the Pharaoh was carried on with Babylonia and Assyria in the east,
+Mesopotamia and Cappadocia in the north, and Palestine and Syria in the
+west. The civilized and Oriental world was thus bound together by a
+network of postal routes over which literary intercourse was perpetually
+passing. They extended from the Euphrates to the Nile and from the plateau
+of Asia Minor to the confines of Arabia. These routes followed the old
+lines of war and trade along which armies had marched and merchants had
+travelled for unnumbered generations.
+
+The Tel-el-Amarna tablets show us that letter-writing was not confined to
+Assyria and Babylonia on the one hand, or to Egypt on the other. Wherever
+the ancient culture of Babylonia had spread, there had gone with it not
+only the cuneiform characters and the use of clay as a writing material,
+but the art of letter-writing as well. The Canaanite corresponded with his
+friends and neighbors quite as much as the Babylonian, and his
+correspondence was conducted in the same language and script. Hiram of
+Tyre, in sending letters to Solomon, did but carry on the traditions of a
+distant past. Long before the Israelites entered Palestine both a foreign
+and an inland postal service had been established there while it was still
+under Babylonian rule. The art of reading and writing must have been
+widely spread, and, when it is remembered that for the larger number of
+the Tel-el-Amarna writers the language and system of writing which they
+used were of foreign origin, it may be concluded that the education given
+at the time was of no despicable character.
+
+The same conclusion may be drawn from another fact. The spelling of the
+Babylonian and Assyrian letters is in general extraordinarily correct. We
+meet, of course, with numerous colloquialisms which do not occur in the
+literary texts, and now and then with provincial expressions, but it is
+seldom that a word is incorrectly written. Even in the Tel-el-Amarna
+tablets, where all kinds of local pronunciation are reproduced, the
+orthography is usually faultless, in spite of the phonetic spelling. All
+this shows how carefully the writers must have been instructed at school.
+The correctness of the spelling in the Assyrian letters is really
+marvellous, especially when we consider all the difficulties of the
+cuneiform script, and what a tax it must have been to the memory to
+remember the multitudinous characters of the syllabary with their still
+more multitudinous phonetic and ideographic values. It gives us a high
+idea of the perfection to which the teachers’ art had already been
+brought.
+
+In Assyria, however, the writers usually belonged to the special class of
+scribes who employed the same conventional hand and devoted their lives to
+the acquisition of learning. It is probable that they acted as private
+secretaries as well as public clerks, and that consequently many of the
+letters which purport to come from other members of the community were
+really written by the professional scribes. But in Babylonia it is
+difficult to find any traces of the public or private letter-writer who is
+still so conspicuous a figure in the East. It is seldom if ever that the
+Babylonian, whoever he may be, betrays any ignorance of the art of reading
+and writing, and the endless variety of handwritings and the execrable
+character of many of them indicate pretty plainly that the aid of the
+professional letter-writer was rarely invoked. In a commercial community
+like that of Babylonia an ability to write was of necessity a matter of
+primary importance.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. RELIGION
+
+
+As in other countries, so too in Babylonia, the official and the popular
+religion were not in all respects the same. In the popular faith older
+superstitions and beliefs still lingered which had disappeared from the
+religion of the state or appeared in it in another form. The place of the
+priest was in large measure taken by the sorcerer and the magician, the
+ceremonies of the public cult were superseded by charms and incantations,
+and the deities of the official creed were overshadowed by a crowd of
+subordinate spirits whose very existence was hardly recognized among the
+more cultured classes. The Babylonian was inordinately superstitious, and
+superstition naturally flourished most where education was least.
+
+The official creed itself was an artificial amalgamation of two different
+currents of belief. The Babylonian race was mixed; Sumerian and Semite had
+gone to form it in days before history began. Its religion, therefore, was
+equally mixed; the religious conceptions of the Sumerian and the Semite
+differed widely, and it was the absorption of the Sumerian element by the
+Semitic which created the religion of later days. It is Semitic in its
+general character, but in its general character alone. In details it
+resembles the religions of the other Semitic nations of Western Asia only
+in so far as they have been influenced by it.
+
+The Sumerian had no conception of what we mean by a god. The supernatural
+powers he worshipped or feared were spirits of a material nature. Every
+object had its _zi_, or “spirit,” which accompanied it like a shadow, but
+unlike a shadow could act independently of the object to which it
+belonged. The forces and phenomena of nature were themselves “spirits;”
+the lightning which struck the temple, or the heat which parched up the
+vegetation of spring, were as much “spirits” as the _zi_, or “spirit,”
+which enabled the arrow to reach its mark and to slay its victim. When
+contact with the Semites had introduced the idea of a god among the
+Sumerians, it was still under the form of a spirit that their powers and
+attributes were conceived. The Sumerian who had been unaffected by Semitic
+teaching spoke of the “spirit of heaven” rather than of the god or goddess
+of the sky, of the “spirit of Ea” rather than of Ea himself, the god of
+the deep. Man, too, had a _zi_, or “spirit,” attached to him; it was the
+life which gave him movement and feeling, the principle of vitality which
+constituted his individual existence. In fact, it was the display of vital
+energy in man and the lower animals from which the whole conception of the
+_zi_ was derived. The force which enables the animate being to breathe and
+act, to move and feel, was extended to inanimate objects as well; if the
+sun and stars moved through the heavens, or the arrow flew through the
+air, it was from the same cause as that which enabled the man to walk or
+the bird to fly.
+
+The _zi_ of the Sumerians was thus a counterpart of the _ka_, or “double,”
+of Egyptian belief. The description given by Egyptian students of the _ka_
+would apply equally to the _zi_ of Sumerian belief. They both belong to
+the same level of religious thought; indeed, so closely do they resemble
+one another that the question arises whether the Egyptian belief was not
+derived from that of ancient Sumer.
+
+Wholly different was the idea which underlay the Semitic conception of a
+spiritual world. He believed in a god in whose image man had been made. It
+was a god whose attributes were human, but intensified in power and
+action. The human family on earth had its counterpart in the divine family
+in heaven. By the side of the god stood the goddess, a colorless
+reflection of the god, like the woman by the side of the man. The divine
+pair were accompanied by a son, the heir to his father’s power and his
+representative and interpreter. As man stood at the head of created things
+in this world, so, too, the god stood at the head of all creation. He had
+called all things into existence, and could destroy them if he chose.
+
+The Semite addressed his god as Baal or Bel, “the lord.” It was the same
+title as that which was given to the head of the family, by the wife to
+the husband, by the servant to his master. There were as many Baalim or
+Baals as there were groups of worshippers. Each family, each clan, and
+each tribe had its own Baal, and when families and clans developed into
+cities and states the Baalim developed along with them. The visible form
+of Baal was the Sun; the Sun was lord of heaven and therewith of the earth
+also and all that was upon it. But the Sun presented itself under two
+aspects. On the one side it was the source of light and life, ripening the
+grain and bringing the herb into blossom; on the other hand it parched all
+living things with the fierce heats of summer and destroyed what it had
+brought into being. Baal, the Sun-god, was thus at once beneficent and
+malevolent; at times he looked favorably upon his adorers, at other times
+he was full of anger and sent plague and misfortune upon them. But under
+both aspects he was essentially a god of nature, and the rites with which
+he was worshipped accordingly were sensuous and even sensual.
+
+Such were the two utterly dissimilar conceptions of the divine out of the
+union of which the official religion of Babylonia was formed. The popular
+religion of the country also grew out of them though in a more unconscious
+way. The Semite gave the Sumerian his gods with their priests and temples
+and ceremonies. The Sumerian gave in return his belief in a multitude of
+spirits, his charms and necromancy, his sorcerers and their sacred books.
+
+Unlike the gods of the Semites, the “spirits” of the Sumerian were not
+moved by human passions. They had, in fact, no moral nature. Like the
+objects and forces they represented, they surrounded mankind, upon whom
+they would inflict injury or confer benefits. But the injuries were more
+frequent than the benefits; the sum of suffering and evil exceeds that of
+happiness in this world, more especially in a primitive condition of
+society. Hence the “spirits” were feared as demons rather than worshipped
+as powers of good, and instead of a priest a sorcerer was needed who knew
+the charms and incantations which could avert their malevolence or compel
+them to be serviceable to men. Sumerian religion, in fact, was
+Shamanistic, like that of some Siberian tribes to-day, and its ministers
+were Shamans or medicine-men skilled in witchcraft and sorcery whose
+spells were potent to parry the attacks of the demon and drive him from
+the body of his victim, or to call him down in vengeance on the person of
+their enemy.
+
+Shamanism, however, pure and simple, is incompatible with an advanced
+state of culture, and as time went on the Shamanistic faith of the
+Sumerians tended toward a rudimentary form of polytheism. Out of the
+multitude of spirits there were two or three who assumed a more commanding
+position than the rest. The spirit of the sky, the spirit of the water,
+and more especially the spirit of the underground world, where the ghosts
+of the dead and the demons of night congregated together, took precedence
+of the rest. Already, before contact with the Semites, they began to
+assume the attributes of gods. Temples were raised in their honor, and
+where there were temples there were also priests.
+
+This transition of certain spirits into gods seems to have been aided by
+that study of the heavens and of the heavenly bodies for which the
+Babylonians were immemorially famous. At all events, the ideograph which
+denotes “a god” is an eight-rayed star, from which we may perhaps infer
+that, at the time of the invention of the picture-writing out of which the
+cuneiform characters grew, the gods and the stars were identical.
+
+One of the oldest of the Sumerian temples was that of Nippur, the modern
+Niffer, built in honor of Mul-lil or El-lil, “the lord of the
+ghost-world.” He had originally been the spirit of the earth and the
+underground world; when he became a god his old attributes still clung to
+him. To the last he was the ruler of the _lil-mes_, “the ghosts” and
+“demons” who dwelt in the air and the waste places of the earth, as well
+as in the abode of death and darkness that lay beneath it. His priests
+preserved their old Shamanistic character; the ritual they celebrated was
+one of spells and incantations, of magical rites and ceremonies. Nippur
+was the source and centre of one of the two great streams of religious
+thought and culture which influenced Sumerian Babylonia.
+
+The other source and centre was Eridu on the Persian Gulf. Here the spirit
+of the water was worshipped, who in process of time passed into Ea, the
+god of the deep. But the deep was a channel for foreign culture and
+foreign ideas. Maritime trade brought the natives of Eridu into contact
+with the populations of other lands, and introduced new religious
+conceptions which intermingled with those of the Sumerians. Ea, the patron
+deity of Eridu, became the god of culture and light, who delighted in
+doing good to mankind and in bestowing upon them the gifts of
+civilization. In this he was aided by his son Asari, who was at once the
+interpreter of his will and the healer of men. His office was declared in
+the title that was given to him of the god “who benefits mankind.”
+
+Two strongly contrasted streams of religious influence thus flowed from
+Nippur in the north of Babylonia and from Eridu in the south. The one
+brought with it a belief in the powers of darkness and evil, in sorcery
+and magic, and a religion of fear; the other spoke of light and culture,
+of gods who poured blessings upon men and healed the diseases that
+afflicted them. Asari was addressed as “he who raises the dead to life,”
+and Ea was held to be the first legislator and creator of civilized
+society.
+
+How far the foreign influence which moulded the creed of Eridu was of
+Semitic origin it is impossible to say. Semitic influences, however, began
+to work upon Sumerian religion at a very early date. The Semite and the
+Sumerian intermingled with one another; at first the Semite received the
+elements of culture from his more civilized neighbor, but a time came when
+he began to give something in return. The result of this introduction of
+Semitic and Sumerian beliefs and ideas was the official religion of later
+Babylonia.
+
+The “spirits” who had ranked above the rest now became gods in the Semitic
+sense of the term. Mul-lil of Nippur became the Semitic Baal or Bel, the
+supreme lord of the world, who governs the world below as well as the
+world above. He it was who conferred empire over mankind upon his
+worshippers and whose ministers and angels were the spirits of popular
+belief. Ea wanted but little to become a true god; his name remained
+unchanged and his dominion extended to all waters whatever, wherever they
+might be. His son Asari passed into Merodach, the patron-deity of Babylon,
+who, when his city became the capital of Babylonia, took the place of Bel
+of Nippur as the supreme Bel. As in Greek mythology the younger Zeus
+dethroned his father, so in Babylonia the younger Bel of Babylonia
+dethroned the older Bel of Nippur.
+
+Similarly, Anu, the spirit of the sky, became the Semitic Sky-god Anu,
+whose temple stood at Erech. Ur, on the western bank of the Euphrates, was
+dedicated to the Moon-god under the name of Sin, like Harran in
+Mesopotamia; Larsa was dedicated to the Sun-god. When Borsippa became a
+suburb of Babylon its presiding deity became at the same time the minister
+and interpreter of Merodach under the title of Nabium or Nebo “the
+prophet.” The Semitic god everywhere took the place of the Sumerian
+“spirit,” while those among the “spirits” themselves who had not undergone
+the transforming process merged in the three hundred spirits of heaven and
+the six hundred spirits of earth. They formed the “hosts of heaven,” of
+whom Bel was the lord.
+
+But Semitic belief necessitated the existence of a goddess by the side of
+the god. It was, indeed, a grammatical necessity rather than a theological
+one; the noun in the Semitic languages has a feminine as well as a
+masculine gender, and the masculine Bilu or Bel, accordingly, implied a
+female Belit or Beltis. But the goddess was little more than a grammatical
+shadow of the god, and her position was still further weakened by the
+analogy of the human family where the wife was regarded as the lesser man,
+the slave and helpmeet of her husband.
+
+One goddess only escaped the general law which would have made her merely
+the pale reflection of the god. This was Istar. Istar was an independent
+deity, owing no allegiance to a husband, and standing on a footing of
+equality with the gods. But this was because she had once been one of the
+chief objects of Sumerian worship, the spirit of the evening star. In the
+Sumerian language there was no gender, nothing that could distinguish the
+goddess or the woman from the god or man, and the “spirits,” therefore,
+were indifferently of both sexes. Moreover, the woman occupied an
+important place in the Sumerian family; where the Semitic translation
+speaks of “man and woman” the Sumerian original makes it “woman and man.”
+To the Sumerian mind, accordingly, the female “spirit” was as powerful as
+the male, acting independently and possessing the same attributes. Hence
+it was that in taking Istar over from their Sumerian predecessors the
+Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia took over at the same time a goddess who
+was the equal of a god.
+
+Among the mixed population of Babylonia, with its mixed culture and
+language and religion, the character and position of Istar underwent but
+little change. But when the conquerors of Sargon of Akkad and his
+predecessors carried the civilization of Babylonia to the West, Istar
+assumed a new form. Among the Canaanites she became Ashtoreth with the
+feminine termination, and was identified with the Moon, the consort and
+reflection, as it were, of Baal the Sun-god. But even so, the existence,
+of an independent goddess by the side of Baal seemed strange to the
+Semitic imagination, and among the Semites of Southern Arabia she was
+transformed into a male god, while the Moabites made her one with the god
+Chemosh. Even among the learned classes of Semitic Babylonia it was
+whispered that she was of both sexes, a goddess when imaged in the evening
+star, a god when visible in the star of the morning.
+
+Closely connected with the worship of Istar was that of Tammuz. Tammuz
+among the Sumerians appears to have been the “spirit” of the rivulets and
+waters of spring, and his name signified literally “the son of life” or
+“of the spirit.” But among the Semites he became the young and beautiful
+shepherd, the beloved of Istar, slain by the boar’s tusk of winter, or, as
+others held, of the parching heats of the summer. He symbolized the fresh
+vegetation of the spring and the Sun-god who called it forth. Once each
+year, in the sultry heats of June, the women wept and tore their hair in
+memory of his untimely death, and Istar, it was said, had descended into
+Hades in the vain hope of bringing him back to life. One of the most
+famous of Babylonian poems was that which told of the descent of Istar
+through the seven gates of the underground world, and which was chanted at
+the annual commemoration of his death. At each gate, it is said, the
+goddess left behind her some one of her adornments, until at last she
+arrived stripped and naked before the throne of the goddess of the
+infernal world. The poem was composed at a time when astronomical
+conceptions had laid hold of the old mythology, and the poet has
+interwoven the story of the waning and waxing of the moon into the ancient
+tale.
+
+The world was generally believed to have originated out of a watery chaos,
+and to float, as it were, upon the deep. This belief was derived from
+Eridu, where it was also taught that the deep surrounded the earth like
+the coils of a serpent.
+
+But other ideas about the origin of things prevailed elsewhere. Inland it
+was supposed that the firmament of heaven rested on the peak of a
+mountain—“the mountain of the East,” or “of the World,” as it was commonly
+called—where the gods lived in an Olympus of their own and the stars were
+suspended from it like lamps. The firmament was regarded as a kind of
+extinguisher or as the upturned hull of one of the round coracles that
+plied on the Euphrates. Other ideas again were prevalent in other parts of
+the country. Thus at Eridu the place of “the mountain of the World” was
+taken by a magical tree which grew in the midst of the garden of Eden, or
+“plain” of Babylonia, and on either side of which were the mouths of the
+Tigris and Euphrates. It is probably to be identified with the tree of
+life which figures so frequently in the sculptures of Assyria and on the
+seal-cylinders of Chaldea, but it may be the tree of knowledge of which we
+hear in the old Sumerian texts, and upon which “the name of Ea was
+written.” At all events it is “the holy tree of Eridu,” of whose “oracle”
+Arioch calls himself “the executor.”
+
+The sun, it was believed, rose and set from between the twin mountains
+whose gates were guarded by men with the bodies of scorpions, while their
+heads touched the skies and their feet reached to Hades. The scorpion was
+the inhabitant of the desert of Northern Arabia, the land of Mas, where
+the mountains of the sunset were imagined to be. Beyond them were the
+encircling ocean and the waters of Death, and beyond these again the
+island of the Blest, where the favorites of the gods were permitted to
+dwell. It was hither that Xisuthros, the Chaldean Noah, was translated for
+his piety after the Deluge, and it was here, too, that the flower of
+immortality blossomed.
+
+For the ordinary mortal a very different fate was reserved. He had to
+descend after death into the underground world of Hades, where the spirits
+of the dead flitted about like bats in the darkness, with dust only for
+their food. It was a land of gloom and forgetfulness, defended by seven
+gates and seven warders, who prevented the dead from breaking forth from
+their prison-house and devouring the living under the form of vampires.
+The goddess Allat presided over it, keeping watch over the waters of life
+that bubbled up under her golden throne. Before her sat the shades of the
+heroes of old, each crowned with a shadowy crown and seated on a shadowy
+throne, rising up only that they might salute the ghost of some human
+potentate who came to join them from the upper world. In later days, it is
+true, brighter and higher conceptions of the after life came to prevail,
+and an Assyrian poet prays that his King, when he dies, may pass away to
+“the land of the silver sky.”
+
+The various cosmological speculations and beliefs of ancient Chaldea were
+collected together in later times and an attempt made to combine them into
+a philosophical system. What this was like we learn from the opening lines
+of the epic which recounted the story of the Creation. In the beginning,
+we are told, was the chaos of the deep, which was the mother of all
+things. Out of it came first the primeval gods, Lakhum and Lakhamu, whose
+names had been handed down from the Sumerian age. Then came An-sar and
+Ki-sar, the Upper and Lower Firmaments, and, lastly, the great gods of the
+Semitic faith, Anu, Bel of Nippur, and Ea. All was ready at last for the
+creation of the present heavens and earth. But a struggle had first to be
+carried on between the new gods of light and order and Tiamat, the dragon
+of the “Deep,” the impersonation of chaos. Merodach volunteered the task;
+Tiamat and her demoniac allies were overthrown and the sky formed out of
+her skin, while her blood became the rivers and springs. The deep was
+placed under fetters, that it might never again break forth and reduce the
+world to primeval chaos; laws were laid down for the heavenly bodies,
+which they were to keep forever and so provide a measure of time, and the
+plants and animals of the earth were created, with man at the head to rule
+over them. Though man was made of the dust, he was, nevertheless, the
+“son” of the gods, whose outward forms were the same as his.
+
+It is not to be supposed that this philosophizing of the old myths and
+legends made its way beyond the circle of the learned classes, but the
+myths and legends themselves were known to the people and served instead
+of a cosmology. The struggle between Tiamat and Merodach was depicted on
+the walls of the temple of Bel at Babylon, and the belief that this world
+has arisen out of a victory of order over chaos and anarchy was deeply
+implanted in the mind of the Babylonian. Perhaps it goes back to the time
+when the soil of Babylonia was won by the cultivator and the engineer from
+wild and unrestrained nature.
+
+Babylonian religion had its sacred books, and, like the official
+cosmology, a real knowledge of them was probably confined to the priests
+and educated classes. But a considerable part of their contents must have
+been more widely known.
+
+Some of the hymns embodied in them, as well as the incantations and
+magical ceremonies, were doubtless familiar to the people or derived from
+current superstitions. The work in which the hymns were collected and
+procured, and which has been compared with the Veda of India, was at once
+the Bible and the Prayer-book of Chaldea. The hymns were in Sumerian,
+which thus became a sacred language, and any mistake in the recitation of
+them was held to be fatal to the validity of a religious rite. Not only,
+therefore, were the hymns provided with a Semitic translation, but from
+time to time directions were added regarding the pronunciation of certain
+words. The bulk of the hymns was of Sumerian origin, but many new hymns,
+chiefly in honor of the Sun-god, had been added to them in Semitic times.
+They were, however, written in the old language of Sumer; like Latin in
+the Roman Catholic Church, that alone was considered worthy of being used
+in the service of the gods. It was only the rubric which was allowed to be
+written in Semitic; the hymns and most of the prayers were in what had
+come to be termed “the pure” or “sacred language” of the Sumerians. Each
+hymn is introduced by the words “to be recited,” and ends with _amanû_, or
+“Amen.”
+
+The religious services were incessant. Every day the sacrifice was
+offered, accompanied by a special ritual, and the festivals and fasts
+filled up each month of the year. There were services even for the night
+as well as for the day. The new moons were strictly observed, and the
+seventh day was one of solemn rest. The very name Sabattu or “Sabbath” was
+derived by the native etymologists from the Sumerian words _sa_, “heart,”
+and _bat_, “to end,” because it was “a day of rest for the heart.” Not
+only were there Sabbaths on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and
+twenty-eighth days of the month, there was also a Sabbath on the
+nineteenth, that being the end of the seventh week from the first day of
+the previous month. On these Sabbaths no work was permitted to be done.
+The King, it was laid down, “must not eat flesh cooked at the fire or in
+the smoke; must not change his clothes; must not put on white garments;
+must not offer sacrifices; must not drive in his chariot; or issue royal
+decrees.” Even the prophet was forbidden to practise augury or give
+medicine to the sick.
+
+From time to time extraordinary days of public humiliation or thanksgiving
+were ordered to be observed. These were prescribed by the government and
+were generally the result of some political crisis or danger. When the
+Assyrian empire, for instance, was attacked by the nations of the north in
+the early part of Esar-haddon’s reign, public prayers and fasts “for one
+hundred days and one hundred nights” were ordained by the “prophets” in
+the hope that the Sun-god might “remove the sin” of the people and stave
+off the threatened attack. So, again, when Assur-bani-pal had suppressed
+the Babylonian revolt and taken Babylon after a long siege, he tells us
+that “at the instance of the prophets he purified the mercy-seats and
+cleansed the processional roads that had been polluted; the wrathful gods
+and angry goddesses he appeased with special prayers and penitential
+psalms.”
+
+The temple was erected on ground that had been consecrated by libations of
+wine, oil, and honey, and was a square or rectangular building enclosing
+an open court, on one side of which was a _ziggurat_, or “tower.” The
+tower was built in successive stages, and in the topmost stage was the
+shrine of the god. Each “tower” had a name of its own, and was used for
+astronomical purposes. It corresponded with “the high-place” of Canaan; in
+the flat plain of Babylonia it was only by means of a tower that the
+worshipper could “mount up to heaven” and so approach the gods. Herodotus
+states that the topmost story of the tower attached to the temple of Bel
+Merodach at Babylon contained nothing but a couch and a table.
+
+The image of the god stood in the innermost shrine or Holy of Holies of
+the temple itself. In front of it was the golden table on which the
+shew-bread was laid, and below was the _parakku_, or “mercy-seat,”
+whereon, according to Nebuchadnezzar, at the festival of the new year, “on
+the eighth and eleventh days, the king of the gods of heaven and earth,
+Bel, the god, seats himself, while the gods of heaven and earth reverently
+regard him, standing before him with bowed heads.” It was “the seat of the
+oracles” which were delivered from it by the god to his ministering
+priests.
+
+In front of the shrine was an altar cased in gold, and another altar stood
+in the outer court. Here also was the great bason of bronze for
+purificatory purposes, which was called “the deep,” and corresponded with
+the “sea” of Solomon’s temple. Like the latter, it sometimes stood on the
+heads of twelve bronze oxen, as we learn from a hymn in which the
+construction of one of these basons is described. They were supposed to
+represent the primeval “deep” out of which the world has arisen and on
+which it still floats.
+
+The chapel found by Mr. Hormund Rassam at Balawât, near Nineveh, gives us
+some idea of what the inner shrine of a temple was like. At its north-west
+end was an altar approached by steps, while in front of the latter, and
+near the entrance, was a coffer or ark in which two small slabs of marble
+were deposited, twelve and one-half inches long by eight wide, on which
+the Assyrian King Assur-nazir-pal in a duplicate text records his erection
+of the sanctuary. It is not surprising that when the Nestorian workmen
+found the tablets, they believed that they had discovered the two tables
+of the Mosaic Law.
+
+The temple sometimes enclosed a Bit-ili or Beth-el. This was originally an
+upright stone, consecrated by oil and believed to be animated by the
+divine spirit. The “Black Stone” in the kaaba of the temple of Mecca is a
+still surviving example of the veneration paid by the Semitic nations to
+sacred stones. Whether, however, the Beth-els of later Babylonian days
+were like the “Black Stone” of Mecca, really the consecrated stones which
+had once served as temples, we do not know; in any case they were anchored
+within the walls of the temples which had taken their place as the seats
+of the worship of the gods. Offerings were still made to them in the age
+of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors; thus we hear of 765 “measures” of
+grain which were paid as “dues to the Beth-el” by the serfs of one of the
+Babylonian temples. The “measure,” it may be stated, was an old measure of
+capacity, retained among the peasantry, and only approximately exact. It
+was calculated to contain from 41 to 43 _qas_.
+
+The offerings to the gods were divided into sacrifices and meal-offerings.
+The ox, sheep, lamb, kid, and dove were offered in sacrifice—fruit,
+vegetables, bread, wine, oil, and spices where no blood was required to be
+shed. There were also sin-offerings and heave-offerings, when the offering
+was first “lifted up” before the gods. A contract dated in the
+thirty-second year of Nebuchadnezzar tells something about the parts of
+the animals which were sacrificed, though unfortunately the meaning of
+many of the technical words used in it is still unknown: “Izkur-Merodach,
+the son of Imbriya, the son of Ilei-Merodach, of his own free will has
+given for the future to Nebo-balasu-iqbi, the son of Kuddinu, the son of
+Ilei-Merodach, the slaughterers of the oxen and sheep for the sacrifices
+of the king, the prescribed offerings, the peace-offerings (?) of the
+whole year—viz., the caul round the heart, the chine, the covering of the
+ribs, the …, the mouth of the stomach, and the …, as well as during the
+year 7,000 sin-offerings and 100 sheep before Iskhara, who dwells in the
+temple of Sa-turra in Babylon (not excepting the soft parts of the flesh,
+the trotters (?), the juicy meat, and the salted (?) flesh), and also the
+slaughterers of the oxen, sheep, birds, and lambs due on the 8th day of
+Nisan, (and) the heave-offering of an ox and a sheep before Pap-sukal of
+Bit-Kiduz-Kani, the temple of Nin-ip and the temple of Anu on the further
+bank of the New Town in Babylon.” The 8th of Nisan, or March, was the
+first day of the festival of the New Year.
+
+The hierarchy of priests was large. At its head was the _patesi_, or
+high-priest, who in the early days of Babylonian history was a civil as
+well as an ecclesiastical ruler. He lost his temporal power with the rise
+of the kings. But at first the King was also a _patesi_, and it is
+probable that in many cases at least it was the high-priest who made
+himself a king by subjecting to his authority the _patesis_ or priestly
+rulers of other states. In Assyria the change of the high-priest into a
+king was accompanied by revolt from the supremacy of Babylonia.
+
+With the establishment of a monarchy the high-priest lost more and more
+his old power and attributes, and tended to disappear altogether, or to
+become merely the vicegerent or representative of the King. The King
+himself, mindful of his sacerdotal origin, still claimed semi-priestly
+powers. But he now called himself a _sangu_ or “chief priest” rather than
+a _patesi_; in fact, the latter name was retained only from antiquarian
+motives. The individual high-priest passed away, and was succeeded by the
+class of “chief priests.” Under them were several subordinate classes of
+temple servants. There were, for instance, the _enû_, or “elders,” and the
+_pasisû_, or “anointers,” whose duty it was to anoint the images of the
+gods and the sacred vessels of the temple with oil, and who are sometimes
+included among the _ramkû_, or “offerers of libations,” as well. By the
+side of them stood _asipu_, or “prophet,” who interpreted the will of
+heaven, and even accompanied the army on its march, deciding when it might
+attack the enemy with success, or when the gods refused to grant it
+victory. Next to the prophet came the _makhkhû_ or interpreter of dreams,
+as well as the _barû_, or “seer.”
+
+A very important class of temple-servants were the _kalî_, or
+“eunuch-priests,” the _galli_ of the religions of Asia Minor. They were
+under a “chief _kalû_,” and were sometimes entitled “the servants of
+Istar.” It was indeed to her worship that they were specially consecrated,
+like the _ukhâtu_ and _kharimâtu_, or female hierodules. Erech, with its
+sanctuary of Anu and Istar, was the place where these latter were chiefly
+to be found; here they performed their dances in honor of the goddess and
+mourned over the death of Tammuz.
+
+Closely connected with the _kalî_ was a sort of monastic institution,
+which seems to have been attached to some of the Babylonian temples. The
+_Zikari_, who belonged to it, were forbidden to marry, and it is possible
+that they were eunuchs like the _kalî_. They, too, were under a chief or
+president, and their main duty was to attend to the daily sacrifice and to
+minister to the higher order of priests. In this respect they resembled
+the Levites at Jerusalem; indeed they are frequently termed “servants” in
+the inscriptions, though they were neither serfs nor slaves. They could be
+dedicated to the service of the Sun-god from childhood. A parallel to the
+dedication of Samuel is to be found in a deed dated at Sippara on the 21st
+of Nisan, in the fifth year of Cambyses, in which “Ummu-dhabat, the
+daughter of Nebo-bel-uzur,” whose father-in-law was the priest of the
+Sun-god, is stated to have brought her three sons to him, and to have made
+the following declaration before another priest of the same deity: “My
+sons have not yet entered the House of the Males (_Zikari_); I have
+hitherto lived with them; I have grown old with them since they were
+little, until they have been counted among men.” Then she took them into
+the “House of the Males” and “gave” them to the service of the god. We
+learn from this and other documents that the _Zikari_ lived together in a
+monastery or college within the walls of the temple, and that monthly
+rations of food were allotted to them from the temple revenues.
+
+The ordinary priests were married, though the wife of a priest was not
+herself a priestess. There were priestesses, however, as well as female
+recluses, who, like the _Zikari_, were not allowed to marry and were
+devoted to the service of the Sun-god. They lived in the temple, but were
+able to hold property of their own, and even to carry on business with it.
+A portion of the profits, nevertheless, went to the treasury of the
+temple, out of whose revenues they were themselves supplied with food.
+From contracts of the time of Khammurabi we gather that many of them not
+only belonged to the leading families of Babylonia, but that they might be
+relations of the King.
+
+Wholly distinct from these devotees of the Sun-god were the female
+hierodules or prostitutes of Istar, to whom reference has already been
+made. Distinct from them, again, were the prophetesses of Istar, who
+prophesied the future and interpreted the oracles of the goddess. One of
+their chief seats was the temple of Istar at Arbela, and a collection of
+the oracles delivered by them and their brother prophets to Esar-haddon
+has been preserved. It is thus that he is addressed in one of them: “Fear
+not, O Esar-haddon; the breath of inspiration which speaks to thee is
+spoken by me, and I conceal it not. Thine enemies shall melt away from
+before thy feet like the floods in Sivan. I am the mighty mistress, Istar
+of Arbela, who have put thine enemies to flight before thy feet. Where are
+the words which I speak unto thee, that thou hast not believed them? I am
+Istar of Arbela; thine enemies, the Ukkians, do I give unto thee. I am
+Istar of Arbela; in front of thee and at thy side do I march. Fear not,
+thou art in the midst of those that can heal thee; I am in the midst of
+thy host. I advance and I stand still!” It is probable that these
+prophetesses were not ordained to their office, but that it depended on
+their possession of the “spirit of inspiration.” At all events, we find
+men as well as women acting as the mouth-pieces of Istar, and in one
+instance the woman describes herself as a native of a neighboring village
+“in the mountains.”
+
+The revenues of the temples and priesthood were derived partly from
+endowments, partly from compulsory or voluntary offerings. Among the
+compulsory offerings were the esrâ, or “tithes.” These had to be paid by
+all classes of the population from the King downward, either in grain or
+in its equivalent in money. The “tithe” of Nabonidos, immediately after
+his accession, to the temple of the Sun-god at Sippara was as much as 5
+manehs of gold, or £840. We may infer from this that it was paid on the
+amount of cash which he had found in the treasury of the palace and which
+was regarded as the private property of the King. Nine years later
+Belshazzar, the heir-apparent, offered two oxen and thirty-two sheep as a
+voluntary gift to the same temple, and at the beginning of the following
+year we find him paying a shekel and a quarter for a boat to convey three
+oxen and twenty-four sheep to the same sanctuary. Even at the moment when
+Cyrus was successfully invading the dominions of his father and Babylon
+had already been occupied for three weeks by the Persian army, Belshazzar
+was careful to pay the tithe due from his sister, and amounting to 47
+shekels of silver, into the treasury of the Sun-god. As Sippara was in the
+hands of the enemy, and the Babylonian forces which Belshazzar commanded
+had been defeated and dispersed, the fact is very significant, and proves
+how thoroughly both invaders and invaded must have recognized the rights
+of the priesthood.
+
+Tithe was also indirectly paid by the temple-serfs. Thus in the first year
+of Nergal-sharezer, out of 3,100 measures of grain, delivered by “the
+serfs of the Sun-god” to his temple at Sippara, 250 were exacted as
+“tithe.” These serfs must be distinguished from the temple-slaves. They
+were attached to the soil, and could not be separated from it. When,
+therefore, a piece of land came into the possession of a temple by gift
+and endowment, they went along with it, but their actual persons could not
+be sold. The slave, on the other hand, was as much a chattel as the
+furniture of the temple, which could be bought and sold; he was usually a
+captive taken in war, more rarely a native who had been sold for debt. All
+the menial work of the temple was performed by him; the cultivation of the
+temple-lands, on the contrary, was left to the serfs.
+
+It is doubtful whether the “butchers,” or slaughterers of the animals
+required for sacrifice, or the “bakers” of the sacred cakes, were slaves
+or freemen. The expression used in regard to them in the contract of
+Izkur-Merodach quoted above is open to two interpretations, but it would
+naturally signify that they were regarded as slaves. We know, at all
+events, that many of the artisans employed in weaving curtains for the
+temples and clothing for the images of the gods belonged to the servile
+class, and the gorgeousness of the clothing and the frequency with which
+it was changed must have necessitated a large number of workmen. Many of
+the documents which have been bequeathed to us by the archives of the
+temple of the Sun-god at Sippara relate to the robes and head-dresses and
+other portions of the clothing of the images which stood there.
+
+A considerable part of the property of a temple was in land. Sometimes
+this was managed by the priests themselves; sometimes its revenues were
+farmed, usually by a member of the priestly corporation; at other times it
+was let to wealthy “tenants.” One of these, Nebo-sum-yukin by name, who
+was an official in the temple of Nebo at Borsippa, married his daughter
+Gigîtum to Nergal-sharezer in the first year of the latter’s reign.
+
+The state religion of Assyria was a copy of that of Babylonia, with one
+important exception. The supreme god was the deified state. Assur was not
+a Baal any more than Yahveh was in Israel or Chemosh in Moab.
+
+He was, consequently, no father of a family, with a wife and a son; he
+stood alone in jealous isolation, wifeless and childless. It is true that
+some learned scribe, steeped in Babylonian learning, now and then tried to
+find a Babylonian goddess with whom to mate him; but the attempt was
+merely a piece of theological pedantry which made no impression on the
+rulers and people of Nineveh. Assur was supreme over all other gods, as
+his representative, the Assyrian King, was supreme over the other kings of
+the earth, and he would brook no rival at his side. The tolerance of
+Babylonian religion was unknown in Assyria. It was “through trust in
+Assur” that the Assyrian armies went forth to conquer, and through his
+help that they gained their victories. The enemies of Assyria were his
+enemies, and it was to combat and overcome them that the Assyrian monarchs
+declare that they marched to war. Cyrus tells us that Bel-Merodach was
+wrathful because the images of other deities had been removed by Nabonidos
+from their ancient shrines in order to be gathered together in his temple
+of Ê-Saggil at Babylon, but Assur bade his servants go forth to subdue the
+gods of other lands, and to compel their worshippers to transfer their
+allegiance to the god of Assyria. Those who believed not in him were his
+enemies, to be extirpated or punished.
+
+It is true that the leading Babylonian divinities were acknowledged in
+Assyria by the side of Assur. But they were subordinate to him, and it is
+difficult to resist the impression that their recognition was mainly
+confined to the literary classes. Apart from the worship of Istar and the
+use of the names of certain gods in time-honored formulæ, it is doubtful
+whether even a knowledge of the Babylonian deities went much beyond the
+educated members of the Assyrian community. Nebo and Merodach and Anu were
+the gods of literature rather than of the popular cult.
+
+But even in Babylonia the majority of the gods of the state religion was
+probably but little remembered by the mass of the people. Doubtless the
+local divinity was well known to the inhabitants of the place over which
+he presided and where his temple had stood from immemorial times. Every
+native of Ur was doubtless a devoted adorer of Sin, the Moon-god, and for
+the inhabitants of Babylon Bel-Merodach was the highest object of worship.
+But the real religion of the bulk of the population consisted in charms
+and magic. The Babylonian was intensely superstitious, the cultivated
+classes as much so as the lowest. Sorcery and divination were not only
+tolerated by the priests, they formed part of the religious system of the
+state. Prophets and diviners and interpreters of dreams served in the
+temples, and one of the sacred books of the priesthood was a collection of
+incantations and magical rites. Among the people generally the old
+Shamanistic faith had never been eradicated; it was but partially overlaid
+with the religious conceptions of the Semite, and sorcery and witchcraft
+flourished down to the latest days of Babylonian history.
+
+The gods and goddesses were believed to utter oracles and predictions
+through the lips of inspired men and women. Figures of winged bulls and
+serpents were placed at the entrance of a building to prevent the demons
+of evil from passing through it. Before the gates of Babylon
+Nebuchadnezzar “set up mighty bulls of bronze and serpents which stood
+erect,” and when Nabonidos restored the temple of the Moon-god at Harran
+two images of the primeval god, Lakhum, were similarly erected on either
+side of its eastern gate to “drive back” his “foes.” These protecting
+genii were known as _sêdi_ and _kurubi_, the _shédim_ and _cherubim_ of
+the Old Testament. _Sédi_, however, was a generic term, including evil as
+well as beneficent genii, and the latter was more properly classed as the
+_lamassi_, or “colossal forms.” The whole world was imagined to be filled
+with malevolent spirits ever on the watch to attack and torment mankind.
+The water that was drunk, the food that was eaten, might contain a demon,
+whom it would be necessary to exorcise. The diseases that afflict our
+bodies, the maladies that prey upon our spirits, were all due to the
+spirits of evil, and could be removed only by the proper incantations and
+charms. Madness and epilepsy were more especially the direct effect of
+demoniac possession. The magician alone knew how to cure them; and the
+priest taught that his knowledge had first been communicated to him by the
+god Ea through his interpreter, Merodach. Books were written containing
+the needful formulæ and ritual for counteracting the malevolence of the
+evil spirits and for healing the sick. Pure or “holy” water and the number
+seven were regarded as endowed with mysterious power in the performance of
+these magical rites; thus magical threads were ordered to be bound seven
+times round the limbs of the sick man, with phylacteries attached to them
+on which were inscribed “sentences from a holy book.”
+
+It was at night-time that the spirits of evil were more especially active.
+It was then that vampires escaped from the bodies of the dead or from the
+realm of Hades to suck the blood of the living, and that the nightmare lay
+upon the breast of its victim and sought to strangle him. At the head of
+these demons of the night was Lilat, the wife of Lil, “the ghost;” from
+the Babylonians she was borrowed by the Jews, and appears in the book of
+Isaiah under the name of Lilith.
+
+The demons were served by a priesthood of their own. These were the
+wizards and witches, and the sorcerers and sorceresses, with whom were
+associated the public prostitutes, who plied their calling under the
+shadow of night.
+
+It was then that they lay in ambush for the unwary passenger, for whom
+they mixed deadly philters which poisoned the blood. They were devotees of
+Istar, but the Istar they worshipped was a wholly different goddess from
+the Istar of the official cult. She was a goddess of witchcraft and
+darkness, of whom it was said that she “seized” on her victim “at night,”
+and was “the slayer of youths.” She it was who was dreaded by the people
+like the witches and “street-walkers,” who ministered before her, and
+against whom exorcisms of all kinds were employed. To guard against her
+and her agents, small images of Lugal-gira and Allamu, the teraphim of the
+Babylonians, were made and placed to the right and the left of the door
+that they might “tear out the hearts of the wicked” and “slay the witch.”
+The Fire-god, moreover, was invoked that he might destroy the ministers of
+wickedness, and figures of the witch or wizard were moulded in wax and
+melted in the fire. As the wax dissolved, so, it was prayed, might “the
+wizard and witch run, melt, and dissolve.”
+
+The exorcisms had to be repeated by the victims of witchcraft. This is
+clear from the words which come at the end of each of them: “I, So-and-so,
+the son of So-and-so, whose god is So-and-so and goddess So-and-so, I turn
+to thee, I seek for thee, I kiss thy hands, I bow myself under thee.
+Consume the wizard and the witch; annihilate the lives of the sorcerer and
+the sorceress who have bewitched me. Then shall I live and gladden thy
+heart.”
+
+In strange contrast to these utterances of popular superstition are the
+hymns and prayers that were addressed by the cultivated Babylonian to the
+gods of the official creed. They were gods of light and healing, who
+punished, indeed, the sins of the wicked, but were ready to listen to the
+petitions of the penitent and to forgive them their transgressions.
+Bel-Merodach was “the merciful one who raises the dead to life,” and Ea
+was ever on the watch to send aid to suffering humanity and foil the
+demons who warred against man. Here, for example, are some extracts from
+one of those penitential psalms whose authors seem to have sprung from
+Eridu and which formed part of the Babylonian Bible long before the age of
+Abraham:
+
+The heart of my lord is wroth; may it be appeased!
+May the god whom I know not be appeased!
+May the goddess whom I know not be appeased!
+May both the god I know and the god I know not be appeased!…
+O lord, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!…
+The sin that I sinned I knew not,
+The transgression I committed I knew not.…
+The lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me,
+God in the fierceness of his heart has revealed himself to me.…
+I sought for help, and none took my hand;
+I wept, and none stood at my side;
+I cried aloud, and there was none that heard me.
+I am in trouble and hiding; I dare not look up.
+To my god, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer;
+The feet of my goddess I kiss and water with tears.…
+The sins I have sinned turn into a blessing;
+The transgressions I have committed let the wind carry away!
+Strip off my manifold wickednesses as a garment!
+O my god, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my sins!
+O my goddess, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my sins!
+
+To the same early period belongs a hymn to the Moon-god, originally
+composed for the services in the temple of Ur, the birthplace of Abraham,
+and afterward incorporated in the sacred books of the state religion. It
+is thus that the poet speaks of his god:
+
+Father, long-suffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand upholdeth the
+            life of all mankind!…
+First-born, omnipotent, whose heart is immensity, and there is none who
+            may fathom it!…
+In heaven who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art supreme!
+On earth, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art supreme!
+As for thee, thy will is made known in heaven, and the angels bow their
+            faces.
+As for thee, thy will is made known upon earth, and the spirits below kiss
+            the ground.
+
+At times the language of the hymn rises to that of monotheism of a pure
+and exalted character. That a monotheistic school actually existed in one
+of the literary circles of Babylonia was long ago pointed out by Sir Henry
+Rawlinson. It arose at Erech, an early seat of Semitic influence, and
+endeavored to resolve the manifold deities of Chaldea into forms or
+manifestations of the “one god,” Anu. It never made many converts, it is
+true; but the tendency toward monotheism continued among the educated part
+of the population, and when Babylon became the capital of the country its
+god, Merodach, became not only a Bel or “Lord,” but the one supreme lord
+over all the other gods. Though the existence of the other gods was
+admitted, they fell, as it were, into a background of shadow, and the
+worshipper of Merodach, in his devotion to the god, almost forgot that
+they existed at all. The prayers of Nebuchadnezzar are a proof how narrow
+was the line which divided his faith from that of the monotheist. “To
+Merodach my lord,” he says, “I prayed; I began to him my petition; the
+word of my heart sought him, and I said: O prince, thou that art from
+everlasting, lord of all that exists, for the king whom thou lovest, whom
+thou callest by name, as it seems good unto thee, thou guidest his name
+aright, thou watchest over him in the path of righteousness! I, the prince
+who obeys thee, am the work of thy hands; thou hast created me and hast
+entrusted to me the sovereignty over multitudes of men, according to thy
+goodness, O lord, which thou hast made to pass over them all. Let me love
+thy supreme lordship, let the fear of thy divinity exist in my heart, and
+give what seemeth good unto thee, since thou maintainest my life.”
+
+The man who could thus pray was not far from the kingdom of God.
+
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX: WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
+
+
+In the preceding pages the equivalence of the _qa_ in modern English
+measures has been given in accordance with the calculations of Dr. Oppert.
+Other scholars, however, would assign to it a different value, identifying
+it with the Hebrew _qab_ and making it equal to about two litres. This,
+indeed, seems to have been its value in the age of Abraham, but in the
+later days of Babylonian history a different system certainly prevailed.
+
+WEIGHTS.
+
+360 se ("grains")   1 shekel
+60 shekels          1 maneh (_mana_)
+60 manehs           1 talent
+
+The silver maneh was equivalent to £9, the shekel being 3s., while the
+gold maneh was ten times its value. The maneh was originally a weight more
+than one kind of which was in use: (1) The heavy maneh of 990 grammes; (2)
+the light maneh of 495 grammes; (3) the gold maneh (for weighing gold) of
+410 grammes; and (4) the silver maneh of 546 grammes. At Sippara, however,
+the heavy maneh weighed 787 grammes; the light maneh, 482 grammes; and the
+gold maneh, 392 grammes; while the standard maneh fixed by Dungi weighed
+980 grammes. The maneh of Carchemis contained 561 grammes.
+
+MEASURES OF CAPACITY.
+
+1 _qa_ (Heb. _qab_)     1.66 litres
+1 _pi_ or ardeb (Heb.   36 _qas_
+homer)
+1 _bar_ (Heb. se’ah)    60 _qas_
+1 homer in Assyria      60 _qas_
+1 _gur_ (Heb. kor)      180 _qas_
+
+In the Abrahamic age other systems were in use in Babylonia according to
+which the _gur_ sometimes contained 360 _qas_ and sometimes 300 _qas_.
+
+The tonnage of ships was reckoned by the _gur_.
+
+MEASURES OF LENGTH.
+
+1 _uban_ or               16.6 millimetres
+finger-breadth (divided
+into 180 parts)
+30 finger-breadths        1 _ammat_ or cubit (498
+                          mm.)
+2 cubits                  1 great cubit (996 mm.)
+6 great cubits            1 _qanu_ or reed
+2 reeds                   1 _gar_
+60 _gars_                 1 _soss_ or stade
+30 _sosses_               1 _kasbu_ or parasang (21
+                          kilometres)
+2 _kasbus_                1 great _kasbu_
+
+SUPERFICIAL MEASURES.
+
+In the Abrahamic age 180 _se_ were probably equivalent to 1 _gin_, 60
+_gin_ to one _sar_ or “garden,” 1,800 _sar_ to 1 feddân (_padânu_) or
+“acre.” The latter was called _bur-gan_ in Sumerian, or “10 acres,” to
+distinguish it from a smaller acre, which contained only 180 _sar_.
+
+Time was reckoned by the _kasbu_ or “double hour,” and in early times the
+weight was divided into three watches of 2 _kasbus_ or 4 hours each. The
+months were originally lunar, and consisted of 30 days, an intercalary
+month being inserted in the calendar every six years. The zodiac was
+divided into 360 degrees.
+
+Mathematics were based upon a sexagesimal system, sixty, called the
+_soss_, being the unit. The _ner_ was equivalent to 10 _sosses_ and the
+_sar_ to 6 _ners_.
+
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Adoption, by the Sun-god, 36;
+  its prevalence in Babylon, 37;
+  concerning slaves, 38 ff.;
+  a way to citizenship, 41
+
+Ainsworth, on coast-line formation, 2
+
+Allat, goddess of under-world, 242;
+  in temples, 247
+
+Amen, used in hymns, 245
+
+Amorites, the, women, 18, 191;
+  colonies, 187 ff.;
+  position of, 189;
+  freedom of worship, 191-193;
+  country, 220
+
+Apprentices, case of slaves, 71
+
+Arad-Samas, position of his two wives, 27
+
+Aramaic, taught in schools, 56
+
+Architecture, features of Babylonian, 9, 10;
+  use of bricks, 90, 137;
+  character of, 91;
+  plans of houses, 92;
+  foundations, 92;
+  decorations, 93, 94;
+  dwellings of poor, 95;
+  stair-cases, 95
+
+Army. _See under_ “State”
+
+Artists, position of, 166
+
+Ashtoreth. _See_ Istar
+
+Assur, worship of, 256
+
+Assyrians, compared with Babylonians, 8;
+  in regard to women, 18;
+  slave law among, 78;
+  slave contract, 79, 80;
+  features of architecture, 93;
+  gardens of, 95;
+  land, 123;
+  contracts, 124;
+  land measurements, 125;
+  money interest, 156;
+  coinage, 157;
+  medicine, 164;
+  military character of government, 172;
+  taxes, 175;
+  army, 181;
+  navy, 183;
+  letters, 217;
+  religion, 255
+
+Astrology, 60;
+  letters relating to, 219
+
+Baal worship, 233-234
+
+Babylonia, its importance and situation, 1;
+  the increase of land, 2;
+  and its culture, 6;
+  various nationalities, 7;
+  Chaldean associations, _ibid._;
+  Kassite influence, 7, 8;
+  the inhabitants, 9;
+  trade, _ibid._, 107;
+  architecture, 9;
+  writing, 10;
+  mode of burial, 10, 11;
+  cosmogony, 11;
+  fertility, 11, 12;
+  features of family life, 13 ff.;
+  dowry and divorce, 20 ff.;
+  polygamy, 27;
+  matrimony, 29;
+  inheritance, 31;
+  adoption, 36 ff.;
+  citizenship, 41;
+  names, 45 ff.;
+  literature, 52-54;
+  burial, 62-66;
+  slavery, 67 ff.;
+  labourers, 82 ff., 148;
+  manners and customs, 90 ff.;
+  manufactures, 107 ff.;
+  house property, 118-120;
+  land, 120 ff.;
+  money-lending, 157 ff.;
+  bankers, 151;
+  barristers, 161;
+  government, 168 ff.;
+  army, 177 ff.;
+  law, 95 ff.;
+  letter-writing, 208 ff.;
+  religion, 231 ff.
+
+Balawât, description of shrine at, 247
+
+Bankers, firms of, 127;
+  and money-lending, 151 ff.
+
+Barbers, position of, 105
+
+Beating the bounds, custom of, 121
+
+Bedâwin, as shepherds, 82;
+  wages of, 86
+
+Beer-houses, 113
+
+Bel, “The Illumination of Bel,” 60
+
+Bel-Katsir, a plea set aside, 28;
+  his adoption, 37
+
+Bel-Merodach and sonship, 36, 168, 169;
+  hymns and prayers, 260
+
+Berachiel, his action for adoption, 38, 39
+
+Berossus, origin of Babylon, 1
+
+Bethels in shrines, 248
+
+Bitumen, use of, 90;
+  prices of, 147
+
+“Black Stone” of Mecca, 248
+
+Borsippa, University at, 54;
+  “The Epic of the Creation,” 55
+
+Branding in the sole, 44
+
+Brick-makers, importance of, 137, 138
+
+Burial, method of Babylonian, 10, 62 ff.;
+  place of, 62;
+  cemeteries, 62;
+  rites of, 63;
+  tombs, 64
+
+Canaanitish Women, legal status, 19
+
+Cape of Good Hope, 45
+
+Carchemish, importance of, 156;
+  maneh of, 159
+
+Carpenters, 134
+
+Cemeteries, 62
+
+Chaldea, the origin of, 7
+
+Chariots for army, 178
+
+Circumcision, 47
+
+Clay-tablets, use of, 51
+
+Colonies of Amorites, 187
+
+Concubines, allowed, 25;
+  purchaseable, 26
+
+Cosmetics, wide use of, 105
+
+Cosmological beliefs, 243
+
+Cremation, practised, 62
+
+Cuneiform writing, 49;
+  use of clay, 50, 209;
+  chapters, 52;
+  origin, 209
+
+Custom-house, place of, 111
+
+Customs:
+  manner of building, 90 ff.;
+  furniture, 96 ff.;
+  dress, 99 ff.;
+  the cylinder, 102;
+  beards, 104, 105;
+  cosmetics, 105
+
+Cylinder, worn on arm, 102;
+  designs on, 103;
+  patterns of, 103
+
+Death, belief about, 242
+
+Divorce, among Babylonians, 20-25;
+  position of divorced wives, 28;
+  instances, 196, 197
+
+Doctors. _See under_ “Medicine”
+
+Dowry and divorce, 19 ff.;
+  penalties, 26;
+  reasons of divorce, _ibid._
+
+Dress, many varieties of, 99;
+  priest’s, 101;
+  poor person’s, 101;
+  women’s, 102;
+  seal cylinder, 102
+
+Duty, on sheep, 111;
+  levy of, 113
+
+Ea, the god of Eridu, 3, 260;
+  founder of law, 195;
+  the spirit, 232;
+  the temple of, 236;
+  Semitic influence, 237
+
+Ebers Papyrus on medicine, 163
+
+Eclipses mentioned, 219
+
+Education:
+  a curious procedure, 44;
+  naming, _ibid._;
+  schooling, 47 ff.;
+  bodily exercises, 48;
+  cuneiform writing, 47;
+  writing materials, 50, 51;
+  books, 52;
+  kinds of literature, 52;
+  school buildings, 54;
+  class education, 55;
+  dead languages taught, 56;
+  philology, 57;
+  history, 58;
+  other studies, 59
+
+Egibi, the banker, 127, 152
+
+Egyptian influence on religion, 233
+
+El-lil, the god of Nippur, 3
+
+Eridu, a seaport of primitive Chaldea, 2;
+  a great centre, 3, 4;
+  its god, 3;
+  its origin, 4;
+  its temple, 236
+
+Exorcisms, form of, 260
+
+Family life among Semites, 13;
+  equality of sexes, 14
+
+Farmers, tenure, 84, 85
+
+Fasts and feasts prescribed, 246
+
+Footstool, 96
+
+Furniture, scanty but artistic, 96
+
+Gardens, largely used, 94, 127
+
+Gem-cutting, art of, 103
+
+Gods and goddesses, relation of king to, 169 ff.
+
+Grain, varying prices of, 142, 145;
+  as exchange, 144;
+  store-house, 206
+
+Gudea, priest-king of Lagas, 90;
+  works of, 93, 94;
+  a vase of, 97;
+  dress, 102;
+  deification of, 169
+
+Guilds for traders, 141
+
+Hades, belief about, 242
+
+Herodotus, quoted on Babylonian fertility, 11;
+  on prostitution, 30
+
+History, the favourite study, 58
+
+Hit, bitumen procured from, 90
+
+“House of Cereals,” the, 206
+
+House-property, value of, 114;
+  lease of, 115;
+  payment for, 116;
+  a lawsuit, 118-120
+
+Hymns, Sumerian origin, 244;
+  Amen, 245;
+  hymns and prayers to Bel, 260
+
+Ideograph, or picture-writing, 236
+
+Inheritance, laws of, 31;
+  private ownership, 32;
+  testaments, _ibid._;
+  the will of Sennacherib, 35;
+  the theory of adoption, 36;
+  disputes, 42
+
+Iron, general use of, 136
+
+Irrigation, necessity of, 88
+
+Istar, the goddess, significant changes, 13, 14;
+  the priestesses of, 16, 17;
+  land of temple of, 126;
+  independence of, 239;
+  as Ashtoreth, 240;
+  story of, _ibid._;
+  prophetesses of, 252;
+  the Istar of witchcraft, 259
+
+Ivory, large trade in, 136
+
+Jews, position of, in Babylonia, 68;
+  colonists, 190
+
+Judges, appointment of, 197;
+  trials before, 199
+
+Juries, existence of, 198
+
+Kassites, their dynasty, 7;
+  effect of conquest in Babylonia, 171
+
+Khalutê, battle of, 53
+
+Khunnatu, 72
+
+Khammurabi, letters of, 210 ff.
+
+Ki-makh, or cemetery, 62
+
+King. _See under_ “State”
+
+Labourers, classes of, 82;
+  farmers, 84;
+  wages, 85, 86, 148-150;
+  songs of, 87
+
+Land, value of, 120 ff.;
+  rent of, 121;
+  in Assyria, 123 ff.
+
+Law, the study of, 59;
+  early origin, 195;
+  judges, 197;
+  case of foreigners, 198;
+  trials, 199;
+  careful procedure, 201;
+  punishments, 205;
+  bail, 206;
+  prisons, _ibid._
+
+Layard, his discovery of a lens, 51
+
+Letter-writing no modern invention, 208;
+  material used, 209;
+  cuneiform writing and its advantages, 210;
+  early examples, 211 ff.;
+  Assyrian, 216 ff.;
+  private letters, 225;
+  sealing, 228;
+  noticeable features, 229, 230
+
+Literature, place of, 52;
+  poetry, 165
+
+Maneh. _See_ “money-lending”
+
+Marriage ceremonies among Babylonians, 29;
+  among Israelites, 30;
+  permitted degrees, 31
+
+Medicine, early use, 162;
+  Egyptian influence, 163;
+  court physicians, 164;
+  in Assyria, 164;
+  doctors’ letters, 218
+
+Metals, use of, 131;
+  where found, 132;
+  method of working, 132;
+  copper, 133;
+  prices for, 147
+
+Money-lending, a lucrative profession, 151;
+  a coin currency, 152;
+  repayments, 153;
+  rate of interest, 153, 154;
+  securities, 155;
+  Assyrian interest, 156;
+  standard of coins, 158;
+  fixed values, 160
+
+Monotheism in hymns, 262
+
+Moon-god, temple of, 2;
+  cult of, 257;
+  hymn to, 261
+
+Murasu, the firm of, 161
+
+Music and its cultivation, 166
+
+Naming a child, 44;
+  and a god, 45;
+  reasons for changes, 46
+
+Nebo-akhi-iddin, contract of, 75
+
+Nebuchadnezzar’s army, 181
+
+Nergal, the Lord of the Dead, 65
+
+Nidinti, case of the slave in, 70
+
+Nineveh, letters in library at, 216
+
+Nippur, excavations at, 3;
+  its god, _ibid._;
+  its origin, 4;
+  the temple, 236
+
+Nublâ, a law case, 15;
+  her slave, 71;
+  apprenticing a slave, 141
+
+Oannes. _See_ “Ea”
+
+Oracles, in writing, 48
+
+Palms, high prices, 127
+
+Paradise, origin of, 95
+
+Partnerships, frequent, 127;
+  with women, 128;
+  form of deeds of, 128, 129;
+  terms of, 129
+
+Peters, Dr., quoted, 66
+
+Philology cultivated, 57, 58
+
+Phœnicians, 183
+
+Physical exercises, 48, 52
+
+Pilasters, use of, 91
+
+Poets, position of, 165
+
+Polygamy, among Babylonians, restricted, 27;
+  but possible, 27, 28
+
+Porcelain, trade in, 137
+
+Portents, the study of, 59, 60
+
+Postal system established, 104;
+  extensive use, 228
+
+Priest, dress of, 101;
+  classes of, 249;
+  eunuch-priests, 250;
+  marriage, 252
+
+Prisons, 206
+
+Professions:
+  bankers, 151;
+  barristers, 161;
+  doctors, 162;
+  poets, 165;
+  musicians, 165, 166;
+  artists, 166
+
+Property, a legal point relating to, 23;
+  a woman’s power, _ibid._;
+  disputes, 42;
+  temple prop, 255
+
+Prostitution in Babylonia, 30, 252
+
+Punishments, legal. _See_ “Law”
+
+Qubtâ, and her slave, 70
+
+Quddâ, and his slave, 70
+
+Rab-mugi, or court-physician, 164
+
+Rab-saris, office of, 176
+
+Rab-shakeh, or vizier, knowledge of language, 57;
+  office of, 176
+
+Religion, letters relating to, 223;
+  popular superstition, 231, 257;
+  twofold influence in official creed, _ibid._;
+  Sumerian and Semitic conceptions compared, 232;
+  Shamanism, 235;
+  ideograph, 236;
+  the centres and their influence, 236, 237;
+  Semitic influence, 237 ff.;
+  Istar, 239;
+  Tammuz, 240;
+  the origin of things, 241;
+  various beliefs, 242;
+  Hades, 242;
+  cosmological, 243;
+  sacred books, 244;
+  hymns, 244, 260;
+  numerous services, 245;
+  temples, 246;
+  sacrifices, 248;
+  hierarchy, 249;
+  temple revenues, 253, 255;
+  witchcraft, 259;
+  exorcisms, 260;
+  monotheism, 263
+
+Rimanni-Bel, a slave’s adoption cancelled, 40
+
+Sabbath, origin of word, 245;
+  customs, _ibid._
+
+Sacred books, 244
+
+Sacrifices, various kinds, 248
+
+Sandals used, 100, 101
+
+Sargon, his empire, 5, 6;
+  a tradition of, 83;
+  houses in time of, 92;
+  dress, 101;
+  survey of land, 122;
+  carpenters’ trade under, 134
+
+Satraps, or governors, 176
+
+Schools, 47 ff.;
+  buildings, 54;
+  dead languages taught, 56;
+  subjects of study, 56 ff.
+
+Scribes, the position of, 161
+
+Semites, connection with Sumerians, 4 ff.;
+  influence on religion, 231, 237;
+  Semitic conception of deity, 233;
+  the goddess, 238
+
+Sennacherib’s will, 35;
+  garden, 94, 95
+
+Shamanism of the Sumerians, 235
+
+Sheep, largely kept, 109;
+  a contract, 111;
+  duty, _ibid._;
+  market, 112
+
+Shekel, 158
+
+Ships, character of, 185
+
+Sippara, situation of, 113;
+  letters found at, 214
+
+Slaves, position of, 67, 68;
+  classes of, 68;
+  price of, 69, 70, 75;
+  law regarding, 69;
+  apprentices, 71;
+  privileges, 71;
+  restrictions, 74;
+  emancipation of, 77, 78;
+  in Assyria, 78, 79
+
+Songs of peasants, 87, 88
+
+Spelling, correctness of, 230
+
+State:
+  theocratic character, 168;
+  relation of sovereign to God, 169-171;
+  the Western Empire, 171, 172;
+  contrasts in Assyria, 172;
+  aristocracy, 173, 174;
+  taxes, 175;
+  officials, 176-177;
+  divisions of army, 177-182;
+  chariots, 178;
+  developments, 180;
+  Assyrian army, _q.v._;
+  under Nebuchadnezzar, 181;
+  navy, 183;
+  merchant boats, 184;
+  character of ships, 185;
+  Amorite colonies, 187;
+  immunities, 194
+
+Stables, letters relating to, 222
+
+Stars, worship of, 62
+
+Stela of the Vultures, 105
+
+Stone used for decoration, 93
+
+Stone-cutters, perfect work of, 135
+
+Streets, character of, 112, 113
+
+Stucco, largely used, 92
+
+Sumerians, race influence, 4;
+  influence on Semites, _ibid._;
+  marriage law, 25;
+  marriage ceremony, 29;
+  dictionaries, 50;
+  language taught, 56;
+  law for slaves, 69, 81, 82;
+  text-book on farming, 84;
+  beardless, 104;
+  law as to barbers, 105;
+  weights, 158;
+  deification of Sumerian kings, 170;
+  code of law, 195;
+  influence on religion, 231;
+  Sumerian conception of a god, 232;
+  no moral nature, 234;
+  Shamanism, 235;
+  Tammuz, 240;
+  hymns, 244
+
+Sun, belief about, 242
+
+Superstition, popular, 231, 257
+
+Surveyors, importance of, 123
+
+Tables, fashion of, 97
+
+Tablets of Tel-el-Amarna, 7;
+  the use of clay, 10
+
+Talent, 158
+
+Tammuz, worship of, 240, 251
+
+Tapestries, 107
+
+Taxes, nature of, 175;
+  immunity from, 194
+
+Tel-el-Amarna tablets, quoted, 7, 19;
+  ladies’ letters, 48, 215;
+  other letters, 209;
+  points of letter-writing, 229
+
+Temples, construction of, 246;
+  temple ministers, 251;
+  revenues of, 253
+
+Tiglath-pileser, his gardens, 94
+
+Tithes paid, 253
+
+Tombs. _See_ “Burial”
+
+Trades, 107 ff.;
+  woollen, 108;
+  partnerships, 127;
+  carpenters, 135;
+  stonecutters, 135;
+  iron-smith, 136;
+  ivory carvers, 136;
+  porcelain-makers, 137;
+  brick-makers, 137;
+  vintners, 139
+
+Tsarpî, an Assyrian prefectess, 18
+
+Tylos, island of, 108
+
+Ubaru, contract of, 85
+
+Under-world, belief in an, 64
+
+Ur of the Chaldees, foundation of the town, 2;
+  its moon-god, 2;
+  its connection with Nippur, 3;
+  a custom with daughters, 14;
+  comparative prices, 147, 148;
+  hymn used at, 261
+
+Ustanni, an interesting contract, 73
+
+Vases, plentiful and various, 97
+
+Weights. _See_ Appendix
+
+Will, an example of a, 32;
+  an heiress, 34;
+  the document of Sennacherib, 35;
+  disputes, 42
+
+Wine, manufacture of, 139, 140;
+  letters relating to, 221
+
+Women:
+  family, legal and religious status in Babylonia, 14 ff.;
+  in Assyria, 18;
+  in Canaan, 19;
+  divorce, 20;
+  dowries, 20;
+  traders, 24;
+  a superior slave, _ibid._;
+  concubines, 26;
+  testatory rights, 29;
+  legal forms of matrimony, 29;
+  prostitutes, 30;
+  adoption, 37;
+  dress, 102;
+  as trade partners, 128
+
+Wool, manufacture of, 107 ff.;
+  looms, 108
+
+Writing materials, 50, 51.
+  _See also_ “Letter-writing”
+
+Yahveh, name known in Babylonia, 227
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+    1 Researches in Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea (1838), p. 131 _sqq._
+
+    2 In certain cases the wife seems to have had the power of claiming
+      alimony from her husband, though we do not know what were the
+      circumstances which were held sufficient to justify the claim. Thus,
+      in the third year of Nabonidos, “Nahid-Merodach, the son of
+      Samas-baladhu-iqbi, voluntarily granted his wife Ramûa and his son
+      Arad-Bunene four _qas_ of food and three _qas_ of beer daily, as
+      well as fifteen manehs of wool, one _pi_ of sesame, one _pi_ of
+      salt, and sixty _qas_ of sweetmeats each year,” with the provision
+      that the grant should never be cancelled or willed away. The son,
+      however, is included in the gift, and it is possible, therefore,
+      that Ramûa was little more than a concubine.
+
+    3 A similar case, in which, however, it is a testatrix who hands over
+      her property to her son during her lifetime, is recorded in a deed
+      dated at Babylon the 10th day of Sivân, in the second year of
+      Nabonidos. The deed is as follows: “Gugûa, the daughter of Zakir,
+      the son of a native of Isin, has voluntarily sealed and delivered to
+      her eldest son, Ea-zir-ibni, her dowry, consisting of one maneh
+      which is in the keeping of Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Sula, the son
+      of Egibi; 35 shekels which have been mortgaged to Tabnea, the son of
+      Nebo-yusallim, the son of Sin-sadunu, and 20 shekels which are due
+      from Tasmetum-ramat, the daughter of Arad-Bel, the son of Egibi, as
+      well as a field producing 48 _qas_ of seed on the canal of Kish. As
+      regards the maneh and 56 shekels belonging to Gugûa, which, in the
+      absence of her eldest son, Ea-zir-ibni, she has divided between her
+      younger sons, Nebo-akhi-bullidh, Nergal-ina-esi-edher,
+      Itti-Samas-baladhu, and Ninip-pir-_utsur_, Ea-zir-ibni shall have no
+      claim to them. Gugûa has delivered to Ea-zir-ibni, her eldest son,
+      one maneh, now in the hands of Nebo-akhi-iddin, 55 shekels in the
+      hands of Tabnea, 50 shekels in the hands of Tasmetum-ramat, and a
+      field bearing 48 _qas_ of seed. As long as Gugûa lives, Ea-zir-ibni
+      shall give his mother Gugûa, as interest upon the property, food and
+      clothing. Gugûa shall alienate none of it out of affection or will
+      it away. Ea-zir-ibni shall not be disturbed in his possession.” The
+      names of three witnesses are attached to the deed, which was “sealed
+      in the presence of Babâ, the daughter of Nebo-zir-lisir, the son of
+      Egibi.”
+
+    4 Journal of the American Oriental Society, xviii., p. 167.
+
+    5 We hear, however, of a “little girl of six years of age” being sold
+      for 17 shekels in the thirteenth year of Nabonidos, but she was
+      doubtless an orphan.
+
+    6 Xxiii. 14.
+
+    7 See above, p. 23 f.
+
+    8 Schliemann, Ilios, pp. 471, 472. Mr. Head shows that the maneh in
+      question is identical with the Babylonian silver maneh of 8,656
+      grains troy, or 561 grammes, though the latter is now more usually
+      fixed at 546 grammes.
+
+    9 In the Assyrian texts the term for “prison” is _bit kili_, of which
+      _kisukku_ is also given as a synonym.
+
+   10 Our learned author has been misled in this paragraph by the utterly
+      erroneous copy and translation of Father Scheil. The letter reads
+      “To Sin-iddinnam from Hammurabi. The goddesses of Emutbalim which
+      are assigned to thee, the troops under the command of Tnuhsamar will
+      bring to thee in safety. When they reach thee, with the troops which
+      thou hast destroy the people, and the goddesses to their dwellings
+      let them bring in safety.”—CR.
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS, LIFE AND CUSTOMS***
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