CHAPTER V

THE AGE OF HAMMURABI AND ITS INFLUENCE ON LATER PERIODS

OF no other period in the history of Babylon have we so intimate a knowledge as that of the West-Semitic kings under whom the city first attained the rank of capital. It was a time of strenuous growth, in the course of which the long struggle with regard to language and racial dominance was decided in favour of the Semite. But the victory involved no break of continuity, for all the essential elements of Sumerian culture were preserved, the very length of the struggle having proved the main factor in securing their survivals. There had been a gradual assimilation on both sides, though naturally the Sumerian had the more to give, and, in spite of his political disappearance, he continued to exert an indirect influence. This he owed in the main to the energy of the Western Semite, who completed the task of transforming a dying culture, so that in its new embodiment it could be accepted by men of a newer race.

Hammurabi's age was one of transition, and we have fortunately recovered a great body of contemporaneous evidence on which to base an analysis of its social and political structure. On the one hand the great Code of Laws supplies us with the state's administrative ideal and standard of justice. On the other we have the letters of the kings themselves, and the commercial and legal documents of the period, to prove that the Code was no dead letter but was accurately adjusted to the conditions of the time. The possibility has long been recognized of the existence of similar codes of early Sumerian origin, and a copy of one of them, on a tablet of the Hammurabi period, has recently been recovered. But the value of Hammurabi's Code rests not so much in any claim to extensive originality, but rather on its correspondence to contemporary needs. It thus forms a first-rate witness on the subjects with which it deals, and where it gives no information, the letters and contracts of the period often enable us to supply thej deficiency.

For the purpose of legislation the Babylonian community was divided into three main classes or grades of society, which corresponded to well-defined strata in the social system. The highest or upper class embraced all the officers or ministers attached to the court, the higher officials and servants of the state, and the owners of considerable landed property. But wealth or position did not constitute the sole qualification distinguishing the members of the upper class from that immediately below them. In fact, while the majority of its members , enjoyed these advantages, it was possible for a man to forfeit them through his own fault or misfortune and yet to retain his social standing and privileges. It would seem therefore that the distinction was based on a racial qualification, and that the upper class, or nobles, as we may perhaps term them, were men of the predominant race, sprung from the West-Semitic or Amorite stock which had given Babylon its first independent dynasty. In course of time its racial purity would tend to become diluted by intermarriage with the older inhabitants, especially where these had thrown in their lot with the invaders and had espoused their cause. It is even possible that some of the latter had from the first obtained recognition in its ranks in return for military or political service. But, speaking broadly, we may regard the highest class in the social order as representing a racial aristocracy that had imposed itself.

The second class in the population comprised the great body of free men who did not come within the ranks of the nobles; in fact, they formed a middle class between the aristocracy and the slaves. They bore a title which in itself implied a state of inferiority, and though they were not necessarily poor and could possess slaves and property, they did not share the privileges of the upper class. It is probable that they represented the subject race, derived in part from the old Sumerian element in the population, in part from the Semitic strain which had long been settled in Northern Babylonia and by intercourse and intermarriage had lost much of its facial purity and independence. The difference, which divided and marked off from one another these two great classes of free men in the population, is well illustrated by the scale of payments as compensation for injury which they were obliged to make or were entitled to receive. Thus if a noble should be guilty of stealing an ox, or other animal, or a boat, which was private or temple property, he had to pay thirty times its value as compensation; whereas, if the thief were a member of the middle class the penalty was reduced to ten times the price, and, should he have no property with which to pay, he was put to death. The penalty for man­slaughter was also less if the assailant was a man of the middle class; he could obtain a divorce more cheaply, and he paid his doctor or surgeon a smaller fee for a successful operation. On the other hand, these privileges were counterbalanced by a corresponding diminution of the value at which his life and limbs were assessed.

That a racial distinction underlay the difference in social position and standing is suggested by the current penalties for assault, in accordance with which a noble could demand an exact retaliation for injuries from one of his own class, whereas he merely paid a money compensation to any man of the middle class he might have injured. Thus if one noble happened to knock out the eye or the tooth of another, his own eye or his own tooth was knocked out in return, and if he broke the limb of one of the members of his own class, he had his corresponding limb broken; but, if he knocked out the eye of a member of the middle class, or broke his limb, he was fined one maneh of silver, and for knocking out the tooth of such a man, he was fined one-third of a maneh. Other regulations point to a similar cleavage in the social strata, which can best be explained by a difference in race. Thus if two members of the same class quarrelled and one of them made a peculiarly improper assault on the other, the assailant was only fined, the fine being larger if the quarrel was between two nobles. But if such an assault was made by a member of the middle class upon a noble, the assailant was punished by being publicly beaten in the presence of the assembly, when he received sixty stripes from an ox-hide scourge.

The third and lowest class in the community were the slaves, who were owned by both the upper classes, but were naturally more numerous in the households of the nobles and on their estates. The slave was his master's absolute property, and on the contract-tablets he is often referred to as "a head," as though he were merely an animal. He constantly changed hands, by sale, bequest, or when temporarily pledged for a debt. For bad offences he was liable to severe punishment, such as cutting off the ear, which was the penalty for denying his master, or for making an aggravated assault upon a noble. But, on the whole, his lot was not a particularly hard one, for he was a recognized member of his master's household, and, as a valuable piece of property, it was obviously to his owner's interest to keep him healthy and in good condition. In fact, the value of the slave is attested by the severity of the penalties exacted for abducting a male or female slave from the owner's house and removing one from the city; for the death penalty was imposed in such a case, as also on anyone harbouring and taking possession of a runaway slave. On the other hand, a fixed reward was paid by the owner to anyone by whom a runaway was captured and brought back. Special legislation was also devised with the object of rendering the theft of slaves difficult and their detection easy. Thus, if a brander put a mark upon a slave without the owner's consent, he was liable to have his hands cut off; and, if he could prove that he had done so through being deceived by another man, that man was put to death. There was a regular trade in slaves, and no doubt their numbers were constantly increased by captives taken in war.

Though the slaves, as a class, had few rights of their own, there were regulations in accordance with which, under certain circumstances, they could acquire them, and even obtain their freedom. Thus it was possible for an industrious slave, while still in his master's service, to acquire property of his own, or a slave might inherit wealth from relatives; and, in such circumstances, he was able with his master's consent to purchase his freedom. Again, if a slave were captured by the enemy and taken to a foreign land and sold, and were then brought back by his new owner to his own country, he could claim his liberty without having to pay compensation to either of his masters. Moreover, a slave could acquire certain rights while still in slavery. Thus, if the owner of a female slave had begotten children by her, he could not use her as payment for a debt; and, in the event of his having done so, he was obliged to ransom her by paying the original amount of the debt in money. It was also possible for a male slave, whether owned by a noble or by a member of the middle class, to marry a free woman, and if he did so his children were free and did not become the property of his master. His wife, too, if a free woman, retained her marriage-portion on her husband's death, and supposing the couple had acquired property during the time they lived together as man and wife, the owner of the slave could only claim half of such property, the other half being retained by the free woman for her own use and for that of her children. The mere fact that such a union was possible suggests that there was no very marked cleavage between the social status of the better class of slaves and that of the humbler, members of the middle class.

The cultivation of the land, which formed the principal source of the wealth of Babylonia, was carried on mainly by slave labour, under the control of the two upper classes of the population. The land itself was largely in the hands of the crown, the temples, and the great nobles and merchants who were landed proprietors; and, including that still in communal or tribal possession, a very large proportion was cultivated on lease. The usual practice in hiring land for cultivation was for the tenant to pay his rent in kind, by assigning a certain proportion of the crop, generally a third or a half, to the owner, who advanced the seed-corn. The tenant was bound to till the land and raise a crop, and should he neglect to do so he had to pay the owner what was reckoned as the average rent of the land, and he had also to break up the land and plough it before handing it back. Elaborate regulations were in force to adjust the landowner's duties and responsibilities on the one hand, and what was due to him from his tenant on the other. As the rent of a field was usually reckoned at harvest, and its amount depended on the size of the crop, it would have been unfair that damage to the crop from flood or storm should have been made up by the tenant; such a loss was shared equally by the owner of the field and the farmer, though, if the latter had already paid his rent at the time the damage occurred, he could not make a claim for repayment. There is evidence that disputes were frequent not only between farmers and landowners, but also between farmers and shepherds, for the latter, when attempting to find pasture for their flocks, often allowed their sheep to feed off the farmers' fields in spring. For such cases a scale of compensation was fixed. If the damage was done in the early spring, when the plants were still small, the farmer harvested the crop and received a price in kind as compensation from the shepherd. But if it occurred later in the year, when the sheep had been brought in from the meadows and turned on to the common land by the city-gate, the damage was heavier; in such a case the shepherd had to take over the crop and compensate the farmer heavily.

The king himself was a very large owner of cattle and sheep, and he levied tribute on the flocks and herds of his subjects. The owners were bound to bring the young cattle and lambs, that were due from them, to the central town of the district in which they dwelt, and they were then collected and added to the royal flocks and herds. If the owners attempted to hold back any that were due as tribute, they were afterwards forced to incur the extra expense and trouble of driving the beasts to Babylon. The flocks and herds owned by the king and the great temples were probably enormous, and yielded a considerable revenue in themselves apart from the tribute and taxes levied upon private owners. Shepherds and herdsmen were placed in charge of them, and they were divided into groups under head-men, who arranged the districts in which the herds and flocks were to be grazed. The king received regular reports from his chief shepherds and herdsmen, and it was the duty of the governors of the larger towns and districts of Babylonia to make tours of inspection and see that due care was taken of the royal flocks. The sheep-shearing for all the flocks that were pastured near the capital took place in Babylon, and the king used to send out summonses to his chief shepherds to inform them of the day when the shearing would take place. Separate flocks, that were royal and priestly property, were sometimes under the same chief officer, a fact that tends to show that the king himself exercised a considerable measure of control over the sacred revenues.

In the regulation of the pastoral and agricultural life of the community, custom played a very important part, and this was recognized and enforced by royal authority. Carelessness in looking after cattle was punished by fine, but the owner was not held responsible for damage unless negligence could be proved on his part. Thus a bull might go wild at any time and gore a man, who would have no redress against its owner, but if the beast was known to be vicious, and its owner had not blunted its horns nor shut it up, he was obliged to pay compensation for damage. On the other hand, the owner of cattle or asses, who had hired them out, could exact compensation for the loss or ill-treatment of his beasts. These were framed on the principle that the hirer was responsible only for damage or loss which he could reasonably have prevented. If, for example, a lion killed a hired ox or ass in the open country, or if an ox was killed by lightning, the loss fell upon the owner and not on the man who had hired the beast. But if the hirer killed the ox through carelessness or by beating it unmercifully, or if the beast broke its leg while in his charge, he had to restore to the owner another ox in its place. For less serious damage to the beast the hirer paid compensation on a fixed scale. It is clear that such regulations merely gave the royal sanction to long-established custom.

Both for looking after their herds and for the cultivation of their estates the landed proprietors depended to a great extent upon hired herdsmen and farmers; and any dishonesty on the part of the latter with regard to cattle, provender, or seed-corn was severely punished. A theft of provender, for example, had to be made good, and the culprit ran the additional risk of having his hands cut off. Heavy compensation was exacted from any man, who, for his own profit, hired out oxen which had been entrusted to his charge; while, if a farmer stole the seed-corn supplied for the field he had hired, so that he produced no crop to share with the owner, not only had he to pay compensation but he was liable to be torn in pieces by oxen in the field he should have cultivated. In the age of Hammurabi the heavier penalties were no doubt largely traditional, having come down from a more barbarous time when dishonesty could only be kept in check by strong measures. Their retention among the statutes doubtless acted as an effective deterrent, and a severe sentence, if carried out occasionally in the case of an aggravated offence, would have sufficed to maintain respect for the regulations.

In the semi-tropical climate of Babylonia the canals played a vitally important part for the successful prosecution of agriculture, and it was to the royal interest to see that their channels were kept in a proper state of repair and cleaned out at regular intervals. There is evidence that nearly every king of the First Dynasty of Babylon cut new canals and extended the system ofirrigation and transport by water that he had inherited. The rich silt carried down by the rivers was deposited partly in the canals, especially in those sections nearer the main stream, with the result that the bed of a canal was constantly in process of being raised. Every year it was necessary to dig this deposit out and pile it upon the banks. Every year the banks rose higher and higher, until a point was reached when the labour involved in getting rid of the silt became greater than that required for cutting a new channel. Hence sections of a canal were constantly being recut alongside the old channel, and it is probable that many of the canals, the cutting of which is commemorated in the texts, were really reconstructions of older streams, the beds of which had become hopelessly silted up.

At the present day the traveller in certain parts of Babylonia comes across the raised embankments of old canals extending across the plain within a short distance of each other, and their parallel course is to be explained by the process of recutting, which was put off as long as possible, but was at last necessitated by the growing height of the banks. As the bed of a canal gradually rose too, the high banks served the purpose of retaining the stream, and these were often washed away by the flood-water which came down from the hills in spring. An interesting letter has been preserved, that was written by Hammurabi's grandson, Abi-eshu, who describes a sudden rise of this sort in the level of the Irnina Canal so that it overflowed its banks. At the time the king was building a palace in the city of Kar-Irnina, which was supplied by the Irnina Canal, and every year a certain amount of work was put into the building. At the time the letter was written little more than a third of the year's work had been done, when the building-operations were stopped by flood, the canal having overflowed its banks so that the water rose right up to the town-wall.

It was the duty of the local governors to see that the canals were kept in good repair, and they had the power of requisitioning labour from the inhabitants of' villages and the owners of land situated on or near the banks. In return, the villagers had the right of fishing in the waters of a canal along the section in their charge, and any poaching by other villagers in their part of the stream was strictly forbidden. On one occasion in the reign of Samsu-iluna, Hammurabi's son, fishermen from the village of Rabim went down in their boats to the district of Shakanim, and caught fish there contrary to local custom. So the inhabitants of Shakanim complained to the king of this infringement of their rights, and he sent a palace-official to the authorities of Sippar, in the jurisdiction of which the villages in question lay, with instructions to inquire into the matter and take steps to prevent any poaching in the future. Fishing by line and net was a regular industry, and the preservation of rights in local waters was jealously guarded.

The larger canals were fed directly from the river, especially along the Euphrates, whose banks were lower than those of the swifter Tigris. But along the latter river, and also along the banks of the canals, it will be obvious that some means had to be employed to raise the water for purposes of irrigation from the main channel to the higher level of the land. References made in the Babylonian inscriptions to irrigation-machines, and, although their exact form and construction are not described, they must have been very similar to those employed at the present day. The most primitive method of raising water, which is commoner today in Egypt than in Mesopotamia, is the shcidduf, which is worked by hand. It consists of a beam supported in the centre; and at one end a bucket is suspended for raising the water, while at the other end is fixed a counter-weight. Thus comparatively little labour is required to raise the bucket when full. That this contrivance was employed on the Tigris is proved by an Assyrian bas-relief, found at Kuyunjik, with representations of the shcidduf in operation. Two of them are being used, the one above the other, to raise the water to successive levels. These were probably the contrivances usually employed by the early Babylonians for raising the water to the level of their fields, and the fact that they were light and easily removed must have made them tempting objects to the dishonest farmer. A scale of compensation was therefore in force, regulating the payments to be made to the owner by a detected thief. From the fact that these varied, according to the class and value of the machine he stole, we may infer that other contrivances, of a heavier and more permanent character, were also employed.

One of these must certainly have corresponded to a very primitive arrangement that is in general use at the present day in Mesopotamia, particularly along the Tigris, where the banks are high and steep. A recess or cutting with perpendicular sides is driven into the bank, and a wooden spindle is supported on struts in a horizontal position over the recess, which resembles a well with one side opening on to the river. A rope running over the spindle is fastened to a skin in which the water is raised from the river, being drawn up by horses, donkeys, or cattle harnessed to the other end of the rope. To empty the skin by hand into the irrigation channel would, of course, entail considerable time and labour, and, to avoid this necessity, an ingenious contrivance is employed. The skin is sewn up, not in the form of a closed bag, but of a bag ending in a long narrow funnel. While the skin is being filled and drawn to the top, the funnel is kept raised by a thin line running over a lower spindle and fastened off to the main rope, so that both are pulled up together by the beasts. The positions of the spindles and the length of the ropes are so adjusted, that the end of the funnel stops just above a wooden trough on the bank below the struts, while the rest of the skin is drawn up higher and shoots its water through the funnel into the trough. The trough is usually made from half the trunk of a date-palm, hollowed out, and one end leads to the irrigation-channel on the bank. To give the beasts a better purchase in pulling up the weight of water, an inclined plane is cut in the ground, sloping away from the machine, and up and down this the beasts are driven, the skin filling and emptying itself automatically. To increase the supply of water, two skins are often employed side by side, each with its own tackle and set of beasts, and, as one is drawn up full, the other is let down empty. Thus a continuous flow of water is secured, and not more than one man or boy is required to keep each set of beasts moving. No more effective or simpler method could be devised of raising water to a considerable height, and there can be no doubt that, at the period of the First Dynasty, cattle were employed not only for ploughing, but for working primitive irrigation-machines of this character.

On the Euphrates, where the river-banks are lower, a simple form of water-wheel was probably in use then as it is today, wherever there was sufficient current to work one. And the advantage of this form of machine is that, so long as it is in order, it can be unlocked at will and kept working without supervision day and night. The wheel is formed of stripped boughs and branches nailed together, with spokes joining the outer rims to a roughly hewn axle. Around the outer rim are tied a series of rough earthenware cups or bottles, and a few rude paddles are fixed to the wheel, projecting beyond the rim. The wheel is then set up in place near the bank of the river, its axle resting on pillars of rough masonry. The current turns the wheel, and the bottles, dipping below the surface, are laised up full, and empty their water into a wooden trough at the top. The banks of the Euphrates are usually sloping, and the water is conducted from the trough to the fields along a small aqueduct or earthen embankment. Such wheels today are usually set up where there is a slight drop in the river-bed and the water runs swiftly over shallows. In order to span the difference in level between the fields and the summer height of the stream the wheels are often huge contrivances, and their rough construction causes them to creak and groan as they turn with the current. In a convenient place in the river several of these are sometimes set up side by side, and their noise when at work can be heard at a great distance.

It is not unlikely that the later Sumerians had already evolved these primitive forms of irrigation-machine, and that the Babylonians of the First Dynasty merely inherited them and passed them on to their successors. When once invented they were incapable of very great improvement. In the one the skin must always remain a skin; in the other the wheel must always be lightly constructed of boughs, or the strength of the current would not suffice to turn it. We have seen reason to believe that, in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II. at Babylon, the triple well in the north-west corner may be best explained as having formed the water-supply for a hydraulic machine, consisting of an endless chain of buckets passing over a great wheel. Such is a very common form of raising water in Babylonia at the present day. It is true that in some of these machines the wheel for the buckets is still geared by means of rough wooden cogs to the long pole or winch, turned by beasts, who move round in a circle. But it is very unlikely that the early Babylonians had evolved the principle of the cogged wheel, and it was probably not till the period of the later Assyrian empire that bronze was so plentiful that it could have been used in sufficient quantity for buckets on an endless chain. There seems reason to believe that Sennacherib himself introduced an innovation when he employed metal in the construction of the machines that supplied water to his palace; and we may infer that even in the Neo-Babylonian period a contrivance of that sort was still a royal luxury, and that the farmer continued to use the more primitive machines, sanctioned by immemorial usage, which he could make with his own hands.

 

the old "kabylonian form of plough in use. The drawing is taken from seal-impressions on a tablet of the Kassite period. [After Clay.]

 

The manner in which the agricultural implements employed in early Babylonia have survived to the present day is well illustrated by their form of plough, which closely resembles that still in use in parts of Syria. We have no representation of the plough of the First Babylonian Dynasty, but this was doubtless the same as that of the Kassite period, of which a very interesting representation has recently been recovered. On a tablet found at Nippur and dated in the fourth year of Nazi-Maruttash, are several impressions of a cylinder-seal engraved with a representation of three men ploughing. The plough is drawn by two humped bulls, or zebu, who are being driven by one of the men, while another holds the two handles of the plough and guides it. The third man has a bag of seed-corn slung over his shoulders and is in the act of feeding seed with his right hand into a tube or grain-drill, down which it passed into the furrow made by the plough. At the top of the tube is a bowl, with a hole in the bottom opening on to the tube, which acted as a funnel and enabled the sower to drop the seed in without scattering it. This is the earliest representation of the Babylonian plough that we possess, and its value is increased by the fact that the plough is seen in operation. The same seed-drill occurs in three later representations. One of these also dates from the Kassite period, being found upon a boundary-stone of the period of Meli-Shipak II, on which it is sculptured as the sacred symbol of Geshtinna, the goddess of the plough. The other two are of the Assyrian period, one being represented in enamelled brick on the walls of the palace at Khorsabad, the other being carved among the symbols on the Black Stone of Esarhaddon, on which he gives an account of his restoration of Babylon. Similar ploughs, with grain-drills of precisely the same structure, are still used in Syria at the present time.

Before ploughing and sowing his land the Babylonian farmer prepared it for irrigation by dividing it up into a number of small squares or oblong patches, each separated from the others by a low bank of earth. Some of the banks, that ran lengthways through the field, were made into small channels, the ends of which were connected with his main irrigation-stream. No gates nor sluices were employed, and, when he wished to water one of his fields, he simply broke away the bank opposite one of his small channels and let the water flow into it. when it reached the part of his land he wished to water, he blocked the channel with a little earth and broke down its bank so that the water flowed over one of the small squares and soaked it.

He could then repeat the process with the next square, and so on, afterwards returning to the main channel and stopping the flow of water by blocking up the hole he had made in the bank. Such is the present process "of irrigation in Mesopotamia, and there is no doubt that it was adopted by the early Babylonians. It was extremely simple, but needed care and vigilance, especially when water was being carried into several parts of an estate at once. Moreover, one main channel often supplied the fields of several farmers, and, in return for his share of the water, it was the duty of each man to keep its banks, where it crossed his land, in repair. If he failed to do so and the water forced a breach and flooded his neighbour's field, he had to pay compensation in kind for any crop that was ruined, and, if he could not pay, his goods were sold, and his neighbours, whose fields had been damaged, shared the proceeds of the sale. Similarly, if a farmer left his water running and forgot to shut it off, he had to pay compensation for any damage it might do to a neighbouring crop.

The date-palm formed the chief secondary source of the country's wealth, for it grew luxuriantly in the alluvium and supplied the Babylonians with one of their principal articles of diet. From it, too, they made a fermented wine, and a species of flour for baking; its sap yielded palm-sugar, and its fibrous bark was suitable for weaving ropes, while its trunk furnished a light but tough building-material. The early Babylonian kings encouraged the laying out of date-plantations and the planting of gardens and orchards; and special regulations were made with that object in view. For a man could obtain a field for the purpose without paying a yearly rent. He could plant and tend it for four years, and in the fifth year of his tenancy the original owner of the land took half the garden in payment, while the planter kept the other half for himself. Care was taken to see that the bargain was properly carried out, for, if a bare patch had been left in the plantation, it was reckoned in the planter's half; and should the tenant neglect the trees during his first four years of occupation, he was still liable to plant the whole plot without receiving his half of it, and he had to pay compensation in addition, which varied in amount according to the original condition of the land. In this way the authorities ensured that land should not be taken over and allowed to deteriorate. For the hire of a plantation the rent was fixed at two-thirds of its produce, the tenant providing all labour and supplying the necessary irrigation-water.

 

assyrian kelek on the tigris. [After Layard.]

 

From the royal letters of the period of the First Dynasty we know that the canals were not only used for irrigation, but also as water-ways for transport. The letters contain directions for the bringing of corn, dates, sesame-seed, and wood to Babylon, and we also know that wool and oil were carried in bulk by water. For transport of heavy goods on the Tigris and Euphrates it is possible that rafts, floated on inflated skins, were used from an early period, though the earliest evidence we have of their employment is furnished by the bas-reliefs from Nineveh. Such rafts have survived to the present day, and they are specially adapted for the transport of heavy materials, for they are carricd down by the current, and are kept in the main stream by means of huge sweeps or oars. Being formed only of logs of wood and skins, they arc not costly, for wood was plentiful in the upper course of the rivers. At the end of the journey, after the goods were landed, they were broken up, the logs being sold at a profit, and the skins, after being deflated, were packed on donkeys to return up stream by caravan. The use of such keleks can only have been general when through river communication was general, but, since we know that Hammurabi included Assyria within his dominions, it is not impossible that they may date from at least as early a period as the First Dynasty. For purely local traffic in small bulk the gufa, or light coracle, may have been used in Babylonia at this time, for its representation on the Assyrian monuments corresponds exactly with its structure at the present time as used on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. The gufa is forme of wicker-work coated with bitumen, but some of those represented on the sculptures from Nineveh appear to have been covered with skins as in the description of Herodotus.

ASSYRIAN PROTOTYPE OF THE GUFA.

In the texts and inscriptions of the early period (ships are referred to, and these were undoubtedly the only class of vessels employed on the canals for conveying supplies in bulk by water. The size of such ships, or barges, was reckoned by the amount of grain they were capable of carrying, measured by the gur, the largest measure of capacity. We find vessels of very different size referred to, varying from five to seventy-five gur and over. The larger class probably resembled the sailing barges and ferry-boats in use today, which are built of heavy timbers and have flat bottoms when intended for the transport of beasts. In Babylon at the time of the First Dynasty a boat-builder's fee for constructing a vessel of sixty gur was fixed at two shekels of silver, and it was proportionately less for vessels of smaller capacity. A boat-builder was held responsible for unsound work, and should defects develop in a vessel within a year of its being launched, he was obliged to strengthen or rebuild it at his own expense. Boatmen and sailors formed a numerous class in the community, and the yearly wage of a man in such employment was fixed at sixty gur of corn. Larger vessels carried crews under the command of a captain, or chief boatman, and there is evidence that the vessels owned by the king included many of the larger type, which he employed for carrying grain, wool and dates, as well as wood and stone for building-operations.

assyrian raft of logs on the tigris.

It is probable that there were regular officials, under the king's control, who collected dues and looked after the water-transport in the separate sections of the river, or canal, on which they were stationed. It would have been their duty to report any damage or defect in the channel to the king, who would send orders to the local governor that the necessary repairs should be put in hand. One of Hammurabi's letters deals with the blocking of a canal at Erech, about which he had received such reports. The dredging already undertaken had not been thoroughly done, so that the canal had soon silted up again and boats were prevented from reaching the city ; in his letter Hammurabi sent pressing orders that the canal was to be rendered navigable within three days. Special regulations were also in force with regard to the respective responsibilities of boat-owners, boatmen and their clients. If a boat­man hired a boat from its owner, he was held responsible for it, and had to replace it should it be lost or sunk ; but if he refloated it, he had only to pay the owner half its value for the damage it had sustained. Boatmen were also responsible for the safety of goods, such as corn, wool, oil or dates, which they had undertaken to carry for hire, and they had to make good any total loss due to their own carelessness. Collisions between two vessels were also provided for, and should one of the boats have been moored at the time, the boatman of the other vessel had to pay compensation for the boat that was sunk as well as for the lost cargo, the owner of the latter estimating its value upon oath. Many cases in the courts probably arose out of loss or damage to goods in course of transport by water.

The commercial activities of Babylon at the time of the First Dynasty led to a considerable growth in the size of the larger cities, which ceased to be merely local centres of distribution and began to engage in commerce farther afield. Between Babylonia and Elam close commercial relations had long been maintained, but Hammurabi's western conquests opened up new markets to the merchants of his capital. The great trade-route up the Euphrates and into Syria was no longer blocked by military outposts and fortifications, placed there in the vain attempt to keep back the invasion of Amorite tribes; and the trade in pottery with Carchemish, of which we have evidence under the later kings of the First Dynasty, is significant of the new relations established between Babylonia and the West. The great merchants were, as a body, members of the upper class, and while they themselves continued to reside in Babylon, they employed traders who carried their goods abroad for them by caravan.

Even Hammurabi could not entirely guarantee the safety of such traders, for attacks by brigands were then as common in the Nearer East as at the present day; and there was always the additional risk that a caravan might be captured by the enemy, if it ventured too near a hostile frontier. In such circumstances the king saw to it that the loss of the goods was not borne by the agent, who had already risked his life and liberty in undertaking their transport. For, if such an agent had been forced in the course of his journey to give up some of the goods he was carrying, he had to specify the exact amount on oath on his return, and he was then acquitted of all responsibility. But if it could be proved before the elders of the city that he had attempted to cheat his employer by misappropriating money or goods to his own use, he was obliged to pay the merchant three times the value of the goods he had taken. The law was not one-sided and afforded the agent equal protection in relation to his more powerful employer; for should the latter be convicted of an attempt to defraud his agent, by denying that the due amount had been returned to him, he had to pay his agent as compensation six times the amount in dispute. The merchant always advanced the goods or money with which to trade, and the fact that he could, if he wished to do so, fix his own profit at double the value of the capital, is an indication of the very satisfactory returns obtained at this period from foreign commerce. But the more usual practice was for merchant and trader to share the profits between them, and, in the event of the latter making such bad bargains that there was a loss on his journey, he had to refund to the merchant the full value of the goods lie had received. At the time of the First Dynasty asses and donkeys were the beasts of burden employed for carrying merchandise, for the horse was as yet a great rarity and was not in general use in Babylonia until after the Kassite conquest.

A large number of the First Dynasty contracts relate to commercial journeys of this sort, and record the terms of the bargains entered into between the interested parties. Such partnerships were sometimes concluded for a single journey, but more often for longer periods of time. The merchant always demanded a properly executed receipt for the money or goods he advanced to the trader, and the latter received one for any deposit or pledge he might have made in token of his good faith. In reckoning their accounts on the conclusion of a journey, only such amounts as were specified in the receipts were regarded as legal obligations, and, if either party had omitted to obtain his proper documents, he did so at his own risk. The market-places of the capital and the larger towns must have been the centres where such business arrangements were transacted, and official scribes were probably always in attendance to draw up the terms of any bargain in the presence of other merchants and traders, who acted as witnesses. These had their names enumerated at the close of the document, and since they were chosen from loeal residents, some were always at hand to testify in case of any subsequent dispute.

The town-life in Babylonia at this time must have had many features in common with that of any provincial town in Mesopotamia today, except that the paternal government of the First Dynasty undoubtedly saw to it that the streets were kept clean, and made strenuous efforts to ensure that private houses should be soundly built and maintained in proper repair. We have already followed out the lines of some of the streets in ancient Babylon, and noted that, while the foundations of the houses were usually oi burnt brick, crude brick was invariably employed for their upper structure. They were probably all buildings of a single story, their flat mud roofs, supported on a layer of brush­wood with poles for rafters, serving as a sleeping-place for their inmates during the hot season. Contemporary evidence goes to show that, before the period of Hammurabi, private houses had not been very solidly built, for his legislation contemplates the possibility of their falling and injuring the inmates. In the case of new houses the law fixed the responsibility upon the builder, and we may infer that the very heavy penalties exacted for bad work led to a marked improvement in construction. For, when such a newly built house fell and crushed the owner so that he died, the builder himself was liable to be put to death. Should the fall of the house kill the owner's son, the builder's own son was slain; and, if one or more of the owner's slaves were killed, the builder had to restore him slave for slave. Any damage to the owner's possessions was also made good by the builder, who had in addition to rebuild the house at his own cost, or repair any portion of it that had fallen. On the other hand, payment for sound work was guaranteed, and the fact that the scale of payment was fixed by the area of ground covered by the building, is direct evidence that the houses of the period consisted of no more than one story. The beginning of town-planning on systematic lines, with streets running through and crossing each other at right angles, of which we have noted evidence at Babylon, may perhaps date from the Hammurabi period; but no confident opinion on the point can be expressed until further excavation has been undertaken in the earlier strata of the city.

 

 

We have recovered from contemporary documents a very full picture of family life in early Babylonia, for the duties of the separate members of a family to one another were regulated by law, and any change in relationship was duly attested and recorded in legal form before witnesses. Minute regulations were in force with regard to marriage, divorce and the adoption and maintenance of children, while the provision and disposal of marriage-portions, the rights of widows and the laws of inheritance were all controlled by the state upon traditional lines. Perhaps the most striking feature in the social system was the recognized status of the wife in the Babylonian household, and the extremely independent position enjoyed by women in general. Any marriage to be legally binding had to be accompanied by a duly executed and attested marriage-contract, and without this necessary preliminary a woman was not regarded as a wife in the legal sense. On the other hand, when once such a marriage-contract had been drawn up and attested, its inviolability was stringently secured. Chastity on the wife's part was enforced under severe penalty; but on the other hand the husband's responsibility to maintain his wife in a position suitable to their circumstances was also recognized.

The law gave the wife ample protection, and in the case of the husband's desertion allowed her, under certain conditions, to become the legal wife of another man. If the husband wilfully deserted her and left his city under no compulsion, she might remarry and he could not reclaim her on his return. But if his desertion was involuntary, as in the case of a man taken in battle and carried off as a prisoner, this rule did not apply; and the wife was allowed to shape her action during his absence in accordance with the condition of her husband's affairs. The regulations in such a case were extraordinarily in favour of the woman. If the husband was possessed of property sufficient to maintain the wife during the period of his captivity, she had no excuse for remarriage; and, should she become the wife of another ni, the marriage was not regarded as legal and she was liable to the extreme penalty for adultery. But if the husband had not sufficient means for his wife's maintenance, it was recognized that she would be thrown on her own resources, and she was permitted to remarry. The returning captive could claim his wife, but the children of the second marriage remained with their own father. The laws of divorce, too, safeguarded the woman's interests, and only dealt with her severely if it could be proved that she had wasted her household and failed in her duty as a wife; in such a case she could be divorced without compensation, and even reduced to the condition of a slave in her husband's house. But, in the absence of such proof, her maintenance was fully secured; for the husband had to return her marriage-portion, and, if there had been none, he must make her an allowance. She also had the custody of her children, for whose maintenance and education the husband had to provide ; and, at his death, the divorced wife and her children could inherit a share of his estate. The contraction of a permanent disease by the wife was also held to constitute no grounds for a divorce.

Such regulations throw an interesting light on the position of the married woman in the Babylonian community, which was not only unexampled in antiquity but compares favourably, in point of freedom and independence, with her status in many countries of modern Europe. Still more remarkable were the privileges capable of attainment by unmarried women of the upper class, who in certain circumstances were entitled to hold property in their own names and engage in commercial undertakings. To secure such a position a woman took vows, by which she became a member of a class of votaries attached to one of the chief temples in Babylon, Sippar, or another of the great cities. The duties of such women were not sacerdotal, and, though they generally lived together in a special building, or convent, attached to the temple, they enjoyed a position of great influence and independence in the community. A votary could possess property in her own name, and on taking her vows was provided with a portion by her father, exactly as though she were being given in marriage. This was vested in herself, and did not become the property of her order, nor of the temple to which she was attached; it was devoted entirely to her maintenance, and after her father's death, her brothers looked after her interest, and she could farm the property out. Upon her death her portion returned to her own family, unless her father assigned her the privilege of bequeathing it; but any property she inherited she could bequeath, and she had not to pay taxes on it. She had consider^ able freedom, could engage in commerce on her ownt account, and, should she desire to do so, could leave! the convent and contract a form of marriage.

While securing her these privileges, the vows she took entailed corresponding responsibilities. Even when married, a votary was still obliged to remain a virgin, and, should her husband desire children, she eould not bear them herself, but must provide him with a maid or coneubine. But, in spite of this disability, she was secured in her position as the permanent head of the household. The concubine, though she might bear the husband children, was always the wife's inferior, and should she attempt to put herself on a level with the votary, the latter could brand her and put her with the female slaves; while in the event of the concubine proving barren, she eould be sold. Unmarried votaries, too, could live in houses of their own and dispose of their time and money in their own way. But a high standard of commercial and social morality was expeeted from them, and severe penalties were imposed for its infringement. No votary, for example, was permitted to open a beer-shop, and should she even enter one, she ran the risk of being put to death. An unmarried votary also enjoyed the status of a married woman, and the penalty for slandering one was branding in the forehead. That the social position enjoyed by a votary was considerable is proved by the fact that many amen of good family, and even members of the royal house, took vows.

It is a striking fact that women of an Eastern race should have achieved such a position of independence at the beginning of the second millennium. The explanation is perhaps to be sought in the great part already played by commerce in Babylonian life. Among contemporary races, occupied mainly by agriculture and war, woman's activity was necessarily restricted to the rearing of children and to the internal economy of the household. But with the growth of Babylonian trade and commercial enterprise, it would seem that the demand arose, on the part of women of the upper class, to take part in activities in which they considered themselves capable of joining. The success of the experiment was doubtless due in part to the high standard of morality exacted, and in part to the prestige conferred by association with the religious cult.

The administration of justice at the period of the First Dynasty was carried out by duly appointed y courts of-law under the supervision of the king. The judges were appointed by the crown, and a check was put upon any arbitrary administration of the law by the fact that the elders of the city sat with them and assisted them in hearing and sifting evidence. When once a judgment had been given and recorded, it was irrevocable, and if any judge attempted to alter such a decision, he was expelled from his judgment-seat and debarred from exercising judicial functions in the future. The regulation was probably intended to prevent the possibility of subsequent bribery; and, if a litigant considered that justice had not been done, it was always open to him to appeal to the king. Hammurabi's letters prove that he exercised strict supervision, not only over the cases decided in the capital, but also over those which were tried in the other great cities of Babylonia, and it is clear that he Attempted to stamp out corruption on the part of all those invested with authority. On one occasion he had been informed of a case of bribery in the town of Dur-gurgurri, and he at once ordered the governor of the district to investigate the charge and send the guilty parties to Babylon for punishment. The bribe, too, was to be confiscated and despatched to Babylon under seal, a wise provision that would have tended to discourage those inclined to tamper with the course of justice, while at the same time it enriched the state. The king probably tried all cases of appeal in person, when it was possible; but in distant cities he deputed this duty to local officials. Many of the cases that came before him arose from the extortions of money-lenders, and the king had no mercy when fraud on their part was proved.

The relations maintained by the king with the numerous classes of the priesthood was also very close, and the control he exercised over the chief priests and their subordinates appears to have been as effective as that he maintained over the judicial authorities throughout the country. Under the Sumerians there had always been a tendency on the part of the more powerful members of the hierarchy to usurp the prerogatives of the crown, but this danger appears to have been fully discounted under the rule of the Western Semites. One important section of the priestly body were the astrologers, whose duty it probably was to make periodical reports to the king on the conjunctions and movements of the heavenly bodies, with the object of ascertaining whether they portended good or evil to the state. The later Assyrian practice, may well have had its origin at this period, and we may conclude that the regulation of the calendar was carried out in accordance with such advice. One of Hammurabi's letters has come down to us in which he writes to inform Sin-idinnam, his local governor of Larsa, that it had been decided to insert an intercalary month in the calendar. He writes that, as the year, that is the calendar, had a deficiency, the month that was beginning was to be registered as the second Elul; and he adds the very practical reminder, that the insertion of the extra month would not justify any postponement in the payment of the regular tribute due from the city of Larsa. The lunar calendar of the Babylonians rendered the periodical intercalation of months necessary, in order that it should be made to correspond to the solar year; and the duty of watching for the earliest appearance of the new moon and fixing the first day of each month, was among the most important of the functions performed by the official astrologers.

ln the naming of the year the priesthood must also have played an important part, since the majority of the events from which the years were named were of a religious character. The system, which was inherited from the Sumerians, cannot have been a very convenient one, and no doubt it owed its retention to the sanctity of the religious rites and associations attaching to it. There can be little doubt that, normally, the naming of the year took place at the New Year's Feast, and, when the event commemorated in the formula was the installation of a chief priest or the dedication of temple-furniture, the royal act, we may assume, was performed on the day the year was named. Often merely a provisional title was adopted from the preceding formula, and then perhaps no ceremony of naming was held, unless in the course of it a great victory, or other important occurrence, was commemorated by the renaming of the year. The king must have consulted with his priestly advisers before the close of the old year, and have settled on the new formula in good time to allow of its announcement in the outlying districts of the kingdom.

Another important religious class at this period was the guild of soothsayers, and they also appear to have been direetly under the royal control. This we gather from a letter of Ammi-ditana, one of the later kings of the First Dynasty, written to three high officials of Sippar, which illustrates the nature of their duties and the sort of occasion on which they were called upon to perform them. It had come to the king's knowledge that there was a scarcity of corn in Shagga, and since that town was in the administrative district of Sippar, he wrote to the officials concerned ordering them to send a supply thither. But, before the corn was brought into the city, they were to consult the soothsayers, in order to ascertain whether the omens were favourable. The method of inquiry is not specified, but it was probably liver-divination, which was in common use during all periods. Only if the omens proved favourable, was the corn to be brought into the town, and we may conclude that the king took this precaution as he feared that the scarcity of corn in Shagga was due to the anger of some local deity. The astrologers would be able to ascertain the facts, and, in the event of their reporting unfavourably, no doubt the serviees of the local priesthood would have been called in.

We have already seen that flocks and herds which were owned by the great temples were sometimes pastured with those of the king, and there is abundant evidence that the king also superintended the collection of temple-revenues along with his own. Collectors of both secular and ecclesiastical tribute sent reports directly to the king, and, if there was any deficit in the supply expected from a collector, he had to make it up himself. From one of Hammurabi's letters, for example, we gather that two landowners, or money­lenders, had lent money or advanced seed-corn to certain farmers near the towns of Dur-gurgurri and Bakhabu and along the Tigris, and in settlement of their claims had seized the crops, refusing to pay the proportion due to Bit-il-kitti the great temple of the Sun-god at Larsa. The governor of Larsa, the principal city in the district, had rightly, as the representative of the palace, caused the tax-collector to make up the deficiency, but Hammurabi, on receiving the subordinate officer's complaint, referred the matter back to the governor, and we may infer from similar cases that the defaulting parties had to make good the loss and submit to fines or punishment. The document throws an interesting light on the methods of government administration, and the manner in which the king gave personal supervision to the smallest details.

It will be obvious that for the administration of the country a large body of officials were required, and of their number two classes, of a semi-military character, enjoyed the king's special favour and protection. They were placed in charge of public works and looked after and controlled the public slaves, and they probably alsohad a good deal to do with the collection of the revenue. As payment for their duties, they were each granted land with a house and garden; they were assigned sheep and cattle to stock their land, and in addition they received a regular salary. They were, in a sense, personal retainers of the king, and were liable to be sent at any moment on a special mission. Disobedience was severely punished, for if such an officer, when detailed for special service, hired a substitute, he was liable to be put to death and the substitute could take his office. Sometimes an officer was sent to take charge of a distant garrison for a long period, and when this was done his home duties were performed by another man, who temporarily occupied his house and land, and gave it back to the officer on his return. If the officer had a son old enough to perform the duty in his father's absence, he war allowed to do s ; and, if he was too young, his maintenance was paid for out of the estate. Should the officer fail to arrange, before his departure, for the proper cultivation of his land and the discharge of his local duties, another could take his place after the lapse of a year, and on his return he could not reclaim his land or office. When on garrison duty, or on special service, he ran the risk of capture by the enemy, and in that event his ransom was assured. For if his own means did not suffice, the sum had to be paid from the treasury of the local temple, and in the last resort by the state. It was specially enacted that his land, garden, and house were in no case to be sold to pay for his ransom. They were inalienably attached to the office he held, which appears to have been entailed in the male line, since he was precluded from bequeathing any of the property to his wife or daughter. They could only pass from him and his male issue through neglect or disobedience.

It is not improbable that the existence of this specially favoured class of officer dates back to the earliest settlement of the Western Semites in Babylonia. The first of their number may well have been personal retainers and followers of Sumu-abum, the founder of the dynasty. Originally soldiers, they were probably assigned lands throughout the country in return for their services to the king, and they continued to serve him by maintaining order and upholding his authority. In the course of time specified duties were assigned to them, but they retained their privileges, and they must have remained a very valuable body of officers, on whose personal loyalty the king could always rely. In the case of war, they may have assisted in mobilization; for the army was probably raised on a territorial basis, much on the lines of the corvee for public works which was under their control.

By contemporary documents of the period much light is thrown on other classes of the population, but, as they were all connected with various departments in the commercial or agricultural life of the community, it will be unnecessary to describe them in further detail. One class perhaps deserves mention, the surgeons, since lack of professional skill was rather heavily penalized. For if a surgeon, when called in by a noble, carried out an operation so unskilfully as to cause his death or inflict a permanent injury upon him, such as the loss of an eye, the punishment was amputation of both hands. No penalty appears to have been enacted if the patient were a member of the middle class, but should the slave of such a man die as the result of an operation, the surgeon had to give the owner another slave; and, in the event of the slave losing his eye, he had to pay the owner half the slave's value. There was, of course, no secular class in the population which corresponded to the modern doctor, for the medicinal use of herbs and drugs was not separated from their , employment in magic. Disease was looked upon as due to the agency of evil spirits, or of those that controlled them, and though many potions were doubtless drunk of a curative nature, they were taken at the instance of the magician, not of the doctor, and to the accompaniment of magical rites and incantations.

In the religious sphere, the rise of Babylon to the position of capital led to a number of important changes, and to a revision of the Babylonian pantheon. Marduk, the god of Babylon, from being a comparatively obscure city-god, underwent a transformation in proportion to the increase in his city's importance. The achievements and attributes of Enlil, the chief Sumerian deity, were ascribed to him, and the old Sumerian sagas and legends, particularly those of the creation of the world, were rewritten in this new spirit by the Babylonian priesthood. The beginning of the process may be accurately dated to the year of Hammurabi's conquest of Rim-Sin and his subsequent control of Nippur, the ancient centre of the old Sumerian faith. It does not appear that the earlier Semites, when they conquered that city, had ever attempted to modify the old traditions they found there, or to appropriate them for their local gods. But a new spirit was introduced with the triumph of the Western Semites. The Sumerians were then a dying race, and the gradual disappearance of their language as a living tongue was accompanied by a systematic translation, and a partial transformation, of their sacred literature. Enlil could not be entirely ousted from the position he had so long enjoyed, but Marduk became his greater son. The younger god is represented as winning his position by his own valour, in coming to the help of the older gods when their very existence was threatened by the dragons of chaos; and, having slain the monster, of the deep, he is portrayed as creating the universe from her severed body. The older legends, no doubt, continued to be treasured in the ancient cult-centres of the land, but the Babylonian versions, under royal sanction and encouragement, tended to gain wide recognition and popularity.

Under the later kings of the First Dynasty a great impetus was also given to all branches of literary activity. The old Sumerian language still bulked largely in the phraseology of legal and commercial documents, as well as in the purely religious literature of the country. And, to aid them in their study of the ancient texts, the Semitic scribes undertook a systematic compilation of explanatory lists of words and ideograms, the earliest form of dictionary, which continued in use into the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods. The Sumerian texts, too, were copied out and furnished with inter-linear Semitic translations. The astronomical and astrological studies and records of the Sumerian priests were taken over, and great collections were compiled in combination with the early Akkadian records that had come down to them. A study of the Babylonian literature affords striking proof that the semitizing of the country led to no break, nor set-back, in Babylonian, culture. The older texts and traditions were taken over in bulk, and, except where the rank or position of Marduk was affected, little change or modification was made. The Semitic scribes no doubt developed their inheritance, but expansion took place on the old lines.

In commercial life, too, Sumerian customs remained to a great extent unaltered. Taxes, rent, and prices continued to be paid in kind, and though the talent, maneh, and shekel were in use as metal weights, and silver was in partial circulation, no true currency was developed. In the sale of land, for example, even during the period of the Kassite kings, the purchase price was settled in shekel-weights of silver, but very little metal actually changed hands. Various items were exchanged against the land, and these, in addition to corn, the principal medium of exchange, included slaves, animals, weapons, garments, etc., the value of each item being reckoned on the same silver basis, until the agreed purchase-price was made up. The early Semitic Babylonian, despite his commercial activity, did not advance beyond the transition stage between pure barter and a regular currency.

One important advantage conferred by the Western Semite on the country of his adoption was an increase in the area of its commercial relations and a political expansion to the north and west. He systematized its laws, and placed its internal administration on a wider and more uniform basis. But the greatest and most far-reaching change of the Hammurabi period was that the common speech of the whole of Babylonia became Semitic, as did the dominant racial element in the population. And it was thanks to this fact that all subsequent invasions of the country failed to alter the main features in her civilization. Such alien strains were absorbed in process of time, and, though they undoubtedly introduced fresh blends into the racial mixture, the Semitic element triumphed, and continued to receive reinforcements from the parent stock. The Sumerian race and language appear to have survived longest in the extreme south of the country, and we shall see that the rise of the Sea-Country kings may perhaps be regarded as their last effective effort in the political sphere.