History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery Part 11

"A cultivator of his lands, whether hired or belonging to the estate, and the men who receive his instructions (i.e. his overseers) shall no governor of Bit-Pir-Shad-rab cause to leave his lands, whether by the order of the king, or by the order of the governor, or by the order of whosoever may be at Bit-Pir-Shad-rab. On wood, gra.s.s, straw, corn, and every other sort of crop, on his carts and yoke, on his a.s.s and man-servant, shall they make no levy. During the scarcity of water in the ca.n.a.l running between the Bati-Anzanim ca.n.a.l and the ca.n.a.l of the royal district, on the waters of his ditch for irrigation shall they make no levy; from the ditch of his reservoir shall they not draw water, neither shall they divert (his water for) irrigation, and other land shall they not irrigate nor water therewith. The gra.s.s of his lands shall they not mow; the beasts belonging to the king or to a governor, which may be a.s.signed to the district of Bit-Pir-Shad-rab, shall they not drive within his boundary, nor shall they pasture them on his gra.s.s.

He shall not be forced to build a road or a bridge, whether for the king, or for the governor who may be appointed in the district of Bit-Pir-Shad-rab, neither shall he be liable for any new form of forced labour, which in the days that are to come a king, or a governor appointed in the district of Bit-Pir-Shad-rab, shall inst.i.tute and exact, nor for forced labour long fallen into disuse which may be revived anew. To prevent encroachment on his land the king hath fixed the privileges of his domain, and that which appertaineth unto it, and all that he hath granted unto him; and in the presence of Shamash, and Marduk, and Anunitu, and the great G.o.ds of heaven and earth, he hath inscribed them upon a stone, and he hath left it as an everlasting memorial with regard to his estate."

The whole of the text is too long to quote, and it will suffice to note here that Melis.h.i.+khu proceeds to appeal to future kings to respect the land and privileges which he has granted to his son, Marduk-aplu-iddina, even as he himself has respected similar grants made by his predecessors on the throne; and the text ends with some very vivid curses against any one, whatever his station, who should make any encroachments on the privileges granted to Marduk-aplu-iddina, or should alter or do any harm to the memorial-stone itself. The emblems of the G.o.ds whom Melis.h.i.+khu invokes to avenge any infringement of his grant are sculptured upon one side of the stone, for, as has already been remarked, it was believed that by carving them upon the memorial-stone their help in guarding the stone itself and its enactments was a.s.sured.

From the portion of the text inscribed upon the stone which has just been translated it is seen that the owner of land in Babylonia in the period of the Ka.s.site kings, unless he was granted special exemption, was liable to furnish forced labour for public works to the state or to his district, to furnish grazing and pasture for the flocks and herds of the king or governor, and to pay various taxes and t.i.thes on his land, his water for irrigation, and his crops. From the numerous doc.u.ments of the First Dynasty of Babylon that have been recovered and published within the last few years we know that similar customs were prevalent at that period, so that it is clear that the successive conquests to which the country was subjected, and the establishment of different dynasties of foreign kings at Babylon, did not to any appreciable extent affect the life and customs of the inhabitants of the country or even the general character of its government and administration. Some doc.u.ments of a commercial and legal nature, inscribed upon clay tablets during the reigns of the Ka.s.site kings of Babylon, have been found at Nippur, but they have not yet been published, and the information we possess concerning the life of the people in this period is obtained indirectly from kudurrus or boundary-stones, such as those of n.a.z.imaruttash and Melis.h.i.+khu which have been already described. Of doc.u.ments relating to the life of the people under the rule of the kings of the Country of the Sea we have none, and, with the exception of the unpublished chronicle which has been described earlier in this chapter, our information for this period is confined to one or two short votive inscriptions. But the case is very different with regard to the reigns of the Semitic kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon. Thousands of tablets relating to legal and commercial transactions during this period have been recovered, and more recently a most valuable series of royal letters, written by Hammurabi and other kings of his dynasty, has been brought to light.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 264.jpg Upper Part of the Stele of Hammurabi, King of Babylon.]

The stele is inscribed with his great code of laws. The Sun- G.o.d is represented as seated on a throne in the form of a temple facade, and his feet are resting upon the mountains.

Photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.

Moreover, the recently discovered code of laws drawn up by Hammurabi contains information of the greatest interest with regard to the conditions of life that were prevalent in Babylonia at that period.

From these three sources it is possible to draw up a comparatively full account of early Babylonian life and customs.

CHAPTER VI--EARLY BABYLONIAN LIFE AND CUSTOMS

In tracing the ancient history of Mesopotamia and the surrounding countries it is possible to construct a narrative which has the appearance of being comparatively full and complete. With regard to Babylonia it may be shown how dynasty succeeded dynasty, and for long periods together the names of the kings have been recovered and the order of their succession fixed with certainty. But the number and importance of the original doc.u.ments on which this connected narration is based vary enormously for different periods. Gaps occur in our knowledge of the sequence of events, which with some ingenuity may be bridged over by means of the native lists of kings and the genealogies furnished by the historical inscriptions. On the other hand, as if to make up for such parsimony, the excavations have yielded a wealth of material for ill.u.s.trating the conditions of early Babylonian life which prevailed in such periods. The most fortunate of these periods, so far as the recovery of its records is concerned, is undoubtedly the period of the Semitic kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and in particular the reign of its greatest ruler, Hammurabi. When M. Maspero wrote his history, thousands of clay tablets, inscribed with legal and commercial doc.u.ments and dated in the reigns of these early kings, had already been recovered, and the information they furnished was duly summarized by him.* But since that time two other sources of information have been made available which have largely increased our knowledge of the const.i.tution of the early Babylonian state, its system of administration, and the conditions of life of the various cla.s.ses of the population.

* Most of these tablets are preserved in the British Museum.

The princ.i.p.al?works in which they have been published are Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum (1896, etc.), Stra.s.smaier's Altbabylonischen Vertrage aus Warka, and Meissner's Beitrage zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht. A number of similar tablets of this period, preserved in the Pennsylvania Museum, will shortly be published by Dr. Ranke.

One of these new sources of information consists of a remarkable series of royal letters, written by kings of the First Dynasty, which has been recovered and is now preserved in the British Museum. The letters were addressed to the governors and high officials of various great cities in Babylonia, and they contain the king's orders with regard to details of the administration of the country which had been brought to his notice.

The range of subjects with which they deal is enormous, and there is scarcely one of them which does not add to our knowledge of the period.*

The other new source of information is the great code of laws, drawn up by Hammurabi for the guidance of his people and defining the duties and privileges of all cla.s.ses of his subjects, the discovery of which at Susa has been described in a previous chapter. The laws are engraved on a great stele of diorite in no less than forty-nine columns of writing, of which forty-four are preserved,* and at the head of the stele is sculptured a representation of the king receiving them from Shamash, the Sun-G.o.d.

* See King, Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, 3 vols.

(1898-1900).

This code shows to what an extent the administration of law and justice had been developed in Babylonia in the time of the First Dynasty. From the contracts and letters of the period we already knew that regular judges and duly appointed courts of law were in existence, and the code itself was evidently intended by the king to give the royal sanction to a great body of legal decisions and enactments which already possessed the authority conferred by custom and tradition. The means by which such a code could have come into existence are ill.u.s.trated by the system of procedure adopted in the courts at this period. After a case had been heard and judgment had been given, a summary of the case and of the evidence, together with the judgment, was drawn up and written out on tablets in due legal form and phraseology. A list of the witnesses was appended, and, after the tablet had been dated and sealed, it was stored away among the legal archives of the court, where it was ready for production in the event of any future appeal or case in which the recorded decision was involved. This procedure represents an advanced stage in the system of judicial administration, but the care which was taken for the preservation of the judgments given was evidently traditional, and would naturally give rise in course of time to the existence of a recognized code of laws.

Moreover, when once a judgment had been given and had been duly recorded it was irrevocable, and if any judge attempted to alter such a decision he was severely punished. For not only was he expelled from his judgment-seat, and debarred from exercising judicial functions in the future, but, if his judgment had involved the infliction of a penalty, he was obliged to pay twelve times the amount to the man he had condemned. Such an enactment must have occasionally given rise to hards.h.i.+p or injustice, but at least it must have had the effect of imbuing the judges with a sense of their responsibility and of instilling a respect for their decisions in the minds of the people. A further check upon injustice was provided by the custom of the elders of the city, who sat with the judge and a.s.sisted him in the carrying out of his duties; and it was always open to a man, if he believed that he could not get justice enforced, to make an appeal to the king. It is not our present purpose to give a technical discussion of the legal contents of the code, but rather to examine it with the object of ascertaining what light it throws upon ancient Babylonian life and customs, and the conditions under which the people lived.

The code gives a good deal of information with regard to the family life of the Babylonians, and, above all, proves the sanct.i.ty with which the marriage-tie was invested. The claims that were involved by marriage were not lightly undertaken. Any marriage, to be legally binding, had to be accompanied by a duly executed and attested marriage-contract. If a man had taken a woman to wife without having carried out this necessary preliminary, the woman was not regarded as his wife in the legal sense.

On the other hand, when once such a marriage-contract had been drawn up, its inviolability was stringently secured. A case of proved adultery on the part of a man's wife was punished by the drowning of the guilty parties, though the husband of the woman, if he wished to save his wife, could do so by an appeal to the king. Similarly, death was the penalty for a man who ravished another man's betrothed wife while she was still living in her father's house, but in this case the girl's innocence and inexperience were taken into account, and no penalty was enforced against her and she was allowed to go free. Where the adultery of a wife was not proved, and only depended on the accusation of the husband, the woman could clear herself by swearing her own innocence; if, however, the accusation was not brought by the husband himself, but by others, the woman could clear herself by submitting to the ordeal by water; that is to say, she would plunge into the Euphrates; if the river carried her away and she were drowned, it was regarded as proof that the accusation was well founded; if, on the contrary, she survived and got safely to the bank, she was considered innocent and was forthwith allowed to return to her household completely vindicated.

It will have been seen that the duty of chast.i.ty on the part of a married woman was strictly enforced, but the husband's responsibility to properly maintain his wife was also recognized, and in the event of his desertion she could under certain circ.u.mstances become the wife of another man. Thus, if he left his city and fled from it of his own free will and deserted his wife, he could not reclaim her on his return, since he had not been forced to leave the city, but had done so because he hated it. This rule did not apply to the case of a man who was taken captive in battle. In such circ.u.mstances the wife's action was to be guided by the condition of her husband's affairs. If the captive husband possessed sufficient property on which his wife could be maintained during his captivity in a strange land, she had no reason nor excuse for seeking another marriage. If under these circ.u.mstances she became another man's wife, she was to be prosecuted at law, and, her action being the equivalent of adultery, she was to be drowned. But the case was regarded as altered if the captive husband had not sufficient means for the maintenance of his wife during his absence. The woman would then be thrown on her own resources, and if she became the wife of another man she incurred no blame. On the return of the captive he could reclaim his wife, but the children of the second marriage would remain with their own father. These regulations for the conduct of a woman, whose husband was captured in battle, give an intimate picture of the manner in which the constant wars of this early period affected the lives of those who took part in them.

Under the Babylonians at the period of the First Dynasty divorce was strictly regulated, though it was far easier for the man to obtain one than for the woman. If we may regard the copies of Sumerian laws, which have come down to us from the late a.s.syrian period, as parts of the code in use under the early Sumerians, we must conclude that at this earlier period the law was still more in favour of the husband, who could divorce his wife whenever he so desired, merely paying her half a mana as compensation. Under the Sumerians the wife could not obtain a divorce at all, and the penalty for denying her husband was death. These regulations were modified in favour of the woman in Hammurabi's code; for under its provisions, if a man divorced his wife or his concubine, he was obliged to make proper provision for her maintenance. Whether she were barren or had borne him children, he was obliged to return her marriage portion; and in the latter case she had the custody of the children, for whose maintenance and education he was obliged to furnish the necessary supplies. Moreover, at the man's death she and her children would inherit a share of his property. When there had been no marriage portion, a sum was fixed which the husband was obliged to pay to his divorced wife, according to his status. In cases where the wife was proved to have wasted her household and to have entirely failed in her duty, her husband could divorce her without paying any compensation, or could make her a slave in his house, and the extreme penalty for this offence was death. On the other hand, a woman could not be divorced because she had contracted a permanent disease; and, if she desired to divorce her husband and could prove that her past life had been seemly, she could do so, returning to her father's house and taking her marriage portion with her.

It is not necessary here to go very minutely into the regulations given by the code with regard to marriage portions, the rights of widows, the laws of inheritance, and the laws regulating the adoption and maintenance of children. The customs that already have been described with regard to marriage and divorce may serve to indicate the spirit in which the code is drawn up and the recognized status occupied by the wife in the Babylonian household. The extremely independent position enjoyed by women in the early Babylonian days is ill.u.s.trated by the existence of a special cla.s.s of women, to which constant reference is made in the contracts and letters of the period. When the existence of this cla.s.s of women was first recognized from the references to them in the contract-tablets inscribed at the time of the First Dynasty, they were regarded as priestesses, but the regulations concerning them which occur in the code of Hammurabi prove that their duties were not strictly sacerdotal, but that they occupied the position of votaries. The majority of those referred to in the inscriptions of this period were vowed to the service of E-bab-bara, the temple of the Sun-G.o.d at Sippara, and of E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk at Babylon, but it is probable that all the great temples in the country had cla.s.ses of female votaries attached to them. From the evidence at present available it may be concluded that the functions of these women bore no resemblance to that of the sacred prost.i.tutes devoted to the service of the G.o.ddess Ishtar in the city of Erech. They seem to have occupied a position of great influence and independence in the community, and their duties and privileges were defined and safeguarded by special legislation.

Generally they lived together in a special building, or convent, attached to the temple, but they had considerable freedom and could leave the convent and also contract marriage. Their vows, however, while securing them special privileges, entailed corresponding responsibilities. Even when married a votary was still obliged to remain a virgin, and, should her husband desire to have children, she could not bear them herself, but must provide him with a maid or concubine. Also she had to maintain a high standard of moral conduct, for any breach of which severe penalties were enforced. Thus, if a votary who was not living in the convent opened a beer-shop, or should enter one for drink, she ran the risk of being put to death. But the privileges she enjoyed were also considerable, for even when unmarried she enjoyed the status of a married woman, and if any man slandered her he incurred the penalty of branding on the forehead. Moreover, a married votary, though she could not bear her husband children, was secured in her position as the permanent head of his household. The concubine she might give to her husband was always the wife's inferior, even after bearing him children, and should the former attempt to put herself on a level of equality with the votary, the latter might brand her as a slave and put her with the female slaves. If the concubine proved barren she could be sold. The votary could also possess property, and on taking her vows was provided with a portion by her father exactly as though she were being given in marriage. Her portion was vested in herself and did not become the property of the order of votaries, nor of the temple to which she was attached. The proceeds of her property were devoted to her own maintenance, and on her father's death her brothers looked after her interests, or she might farm the property out. Under certain circ.u.mstances she could inherit property and was not obliged to pay taxes on it, and such property she could bequeath at her own death; but upon her death her portion returned to her own family unless her father had a.s.signed her the privilege of bequeathing it. That the social position enjoyed by a votary was considerable is proved by the fact that many women of good family, and even members of the royal house, took vows. The existence of the order and its high repute indicate a very advanced conception of the position of women among the early Babylonians.

From the code of Hammurabi we also gather considerable information with regard to the various cla.s.ses of which the community was composed and to their relative social positions. For the purposes of legislation the community was divided into three main cla.s.ses or sections, which corresponded to well-defined strata in the social system. The lowest of these cla.s.ses consisted of the slaves, who must have formed a considerable portion of the population. The cla.s.s next above them comprised the large body of free men, who were possessed of a certain amount of property but were poor and humble, as their name, _muslikenu_, implied. These we may refer to as the middle cla.s.s. The highest, or upper cla.s.s, in the Babylonian community embraced all the officers and ministers attached to the court, the higher officials and servants of the state, and the owners of considerable lands and estates. The differences which divided and marked off from one another the two great cla.s.ses of free men in the population of Babylonia is well ill.u.s.trated by the scale of payments as compensation for injury which they were obliged to make or were ent.i.tled to receive. Thus, if a member of the upper cla.s.s were guilty of stealing an ox, or a sheep, or an a.s.s, or a pig, or a boat, from a temple or a private house, he had to pay the owner thirty times its value as compensation, whereas if the thief were a member of the middle cla.s.s he only had to pay ten times its price, but if he had no property and so could not pay compensation he was put to death. The penalty for manslaughter was less if the a.s.sailant was a man of the middle cla.s.s, and such a man could also divorce his wife more cheaply, and was privileged to pay his doctor or surgeon a smaller fee for a successful operation.

But the privileges enjoyed by a man of the middle cla.s.s were counterbalanced by a corresponding diminution of the value at which his life and limbs were a.s.sessed. Thus, if a doctor by carrying out an operation unskilfully caused the death of a member of the upper cla.s.s, or inflicted a serious injury upon him, such as the loss of an eye, the punishment was the amputation of both hands, but no such penalty seems to have been exacted if the patient were a member of the middle cla.s.s.

If, however, the patient were a slave of a member of the middle cla.s.s, in the event of death under the operation, the doctor 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. Penalties for a.s.sault were also regulated in accordance with the social position and standing of the parties to the quarrel. Thus, if one member of the upper cla.s.s knocked out the eye or the tooth of one of his equals, his own eye or his own tooth was knocked out as a punishment, and if he broke the limb of one of the members of his own cla.s.s, he had his corresponding limb broken; but if he knocked out the eye of a member of the middle cla.s.s, or broke his limb, he suffered no punishment in his own person, but was fined one mana of silver, and for knocking out the tooth of such a man he was fined one-third of a mana. If two members of the same cla.s.s were engaged in a quarrel, and one of them made a peculiarly improper a.s.sault upon the other, the a.s.sailant was only fined, the fine being larger if the quarrel was between members of the upper cla.s.s. But if such an a.s.sault was made by one man upon another who was of higher rank than himself, the a.s.sailant was punished by being publicly beaten in the presence of the a.s.sembly, when he received sixty stripes from a scourge of ox-hide. These regulations show the privileges and responsibilities which pertained to the two cla.s.ses of free men in the Babylonian community, and they indicate the relative social positions which they enjoyed.

Both cla.s.ses of free men could own slaves, though it is obvious that they were more numerous in the households and on the estates of members of the upper cla.s.s. The slave was the absolute property of his master and could be bought and sold and employed as a deposit for a debt, but, though slaves as a cla.s.s had few rights of their own, in certain circ.u.mstances they could acquire them. Thus, if the owner of a female slave had begotten children by her he could not use her as the 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 member of the upper or of the middle cla.s.s, to marry a free woman, and if he did so, his children were free and did not become the property of his master. Also, if the free woman whom the slave married brought with her a marriage portion from her father's house, this remained her own property on the slave's death, and supposing the couple had acquired other 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.

Generally speaking, the lot of the slave was not a particularly hard one, for he was a recognized member of his owner'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 penalty imposed for abducting a male or female slave from the owner's house and removing him or her from the city; for a man guilty of this offence was put to death. The same penalty was imposed for harbouring and taking possession of a runaway slave, whereas a fixed reward was paid by the owner to any one by whom a runaway slave 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 did so through being deceived by another man, that man was put to death. For bad offences slaves were liable to severe punishments, such as cutting off the ear, which was the penalty for denying his master, and also for making an aggravated a.s.sault on a member of the upper cla.s.s of free men. But it is clear that on the whole the slave was well looked after. He was also not condemned to remain perpetually a slave, for while still in his master's service it was possible for him, under certain conditions, to acquire property of his own, and if he did so he was able with his master's consent to purchase his freedom. 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 any purchase-money to either of his masters.

The code of Hammurabi also contains detailed regulations concerning the duties of debtors and creditors, and it throws an interesting light on the commercial life of the Babylonians at this early period. For instance, it reveals the method by which a wealthy man, or a merchant, extended his business and obtained large profits by trading with other towns. This he did by employing agents who were under certain fixed obligations to him, but acted independently so far as their trading was concerned. From the merchant these agents would receive money or grain or wool or oil or any sort of goods wherewith to trade, and in return they paid a fixed share of their profits, retaining the remainder as the recompense for their own services. They were thus the earliest of commercial travellers. In order to prevent fraud between the merchant and the agent special regulations were framed for the dealings they had with one another. Thus, when the agent received from the merchant the money or goods to trade with, it was enacted that he should at the time of the transaction give a properly executed receipt for the amount he had received. Similarly, if the agent gave the merchant money in return for the goods he had received and in token of his good faith, the merchant had to give a receipt to the agent, and in reckoning their accounts after the agent's return from his journey, only such amounts as were specified in the receipts were to be regarded as legal obligations.

If the agent forgot to obtain his proper receipt he did so at his own risk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 280.jpg CLAY CONTRACT TABLET AND ITS OUTER CASE]

Dating from the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon.

Travelling at this period was attended with some risk, as it is in the East at the present day, and the caravan with which an agent travelled was liable to attack from brigands, or it might be captured by enemies of the country from which it set out. It was right that loss from this cause should not be borne by the agent, who by trading with the goods was risking his own life, but should fall upon the merchant who had merely advanced the goods and was safe in his own city. It is plain, however, that disputes frequently arose in consequence of the loss of goods through a caravan being attacked and robbed, for the code states clearly the responsibility of the merchant in the matter. If in the course of his journey an enemy had forced the agent to give up some of the goods he was carrying, on his return the agent had to specify the amount on oath, and he was then acquitted of all responsibility in the matter. If he attempted to cheat his employer by misappropriating the money or goods advanced to him, on being convicted of the offence before the elders of the city, he was obliged to repay the merchant three times the amount he had taken. On the other hand, if the merchant attempted to defraud his agent by denying that the due amount had been returned to him, he was obliged on conviction to pay the agent six times the amount as compensation. It will thus be seen that the law sought to protect the agent from the risk of being robbed by his more powerful employer.

The merchant sometimes furnished the agent with goods which he was to dispose of in the best markets he could find in the cities and towns along his route, and sometimes he would give the agent money with which to purchase goods in foreign cities for sale on his return. If the venture proved successful the merchant and his agent shared the profits between them, but if the agent made bad bargains he had to refund to the merchant the value of the goods he had received; if the merchant had not agreed to risk losing any profit, the amount to be refunded to him was fixed at double the value of the goods advanced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 282.jpg A TRACK IN THE DESERT.]

This last enactment gives an indication of the immense profits which were obtained by both the merchant and the agent from this system of foreign trade, for it is clear that what was regarded fair profit for the merchant was double the value of the goods disposed of. The profits of a successful journey would also include a fair return to the agent for the trouble and time involved in his undertaking. Many of the contract tablets of this early period relate to such commercial journeys, which show that various bargains were made between the different parties interested, and sometimes such contracts, or partners.h.i.+ps, were entered into, not for a single journey only, but for long periods. We may therefore conclude that at the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and probably for long centuries before that period, the great trade-routes of the East were crowded with traffic. With the exception that donkeys and a.s.ses were employed for beasts of burden and were not supplemented by horses and camels until a much later period, a camping-ground in the desert on one of the great trade-routes must have presented a scene similar to that of a caravan camping in the desert at the present day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 283.jpg A CAMPING-GROUND IN THE DESERT, BETWEEN BIREJIK AND URFA.]

The rough tracks beaten by the feet of men and beasts are the same to-day as they were in that remote period. We can imagine a body of these early travellers approaching a walled city at dusk and hastening their pace to get there before the gates were shut. Such a picture as that of the approach to the city of Samarra, with its mediaeval walls, may be taken as having had its counterpart in many a city of the early Babylonians. The caravan route leads through the desert to the city gate, and if we subst.i.tute two ma.s.sive temple towers for the domes of the mosques that rise above the wall, little else in the picture need be changed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 284.jpg APPROACH TO THE CITY OF SAMARRA, SITUATED ON THE LEFT BANK OF THE TIGRIS.]

A small caravan is here seen approaching the city at sunset before the gates are shut. Samarra was only founded in A. D.

834, by the Khalif el-Motasim, the son of Harn er-Ras.h.i.+d, but customs in the East do not change, and the photograph may be used to ill.u.s.trate the approach of an early Babylonian caravan to a walled city of the period.

The houses, too, at this period must have resembled the structures of unburnt brick of the present day, with their flat mud tops, on which the inmates sleep at night during the hot season, supported on poles and brushwood. The code furnishes evidence that at that time, also, the houses were not particularly well built and were liable to fall, and, in the event of their doing so, it very justly fixes the responsibility upon the builder. It is clear from the penalties for bad workmans.h.i.+p enforced upon the builder that considerable abuses had existed in the trade before the time of Hammurabi, and it is not improbable that the enforcement of the penalties succeeded in stamping them out. Thus, if a builder built a house for a man, and his work was not sound and the house fell and crushed the owner so that he died, it was enacted that the builder himself should be put to death. If the fall of the house killed the owner's son, the builder's own son was to be put to death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 285.jpg A SMALL CARAVAN IN THE MOUNTAINS OF KURDISTAN.]

If one or more of the owner's slaves were killed, the builder had to restore him slave for slave. Any damage which the owner's goods might have suffered from the fall of the house was to be made good by the builder. In addition to these penalties the builder was obliged to rebuild the house, or any portion of it that had fallen through not being properly secured, at his own cost. On the other hand, due provisions were made for the payment of the builder for sound work; and as the houses of the period rarely, if ever, consisted of more than one story, the scale of payment was fixed by the area of ground covered by the building.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 286.jpg THE CITY OF MOSUL.]

Situated on the right bank of the Tigris opposite the mounds which mark the site of the ancient city of Nineveh. The flat-roof ednouses which may be distinguished in the photograph are very similar in form and construction to those employed by the ancient a.s.syrians and Babylonians.

From the code of Hammurabi we also gain considerable information with regard to agricultural pursuits in ancient Babylonia, for elaborate regulations are given concerning the landowner's duties and responsibilities, and his relations to his tenants. The usual practice in hiring land for cultivation was for the tenant to pay his rent in kind, by a.s.signing a certain proportion of the crop, generally a third or a half, to the owner. If a tenant hired certain land for cultivation he was bound to till it 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. As the rent of a field was usually reckoned at harvest, and its amount depended on the size of the crop, it was only fair that damage to the crop from flood or storm should not be made up by the tenant; thus it was enacted by the code that any loss from such a cause should be 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 287.jpg THE VILLAGE OF NEBI YUNUS.]

Built on one of the mounds marking the site of the a.s.syrian city of Nineveh. The mosque in the photograph is built over the traditional site of the prophet Jonah's tomb. The flat- roofed houses of the modern dwellers on the mound can be well seen in the picture.

It is clear from the enactments of the code that disputes were frequent, not only between farmers and landowners, but also between farmers and shepherds. It is certain that the latter, in the attempt to find pasture for the flocks, often allowed their sheep to feed off the farmers' fields in the spring. This practice the code set itself to prevent by fixing a scale of compensation to be paid by any shepherd who caused his sheep to graze on cultivated land without the owner's consent. If the offence was committed in the early spring, when the crop was still small, the farmer was to harvest the crop and receive a considerable price in kind as compensation for the shepherd. But if it occurred later on in the spring, when the sheep had been brought in from the meadows and turned into the great common field at the city gate, the offence would less probably be due to accident and the damage to the crop would be greater.

In these circ.u.mstances the shepherd had to take over the crop and pay the farmer very heavily for his loss.