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Title: Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters

Author: C. H. W. Johns

Release date: May 3, 2009 [eBook #28674]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28674

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABYLONIAN
AND ASSYRIAN LAWS, CONTRACTS AND LETTERS ***

Library of Ancient Inscriptions

Babylonian And Assyrian

Laws, Contracts and Letters
By

C. H. W. Johns, M.A.

Lecturer in Queens' College, Cambridge, and

King's College, London

New York

Charles Scribner's Sons

1904

Contents

Dedication
Preface
List Of Abbreviations
Sources And Bibliography
Laws And Contracts
I. The Earliest Babylonian Laws
II. The Code Of Ḥammurabi
III. Later Babylonian Law
IV. The Social Organization Of The Ancient Babylonian State
V. Judges, Law-Courts, And Legal Processes
VI. Legal Decisions
VII. Public Rights
VIII. Criminal Law
IX. The Family Organization
X. Courtship And Marriage
XI. Divorce And Desertion
XII. Rights Of Widows
XIII. Obligations And Rights Of Children
XIV. The Education And Early Life Of Children
XV. Adoption
XVI. Rights Of Inheritance
XVII. Slavery
XVIII. Land Tenure In Babylonia
XIX. The Army, Corvée, And Other Claims For Personal Service
XX. The Functions And Organization Of The Temple
XXI. Donations And Bequests
XXII. Sales
XXIII. Loans And Deposits
XXIV. Pledges And Guarantees
XXV. Wages Of Hired Laborers
XXVI. Lease Of Property
XXVII. The Laws Of Trade

XXVIII. Partnership And Power Of Attorney
XXIX. Accounts And Business Documents
Babylonian And Assyrian Letters
I. Letters And Letter-Writing Among The Babylonians And Assyrians
II. The Letters Of Ḥammurabi
III. The Letters Of Samsu-Iluna And His Immediate Successors
IV. Private Letters Of The First Dynasty Of Babylon
V. Sennacherib's Letters To His Father, Sargon
VI. Letters From The Last Year Of Shamash-Shum-Ukîn
VII. Letters Regarding Affairs In Southern Babylonia
Letters About Elam And Southern Babylonia
IX. Miscellaneous Assyrian Letters
X. Letters Of The Second Babylonian Empire
Appendix
I. The Prologue And Epilogue To The Code Of Ḥammurabi
II. Chronology
III. Weights And Measures
IV. Bibliography Of The Later Periods
Index
Footnotes

[pg v]

Dedication

To
My Mother
In Memory Of Loving Help

[pg vii]

Preface

The social institutions, manners, and customs of an ancient people must
always be of deep interest for all those to whom nothing is indifferent that is
human. But even for modern thinkers, engrossed in the practical problems
of our advanced civilization, the records of antiquity have a direct value.
We are better able to deal with the complicated questions of the day if we
are acquainted with the simpler issues of the past. We may not set them
aside as too remote to have any influence upon us. Not long ago men
looked to Greece and Rome for political models. We can hardly estimate the
influence which that following of antiquity has had upon our own social
life.

But there is a deeper influence even than Greek politics and Roman law,
still powerfully at work among us, which we owe to a more remote past. We
should probably resent the idea that we were not dominated by Christian
principles. So far as they are distinct from Greek and Roman ideals, most of
them have their roots in Jewish thought. When a careful investigation is
made, it will probably be found that the most distinctive Christian
principles in our times are those which were taken over from Jewish life,
since the Old Testament still more widely appeals to us than the New. But
those Jewish ideas regarding society have been inherited in turn from the
far more ancient Babylonian civilization. It is startling to find how much
that we have thought distinctively our own has really come down to us from
that great people who ruled the land of [pg viii] the two streams. We need
not be ashamed of anything we can trace back so far. It is from no savage
ancestors that it descends to us. It bears the “hall mark,” not only of
extreme antiquity but of sterling worth.

The people, who were so highly educated, so deeply religious, so humane
and intelligent, who developed such just laws, and such permanent
institutions, are not unprofitable acquaintances. A right-thinking citizen of a
modern city would probably feel more at home in ancient Babylon than in
mediæval Europe. When we have won our way through the difficulties of
the language and the writing to the real meaning of their purpose and come
into touch with the men who wrote and spoke, we greet brothers. Rarely in
the history of antiquity can we find so much of which we heartily approve,
so little to condemn. The primitive virtues, which we flatter ourselves that
we have retained, are far more in evidence than those primitive vices which

we know are not extinct among us. The average Babylonian strikes us as a
just, good man, no wild savage, but a law-abiding citizen, a faithful
husband, good father, kind son, firm friend, industrious trader, or careful
man of business. We know from other sources that he was no contemptible
warrior, no mean architect or engineer. He might be an excellent artist,
modelling in clay, carving rocks, and painting walls. His engraving of seals
was superb. His literary work was of high order. His scientific attainments
were considerable.

When we find so much to approve we may naturally ask the reason. Some
may say it is because right was always right everywhere. Others will try to
trace our inheritance of thought. At any rate, we may accord our praise to
those who seized so early in the history of the race upon views which have
proved to be of the greatest and most permanent value. Perhaps nowhere
else than in the archives of [pg ix] the old Assyrian and Babylonian temples
could we find such an instructive exhibition of the development of the art of
expressing facts and ideas in written language. The historical inscriptions,
indeed, exhibit a variety of incidents, but have a painful monotony of
subject and a conventional grandeur of style. In the contracts we find men
struggling for exactness of statement and clearness of diction. In the letters
we have untrammelled directness of address, without regard to models of
expression. In the one case we have a scrupulous following of precedent, in
the other freedom from rule or custom. One result is that while we are
nearly always sure what the contract said and intended, we often are
completely unable to see why the given phrases were used for their
particular purpose. Every phrase is technical and legal, to a degree that
often defies translation. On the other hand, the letters are often as colloquial
in style as the contracts are formal. Hence they swarm with words and
phrases for which no parallel can be found. Unless the purpose of the letter
is otherwise clear, these words and phrases may be quite unintelligible. Any
side issue may be introduced, or even a totally irrelevant topic. While the
point of these disconnected sentences may have been perfectly clear to the
recipient of the message, we cannot possibly understand them, unless we
have an intimate acquaintance with the private life and personal relations of
the two correspondents.

Hence, quite apart from the difficulties of copying such ancient inscriptions,
often defaced, originally ill-written, and complicated by the personal tastes
of individual scribes for odd spellings, rare words, or stock phrases; besides
the difficulties of a grammar and vocabulary only partly made out; the very
nature of both contracts and letters implies special obscurities. But the
peculiarities of these obscurities are such as to excite curiosity and stimulate
research.

[pg x]
The wholesome character of the subject-matter, the absence of all
possibility of a revision in party interests, the probable straightforward
honesty of the purpose, act like a tonic to the ordinary student of history.
Nowhere can he find more reliable material for his purpose, if only he can
understand it. The history he may reconstruct will be that of real men,
whose character and circumstances have not yet been misrepresented. He
will find the human nature singularly like what he may observe about him,
once he has seen through superficial manners and customs.

One important point cannot be too strongly insisted upon. Numerous as our
documents are, they do not form a continuous series. One collection is
chiefly composed of temple archives, another comes from a family deed-
chest, where only such documents were preserved as were of value to the
persons who collected them. At one period we may have a great number of
documents relating to one sort of transaction. In the next period we may
have hardly any reference to similar transactions, but very complete
evidence regarding other matters. We may assume that, in such a
conservative country as Assyria or Babylonia, things went on for ages in
much the same way. Conclusions rightly drawn for early times are probably
true for the later periods also. As far as we can test this assumption, it holds
good. We may even assume that the converse is true, but that is more
doubtful.

Thus, we find that the practice of taking a pledge as security for debt is
fully established for later times and we may therefore hesitate to deny its
existence in early periods, although we have no direct evidence on the
point. This absence of evidence may be due to the nature of the early
collections. It may be an accident. It may also be due to the fact that the

tablet acknowledging a loan was usually broken up on the return of the
sum. But it might also be [pg xi] the fact that pledges were not usual in
early times. Such was, indeed, formerly the conclusion drawn from the
absence of documents referring to pledges; but Dr. B. Meissner pointed out
that the legal phrase-books bore witness to the existence of the custom. The
discovery of the Code of Ḥammurabi has shown that the practice not only
existed, but was regulated by statute in his time. Hence the argument from
silence is once more shown to be fallacious.

On the other hand, it is well to avoid a dogmatic statement of the existence
of a practice before the date at which we have direct evidence of it: thus, it
has been stated that the tithe was paid in Babylonia “from time
immemorial.” The only direct evidence comes from the time of
Nebuchadrezzar II. and later. In view of such an early antiquity as that, the
use of the phrase “time immemorial” was perhaps once justified. But we are
now equipped with documentary evidence concerning customs two or three
thousand years earlier. Until we can discover some direct evidence there of
tithe, we must content ourselves with saying that it was regularly paid under
the Second Empire of Babylonia. We may be firmly convinced that a
custom so widespread did not spring into being all at once. But the tithe
may have been a composition for earlier dues, and as such may have been
introduced from Chaldea by Nabopolassar. It may therefore not have been
of native Babylonian growth.

In this and many similar cases it is well not to go beyond the evidence.

To some extent the plan of this work must necessarily be different from that
of the rest of the series. When a historical inscription is once well translated
its chief bearings can be made out and it is its own interpreter to a large
extent. But the object in a contract is to legally bind certain parties to a
course of action, and there its translation ends. We do not find much interest
now in the obligations of these [pg xii] parties, save in so far as they
illustrate the progress of civilization. It is the conclusion we are to draw
which gives the interest. When we have reached that, a thousand more
contracts of the same type add nothing to that point. We may use them to
make a study of proper names, or to correct our notions of chronology by
their dates, or to draw up genealogies, or even to elaborate statistics of

occurrences of particular forms of words, of prices, and the like; or try to
reconstruct the topography of a town; but from the point of view of a
student of law and history, a thousand are little better than one.

As a rule, however, we rarely find a fresh example of an old type without
some small deviation, which is worth recording. But to translate it, for the
sake of that small difference, would fill a book with examples, so similar as
to be wearisome in their monotony. The only way then is to select some
bold example, translate it as a fair average specimen, and then collect in an
introduction and notes the most interesting additional items of information
to be gathered from others of the type. Hence most of the types here
selected have involved the reading and study of scores of texts, though but
one is given in translation. Other points of great interest arise, as for
example, the obligations to public service, which are not the direct subject
of any one text. Hence, no single example can be selected for translation.
The data of many texts must be collected, and only a sentence here and
there can be utilized for translation. Hence, while other volumes of the
series are properly translations, with brief introductions and a few notes,
this must consist of copious introductions and many notes with a few
translations.

Of course, all technical, philological and historical discussions must be
avoided. Those who wish to find further examples, illustrating the points
given, will be referred to [pg xiii] the sources and commentaries which give
almost endless repetitions of the same type. As a rule, a fresh example,
which has not been translated before, will be used here. In some cases,
however, where the most typical examples have already been used, they are
reproduced.

The more important and new details are substantiated by references in foot-
notes. When several references could be given, it has been the rule to give
only one. For fuller information the literature of the subject may be
consulted. But where the Assyrian or Babylonian words are given, the
reader will consult the lexicons first. There are many admirable glossaries
attached to the editions of texts, which for students are a valuable
supplement to the lexicons. All philological discussions are, of course,
excluded. As a rule, doubtful interpretations will be ignored or at least

queried. It is, on the other hand, impossible to give detailed proofs of what
is certain to the writer, when it disagrees with recognized authorities. Nor is
it desirable to puzzle the reader with alternative views, when there is no
opportunity for him to judge of their merits.

Every attempt will be made to discard non-essentials. Thus, in order to
insure that there should be no mistake as to the persons intended, the
ancient scribe usually gave not only the name, but the father's name, and
often added the name of his tribe, or his occupation. For example, “Ardi-
Ishtar, son of Ashur-bânî, the son of Gaḥal,” might be the scribe's careful
specification of one party to some transaction. But unless some other party
is a relation and the transaction explicitly concerns what could take place
between relations, the whole line gives us no information of value for
illustrating the subject for which it is quoted. Indeed, in most cases, the
name itself is of no interest. It is true that the names have a value of their
own; but that is aside from the purpose of this book. The examples are
selected [pg xiv] to illustrate legal points, not for the sake of the names.
And indeed, the few interesting names so given would be insufficient to
serve any useful purpose; they might even be misused, for no permanent
results can be obtained by picking up here and there a name, with some
fanciful likeness to Abraham, or Jacob, unless a complete list of similar
names be available to check and control the readings.

Hence, as a rule, the name of a party is condensed into a single letter,
chosen usually in order to suggest the part played by the person in the
transaction. Thus S stands for the seller, B for the buyer, J for the judge, C
for the creditor, L for the lender, D for the debtor or borrower, and so on.
These abbreviations may be used without any detriment to the argument, as
the context usually defines the relation and there is no need to remember
what they mean. This seems preferable, for the most part, to the Continental
system of using A-A-G for the above name.

As a further abbreviation, all lists of witnesses are excluded. The date is
usually suppressed, for, unless we are following a series of transactions
between the same parties, nothing more than the epoch is of importance. As
the material is arranged by epochs, there can be no question in this regard.

If any evolution of process or any reference to former transactions is
involved, so that the date is important, it is given.

A collection of legal documents may be studied in a variety of ways.

Perhaps the least productive plan is to ransack them for illustrations of a
theory, or a particular point. When the theory is already well known, as in
the case of Roman or mediæval law, such a procedure is justifiable, but
when the theory has to be made out, it is wellnigh inexcusable. Some
valuable monographs have followed this method, but they can hardly expect
to give permanent results. For comparative purposes our material is so new,
and so little [pg xv] worked, that it is sheer waste of time to seek for
parallels elsewhere until everything is clearly made out to which parallels
are to be sought. The whole bulk of material must be read through and
classified. Until this is done, some important point may easily be
overlooked.

The first attempts at classification will be provisional. A certain amount of
overlapping is sure to occur. For example, slave sales obviously form a
provisional group. But slaves were sold along with lands or houses. Shall
these sales be taken into the group? The sales of lands may be another
group. To which group shall we assign the sale of a piece of land and the
slaves attached to it? To answer that question we may examine the sales of
slaves and the sales of lands to see if either group has peculiarities, the
recurrence of which in a sale of land and slaves might decide. But we soon
find that a slave was sold exactly like a piece of land or any chattel. The
only exception is that certain guarantees are expected with the slave, which
differ from those demanded with a piece of land. On the whole, then, the
chief group will be “sales,” with subdivisions according to the class of
property used. Hence we cannot assume that there was already present to
legal consciousness a difference between real and personal property, or in
any other sense that a slave was a person. He was a chattel.

The classification which will be adopted is not one that will suit modern
legal ideas. It depends on the form of document alone. If two documents
have the same type of formula, they will be grouped together. A future
revision will, no doubt, assign to many of these a place in modern schemes.

But it is very easy to be premature in assigning an ancient document to
modern categories.

The groups will be subdivided according to subject-matter. The order of the
groups will be determined by the greater or less complexity of the
documents. It is best to [pg xvi] take those first which can be easily made
out. The experience gained in discussing them will be of great service in
dealing with more complicated cases. The reader must not, however,
suppose that no obscurities will remain. Subsequent investigation will lead
to redistribution. Each such revision will, however, bring us nearer to sound
results.

One of the most interesting and instructive methods of dealing with a large
collection of documents is to group together the transactions, distributed
over a number of years, of one man, or of a single family. This method has
often been adopted and makes most fascinating reading.

Thus, M. V. Revillout, in the appendix to M. E. Revillout's lectures entitled
Les obligations en droit egyptien, under the title of Une famille des
commerçants, discussed the interrelations of a large number of tablets
published by Strassmaier. These had a special connection, being found, and
practically kept, together. They are concerned chiefly with the business
transactions of three persons and their descendants. The three men do not
seem to have been related, but to have become partners. The first
transaction in which they are concerned is an equitable division of property
which they had held in common. They and their descendants lived side by
side in Larsa and gradually extended their possessions on every side. They
were neighbors to two wealthy landowners from whom and from whose
descendants they gradually acquired lands and houses. Especially did two
brothers, sons of one of the original three, buy up, piece by piece, almost all
the property of these two neighboring families. Further, in acquiring a piece
of land, they seem to have come into possession of the deeds of sale, or
leases, of that plot, which had been executed by previous owners. Thus, we
can, in some cases, follow the history of a plot of land during several reigns.

Such a collection of documents probably did not come [pg xvii] from the
public archives, but from the muniment-chest of a private family, or of a
firm of traders. That duplicates of some of these tablets should have been

found in other collections, points either to the collections having been
purchased from native dealers, who put together tablets from all sources, or
to the duplicates having been deposited in public archives, as a kind of
registration of title.

In Assyrian times the transactions of the great Rîmâni-Adadi, the chief
charioteer and agent of Ashurbânipal, who for some thirteen years appears
almost yearly, as buyer or seller, lender or borrower, on some forty tablets,
may serve as a further example,1 or we may note how Baḥiânu appears,
chiefly as a corn lender, year after year, for thirty-three years, on some
twenty-four tablets.2

For the Second Empire of Babylonia, Professor J. Kohler and Dr. F. E.
Peiser have given some fine examples of this method. Thus, for the
bankruptcy of Nabû-aplu-iddin,3 they show that the creditors distrained
upon the bankrupt's property and found a buyer for most of it in a great
Neriglissar, afterwards King of Babylon. The first creditor was paid in full,
another received about half of the amount due to him, a third about the
same, while a fourth obtained less than a quarter of what was owed him.
They also follow out the fortunes of the great banking firm of Egibi4 for
fully a century. The sketch, of course, is not complete, and can only be
made so by a prolonged search through thousands of documents in different
museums; but it is intensely interesting and written with wonderful insight
and legal knowledge. Another example is the family, or guild, of the priests
of Gula.5 This is less fully made out but most valuable, as far as it goes. In
both cases a genealogy is given extending over many generations.

[pg xviii]
Later still, the Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, in
the ninth volume of Cuneiform Texts, gives a collection of the business
documents of one firm, “Murashu Sons, of Nippur,” in the reign of
Artaxerxes I. Here we have to do with a family deed-chest, a collection of
documents found together and fortunately kept together.

But this method, attractive though it is, cannot be followed here. The reader
is best led on from the known to the unknown. Those things must be taken
first which must be understood in order to appreciate what is placed later.
We consider first the law and the law-courts. The reader can thus follow the

references to procedure which occur in the other sections. The rights of the
State, the family, and the private individual come next. Then we learn of the
classes of property and the various ways of disposing of it. After that is
taken up a variety of disconnected topics, whose order is mainly indifferent.
Some overlapping of divisions is sure to occur in any order. This system has
been found, after many permutations, to present the least inconvenience.

While it is hoped that this volume will give a fairly complete account of
what is really known and also point out some things that are reasonably
conjectured to be true, it is fully recognized that much remains to be done.
Indeed, it may serve by its omissions to redirect attention to openings for
future fruitful work.

[pg xxii]

List Of Abbreviations

A. B. R. Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben. Professor J. Kohler and Dr. F.
E. Peiser. Leipzig, 1890-.

A. D. B. Assyrian Doomsday Book. Vol. XVII of Assyriologische
Bibliothek. Leipzig, 1901.

A. D. D. Assyrian Deeds and Documents. In three vols. Cambridge, 1898-.

A. J. S. L. American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures.
Chicago.

A. O. F. Altorientalische Forschungen. Dr. H. Winckler. Leipzig, 1893-.

B. A. L. Babylonian and Assyrian Life. Professor A. H. Sayce. New York,
1901. (Semitic Series.)

B. A. S. Beiträge zur Assyriologie. Professors Delitzsch and Haupt. Leipzig,
1890-.

B. E. P. The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania.
Series A. Cuneiform Texts. 1898-.

B. V. Babylonische Verträge. Dr. F. E. Peiser. Berlin, 1890.

C. T. Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum.
London, 1896-.

D. E. P. Délégation en Perse, Memoires. Pub. by French Ministry of
Instruction. Professor V. Scheil. 1900-.

E. B. H. Early Babylonian History. Dr. H. Radau. New York, 1900.

H. A. B. L. Assyrian and Babylonian Letters. Professor R. F. Harper.
Chicago, 1892-.

H. W. B. Assyrisches Handwörterbuch. Professor Delitzsch. Leipzig, 1894.

I R., II R., III R., IV R., V R. The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia.
H. C. Rawlinson. London, 1861, 1866, 1870, 1880-4.

K. A. S. Keilinschriftliche Aktenstücke. Dr. F. E. Peiser. Berlin, 1889.

K. B. Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. Professor Eb. Schrader. Berlin, 1889-.

K. L. Ḥ. The Letters and Inscriptions of Ḥammurabi. Three vols. L. W.
King, M.A. London, 1898-.

K. P. See A. B. R.

L. H. See K. L. Ḥ.

H. A. P. Beiträge zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht. Dr. Br. Meissner.
Leipzig, 1893.

P. S. B. A. Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology. London,
1872-.

Rev. Ass. Revue d'Assyriologie. Professors J. Oppert and E. Ledrain. Paris,
1884-.

Z. A. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie. Professor C. Bezold. Leipzig, 1886-.

Z. K. F. Zeitschrift für Keilschriftforschung. Professor C. Bezold. Leipzig,
1884-.

Camb., Cyr., Dar., Ev. Mer., Nbd., Nbk., Nerig., denote the volumes of
Babylonische Texte; Inschriften von Cambyses, Cyrus, Darius, Evil
Merodach, Nabonidus, Nebuchodonosor, Neriglissar, pub. by Pater J. N.
Strassmaier. Leipzig, 1887-.

H denotes the text published in H. A. B. L.

K denotes a text from Kouyunjik, now in the British Museum.

S denotes a text at Constantinople, from Sippara.

V. A. Th. denotes a text in the Berlin Museum.

B, B1, B2 denote texts of the collections “from Warka,” Bu. 88-5-12, and
Bu. 91-5-9.

[pg 003]

Sources And Bibliography

The chief sources from which is derived our knowledge of Babylonian and
Assyrian law are the contemporary inscriptions of the people themselves.
These are not supplemented to any appreciable extent by the traditions of
e classical authors. So far as they make any references to the subject, their
opinions have to be revised by the immeasurably greater knowledge that we
now possess, and seem to be mostly based upon “travellers' tales” and
misapprehensions.

These inscriptions are now preserved in great numbers in European and
American museums, and have only been partly published. The bibliography
is very extensive. For the earlier attempts to read and explain these
documents the reader may refer to Professor C. Bezold's Kurzgefässter
Überblick über die babylonisch-assyrische Litteratur,6 which gives a fairly
complete account up to 1887. Of course, many books and memoirs there
mentioned have now only a historical interest for the story of decipherment
and explanation. These, however, may be studied with the greatest profit
after having first become acquainted with the more recent works.

The division which is adopted in this work, “law, contracts, and letters,” is
only conventional. The three groups have much that is common and
mutually supplement one another. Previous publications have often treated
them [pg 004] more or less together, both as inscriptions and as minor
sources of history. Hence it is not possible to draw up separate lists of books
treating each division of the subject. Only those books or articles will be
referred to which are most valuable for the student. Many of them give
excellent bibliographies of their special subject.

The contemporary sources include actual codes of law, or fragments of
them, legal phrase-books, and legal instruments of all sorts. From the last-
d mentioned source almost all that is known of ancient Babylonian law has
been derived. The historical and religious inscriptions contribute very little.
The consequence is that, except from the recently discovered Code of
Ḥammurabi scarcely anything is known of the law in respect to crimes.

Contracts and binding agreements are found in great profusion; but there is
nothing to show how theft or murder was treated. Marriage-contracts tell us
how adultery was punished. Agreements or legal decisions show how
inheritance was assigned. Consequently our treatment of law and contracts
must regard them as inseparable, except that we may place first the
fragments of actual codes which exist.

The letters are much more distinct. Each is a separate study, except in so far
as it can be grouped with others of the same period in attempts to
disentangle the historical events to which they refer. The deductions as to
life and manners are no less valuable than those made from legal
documents. In both wording and subject-matter they often illustrate legal
affairs and even directly treat of them.

A first duty will be carefully to distinguish epochs. Great social and
political changes must have left some mark upon the institutions we are to
study. As far as possible, the material has been arranged for each subject
chronologically.

The longest and by far the most important ancient code [pg 005] hitherto
discovered is that of Ḥammurabi (circa 2250 b.c.). The source for this is a
e block of black diorite about 2.25 metres high, tapering from 1.90 to 1.65
metres in circumference. It was found by De Morgan at Susa, the ancient
Persepolis, in December, 1901, and January, 1902, in fragments, which
were easily rejoined. The text was published by the French Ministry of
Instruction from “squeezes” by the process of photogravure, in the fourth
volume of the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse. It was there admirably
transcribed and translated by Professor V. Scheil. In all, the monument now
preserves forty-four columns with some three thousand six hundred lines.
There were five columns more, which were once intentionally erased and
the stone repolished, probably by the order of some monarch of Susa, who
meant to put his own name and titles there. There have been found other
monuments in the French explorations at Susa, where the Elamite monarch
has erased the inscription of a Babylonian king and inserted his own. This
method of blotting out the name of a king was a favorite device in the
ancient East and is frequently protested against and cursed in the inscription
set up in Babylonia. This particular inscription did not fail to call down

similar imprecations, which perhaps the Elamite could not read. But he
stayed his hand, and we do not even know his name, for he wrote nothing
on the vacant space.

It seems probable that the stone, or at any rate its original, if it be a copy,
was set up at Sippara; for the text speaks of Êbarra šuati, “this Ebarra,”
which was the temple of Shamash at Sippara. At the head of the obverse is a
very interesting picture of Ḥammurabi receiving his laws from the seated
sun-god Shamash. Some seven hundred lines are devoted to the king's titles
and glory; to enumerating the gods he reverenced, and the cities over which
he ruled; to invoking blessings on those who preserved [pg 006] his
monument and respected his inscription, with the usual curses on those who
did the opposite.7 These belong to the region of history and religion and do
not concern us here. We may note, however, that the king expected that
anyone injured or oppressed would come to his monument and be able there
to read for himself what were the rights of his case.

The whole of this inscription is not entirely new matter. The scribes of
Ashurbânipal somewhere found a copy, or copies, of this inscription and
made it into a series of tablets. Probably their originals were Babylonian
tablets, for we know that in Babylonia the Code had been made into a series
which bore the name of Nînu ilu ṣîrum, from the opening words of the stele.
But, judging from the colophon of the Assyrian series, the scribes knew that
the inscription came from a stele bearing the “image” of Ḥammurabi. A
number of fragments belonging to such copies by later scribes were already
published, by Dr. B. Meissner8 and Dr. F. E. Peiser.9 These were further
commented upon by Professor Fr. Delitzsch,10 who actually gave them the
name “Code Hammurabi.” Some of these fragments enable us to restore
one or two sections of the lost five columns.

These fragments are now easily set in order and will doubtless lead to the
discovery of many others, the meaning of which has not yet been
recognized. They exhibit some variants of interest, showing that they were
not made directly from this particular monument. Even at Susa another
fragment was found of a duplicate stele. Hence we may hope to recover the
whole text before long.

The publication of the Code naturally excited great interest among scholars.
It appeared in October, 1902, and, [pg 007] during the next month, Dr. H.
Winckler issued a German translation of the Code under the title, Die
s Gesetze Hammurabis Königs von Babylon um 2250 v. Chr. Das Älteste
Gesetzbuch der Welt, being Heft 4 of the fourth Jahrgang of Der alte
Orient. This marked an advance in some points on Scheil's rendering, but is
not entirely satisfactory. The present writer read a paper in October, 1902,
before the Cambridge Theological Society, an abridged report of which
appeared in the January Journal. He further published a baldly literal
translation in February, 1903, entitled, The Oldest Code of Laws in the
World.11 In the Journal des Savants for October and November, 1902, M.
Dareste gave a luminous account of the subject-matter of the Code,
especially valuable for its comparisons with the other most ancient law-
codes. This of course was based on Scheil's renderings. In the
Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung for January, 1903, Dr. H. Winckler,
reviewing the fourth volume of the Mémoires, gave a useful account of the
Code comparing it with some of the previously published fragments.

The comparison with the Mosaic Code was sure to attract notice, especially
as Professor F. Delitzsch had called the attention of the public to it, in his
lecture entitled Babel und Bibel, even before more of the Code was known
than the fragments from Nineveh. Dr. J. Jeremias has published a small
book called Moses und Hammurabi, in which he deals with the relations
pretty thoroughly. Professor C. F. Kent has also examined them in his
article entitled The Recently Discovered Civil Code of Hammurabi, in The
Biblical World for March, 1903. Some remarks on the subject are to be
found in the New York Independent, December 11, 18, 1902, and January 8,
15, 22, 1903, accompanying a translation. All the above follow Winckler's
renderings.

[pg 008]
The translation here given makes use of the above works, but must be
regarded as independent. It is impracticable to detail and justify the changes
made. The renderings can hardly be regarded as final, where actual
contracts do not occur to illustrate the Code; but there is very little doubt
that we know the tenor of these laws with substantial accuracy.

Professor V. Scheil divided the text of the Code into sections according to
subject-matter. But there are no marks of a division on the monument and
Scheil's division is not adhered to in this work. For convenience of
reference, however, his original section-numbers are given in connection
with each law or sub-section of a law.

Among the treasures preserved in the library of Ashurbânipal and in the
archives of the Babylonian temples were a number of tablets and fragments
l of tablets which recorded the efforts made by Semitic scribes to render
Sumerian words and phrases into Semitic. A large number of these are
concerned with legal subjects. A fairly complete list of those now in the
Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum will be found in the fifth
volume of Dr. Bezold's catalogue, page 2032. The greater part of them have
been published either in the British Museum Inscriptions of Western Asia,
in Dr. P. Haupt's Keilschrifttexten, Vol. I. of the Assyriologische Bibliothek,
or in Dr. F. Hommel's Sumerische Lesestücke. In the latter will be found
references to other publications. Dr. B. Meissner further published a number
of later Babylonian editions of the same or allied series.12

The plan of the series to which most of these tablets belong is well seen in
Dr. Delitzsch's Assyrische Lesestücke, fourth edition, pp. 112-14. The name
by which the series is usually known, to which most of these tablets [pg
009] belong, is the Semitic rendering of the first Sumerian phrase given
there, ana ittišu, “to his side.” The sections into which the series is divided
each deal with some simple idea and its expression in Sumerian. But the
principle of arrangement is not very clear. We may take one section for
example. “With him, with them, with me, with us, with thee, with you,” are
given in two columns, the first being the Sumerian for these phrases, the
second the Semitic rendering. Owing to the form of treatment some of these
texts have been called “paradigms.”

But the scribes also gave some fairly long and connected prose extracts in
Sumerian with their Semitic renderings. What these were extracted from is
still a question. Some of the clauses are known to have been employed in
the contracts. But some of these even may well have been extracts from a
code of laws. The name of “Sumerian Family Laws” has been given to
certain sections.13 Others seem to have been extracted from a Sumerian

work on agriculture, with which Hesiod's Works and Days has been
compared. But at present we are not in possession of the complete works
from which these extracts are taken.

Such as they are, they have a value beyond that of enabling us to read
Sumerian documents. They often afford evidence of customs and
information which we get nowhere else.14 The information given by them
will be utilized in the subsequent portions of this work. Their translation
here would serve no purpose, since they are very disconnected, but an
example may be of interest. One section reads, “He fastens the buckets,
suspends the pole, and draws up the water.” This is a vivid picture of the
working [pg 010] of a watering-machine, from which we learn its nature as
we could not from its name only.15

Legal documents constitute by far the larger portion of the inscriptions
which have come down to us from every period of Babylonian and Assyrian
history. In the library of Ashurbânipal alone they are exceeded by the letters
and even more by the works dealing with astrology and omens. In some
periods, however, we have only a few inscriptions from monuments, or
bricks.

To some extent the term “contracts,” which has commonly been applied to
them, is misleading. The use of the term certainly was due to a fundamental
misunderstanding, they being once considered as contracts to furnish goods.
They were even thought to be promises to pay, which passed from hand to
e hand, like our checks, and so formed a species of “clay money.” These
views were both partially true, but do not cover the whole ground.

They were binding legal agreements, sealed and witnessed. They were
binding only on the parties named in them. They were drawn up by
professional scribes who wrote the whole of the document, even the names
of the witnesses. Hence it is inaccurate to speak of them as “signed” by
anyone but the scribe, who often added his name at the end of the list of
witnesses. The parties and witnesses did impress their own seals at one
period, but later one seal, or two at most, served for all. It is not clear whose
seal was then used. But the document usually declares it to be the seal of
the party resigning possession.

As to external form, most of those which may be called “deeds” consist of
small pillow-shaped, or rectangular, cakes of clay. In many cases these were
enclosed in an envelope, also of clay, powdered clay being inserted to
prevent [pg 011] the envelope adhering. Both the inner and outer parts were
generally baked hard; but there are many examples where the clay was only
dried in the sun. The envelope was inscribed with a duplicate of the text.
Often the envelope is more liberally sealed than the inner tablet. This
sealing, done with a cylinder-seal, running on an axle, was repeated so often
as to render its design difficult to make out, and to add greatly to the
difficulty of reading the text. When the envelope has been preserved
unbroken, the interior is usually perfect, except where the envelope may
have adhered to it. Such double tablets are often referred to as “case
tablets.” The existence of two copies of the same deed has been of great
value for decipherment. One copy often has some variant in spelling, or
phrasing, or some additional piece of information, that is of great
assistance. The envelope was rather fragile and in many cases has been lost,
either in ancient times, or broken open by the native finders, in the hope of
discovering gold or jewels within. But in any case, the envelope, so long as
it lasted, was a great protection; and there are few tablets better preserved
than this class of document.

In Assyrian times, few “case” tablets are preserved, they seem to have gone
out of fashion except for money-loans and the like. But it may be merely an
accident that so few envelopes are preserved. In the case of letters, where
the same plan of enclosing the letter in an envelope was followed, hardly
any envelopes have been found, because they had to be broken open to read
the letter. The owner of a deed may have had occasion to do the same, but
here there was less excuse, as the envelope was inscribed with the full text.

In early times, another method of sealing was adopted. A small clay cone
was sealed and the seal attached to the document by a reed, which ran
through both. The seal [pg 012] thus hung down, as in the case of many old
parchment deeds in Europe.

The deeds were often preserved in private houses, usually in some room or
hiding-place below ground. In the case of the tablets from Tell Sifr, which
were found by Loftus in situ, three unbaked bricks were set in the form of a

capital U. The largest tablet was laid upon this foundation and the next two
in size at right angles to it. The rest were piled on these and on the bricks
and the whole surrounded by reed matting. They were covered by three
unbaked bricks. This accounts for their fine preservation.

Others were stored in pots made of unbaked clay. The pots, as a rule, have
crumbled away, but they kept out the earth around. Sometimes this broke in
and crushed the tablets. In some cases they were laid on shelves round a
small room; but in others they seem to have been kept in an upper story, and
so were injured, when the floor fell through.

It seems certain that as a rule all deeds were executed in duplicate, each
party receiving a copy. The scribe often appears to have kept another. At
one time copies were also deposited in the public archives, most probably
the city temple or the governor's palace. There are indications that copies of
deeds executed in the provinces were sent to the capital. Whether this was
in pursuit of a general policy of centralization or only accidental in the few
cases known to us is not quite clear. In many instances we actually possess
duplicates, sometimes three copies of the same deed.

These documents are exceedingly varied in contents. The most common are
deeds relating to the sale or lease of houses, fields, buildings, gardens, and
f the like; the sale or hire of slaves and laborers; loans of money, corn, dates,
[pg 013] wool, and the like; partnerships formed or dissolved; adoption,
marriage, inheritance, or divorce. But almost any alienation, exchange, or
deposit of property was made the subject of a deed. Further, all legal
decisions were embodied in a document, which was sealed by the judge and
given to both parties to the suit. These were often really deeds by which the
parties bound themselves to accept and abide by the decisions. Some are
bonds or acknowledgments of debt. A great many closely allied documents
are lists of money or goods which had been given to certain persons. They
were evidence of legal possession and doubtless a check on demand for
repayment.

The bibliography of the subject is best dealt with under each general
division; but reference must be made to works dealing with the subject as a
whole. Professor J. Oppert's Documents Juridiques was the first successful
n attempt to deal with contracts in general and laid the foundation of all

subsequent work. Dr. F. E. Peiser and Professor J. Kohler's Aus
Babylonischen Rechtsleben deals with the later Babylonian documents as
far as they throw light upon social life and custom. Professor Sayce's
Babylonians and Assyrians makes large use of the data given by the
contracts. Dr. T. G. Pinches's The Old Testament in the Light of the
Monuments of Assyria and Babylonia also gives a very full account of what
may be gleaned from them. The present writer's Assyrian Deeds and
Documents makes an attempt to treat one branch fully. This work can only
present the most essential facts. The whole amount of material is so vast, so
much is yet unpublished, so many side-issues arise, all worth investigating,
that it can only serve to introduce the reader to a fascinating and wide field
of study.

The material with which we have to deal, for the most part, falls very
naturally into epochs. The early [pg 014] Babylonian documents, though
very numerous, are mostly of the nature of memoranda and include few
letters or contracts. The documents of the First Dynasty of Babylon are
extremely rich in examples of both contracts and letters. Then the Tell
Amarna letters form a distinct group. The Ninevite contracts and letters of
the Sargonid Dynasty are well marked as separate from the foregoing.
Lastly, those of the New Babylonian Empire are a group by themselves. A
few scattered examples survive which form intermediate groups, usually
too small to be very characteristic, and certainly insufficient to justify or
support any theory of the intermediate stages of development.

It must be observed that to a great extent these groups are not only
separated by wide intervals of time—several centuries as a rule—but that
they are locally distinct. The first comes from Telloh, the larger part of the
second from Sippara, the third from Egypt (or Syria), the fourth from
Assyria, the last from Babylonia. Whether the documents of Sippara in the
third period showed as great divergence from those of the second period as
the Tell Amarna letters do, or whether each group is fairly characteristic of
its age in all localities using the cuneiform script, are questions which can
only be answered when the other documents of that period are available for
comparison.

The documents of each group have marked characteristics in form of script,
in orthography, in language. So great are the differences that a slight
acquaintance with these characteristics will suffice to fix the epoch of a
f given document. For the most part, however, these characteristics are not
such as can appear in translation. They will be pointed out as far as possible
in the opening sections dealing with each group. The aim will be to select
characteristic specimens of each group for translation and to append a
summary of what can be obtained by a study of the group.

[pg 015]
The thousands of documents dealt with under these groups would, if
translated, require a library of volumes. In the case of the contracts the
repetition of scores of examples of the same sort would be wearisome. In
the case of the letters, the translation alone would be almost as obscure as
the original, without copious comment on the relationships, customs, and
events referred to. In both cases it must be noted that many of the most
interesting examples are incomplete and unavailable as specimens. The
object of this work is to show what are the most important laws or legal
documents of each period and to point out the chief subjects of information
to be gained from them. For the letters no such summary of information can
be given, partly because they are so many and varied, partly because so few
are yet available.

The first epoch is to be considered as one period only because its
contribution to the subject is as yet small and chronologically precedes the
first great group. It ranges from the earliest beginnings of history to
e somewhere about b.c. 2300. The dates are largely conjectural, but for the
most part the sequence of the events is known. It is the period covered by
Dr. H. Radau's Early Babylonian History.

Some very ancient documents fall under this period. The early tablets which
show the nearest approach to the original picture-writing16 are transfers of
property. As a rule, however, such votive inscriptions do not come under the
head of contracts. One of the earliest of our monuments, the Stele of
Manistusu, King of Kish, records the sale of land. Another very early
monument of similar style17 deals with the sale of plots of land. Others will
be found in the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse.

[pg 016]
But by far the greatest number of inscriptions belong to the finds of Telloh,
made by De Sarzec in his explorations for the French Government. His
greatest find, some thirty thousand tablets which were in the archives there,
was dispersed by the Arabs, and has found its way into various museums.
They have been sold in Europe, as coming from different localities. It is
certain that other finds of the same period and same general character have
been made elsewhere, so that it is often difficult now to determine their
place of discovery.

A very large number of these tablets, from the collection of T. Simon, now
in the Berlin museums, were copied and edited by G. Reisner, as
Tempelurkunden aus Telloh.18 The admirable abstracts of the contents there
given19 will furnish all the information that anyone but a specialist will
need. They consist of lists of all sorts of natural products, harvests from
fields, seed and other expenses allowed for cultivating fields, lists of the
fields with their cultivators, numerous receipts for loans or grants, accounts
of sheep and cattle, stipends or allowances for certain people; but only one,
number 125, is doubtfully said to concern a sale of some slaves.

Dr. H. Radau, in his Early Babylonian History, gives the texts of a large
number of similar tablets.20 He also classified, transliterated, and tentatively
translated most of them. The kind of information to be obtained is well
brought out in his notes and comments.21 They contain receipts, accounts of
all sorts, lists of animals, skins, wool, oil, wine, grain, pitch, and honey; but
none relate to the usual subjects treated in contract-tablets.

[pg 017]
M. Thureau-Dangin edited and discussed a number of tablets of the same
character in the Revue d'Assyriologie.22 Especially valuable is his memoir,
L'accomptabilité agricole en Chaldée,23 where many interesting facts are
collected and published.

A very large number of texts of this period were published by Mr. L. W.
King, in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British
Museum.24 These have been discussed in a few instances by various writers
in scientific journals. In the short descriptions prefixed to these editions
e

mention is made of “contracts,” but it is difficult to see to which the term
f could be properly applied.

A number of extracts from early “contracts” are given by Professor V.
Scheil in the recent files of the Receuil de Travaux. According to the
descriptions given, many of them are legal instruments. Besides advances
of grain and receipts for the same,25 or sales of land,26 we have a legal
decision concerning a marriage.27 Of several of these only a few lines are
given and the description of others is misleading. They are mostly preserved
at Constantinople. Some are purely Sumerian, others Semitic. The same
remarks apply to this author's publications in his Une Saison de fouilles à
Sippar. Valuable as are the portions available, they chiefly make us long for
more.

A very large number of tablets belonging to the second period are now in
Europe and America. They seem to have been purchased from dealers,
either in the East or West; and may be presumed to have been discovered by
the natives. No reliable information can therefore be had [pg 018] as to their
origin. Various places are mentioned: Sippara, Abu Habba, Senkereh,
Telloh, Warka, have all been stated to be the place of discovery. There
seems no good reason why tablets of this period should not be found
anywhere in Babylonia. But on examination it is found that collections said
to be from widely different places contain duplicates; while the same
collection contains tablets dated at different cities and with dates a thousand
years apart. It is conceivable that the records of important transactions,
especially the transfers of land, were deposited by order in the archives at
the capital, wherever that was for the time being. We may imagine that the
archives at Sippara or Larsa were afterwards transferred to Babylon, for
safety, or in pursuance of a policy of centralization. Certain it is that a large
number of the texts imply a devotion to Shamash as chief deity, while
others ascribe the pre-eminence to Marduk or Sin. But this fact is quite
consistent with the archives having been discovered in either Babylon or
Sippara.

On the other hand, it is not unlikely that the apparent centralization is of
purely modern production. The dealers put together tablets from all sources
and ascribe the collection to the place of origin which best suits their fancy.
f

As a consequence, scarcely any collection contains a homogeneous series
belonging either to one period or source. This is the more deplorable
because so few are competent to date a tablet by the style of writing upon it,
and internal indications are often lacking.

In the British Museum we have the following collections:

I. A number of “case” tablets brought from Tell Sifr by Loftus in 1850.
Owing to a misleading statement in Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 496,
these have generally been taken to be from Warka, the ancient Erech. But
the account given on pages 270-72 of Loftus, Travels and Researches [pg
019] in Chaldea and Susiana, leaves no doubt of the place and date of their
discovery. These are usually denoted by B.

II. A number of tablets now in the Kouyunjik Collections. It is certain that
these do not come from Nineveh, and in the British Museum Catalogue they
are usually ascribed to Warka, but with an implied doubt. One or two are
dated at Erech. The D. T. Collection also contains many tablets, said to be
“not from Kouyunjik.”

III. The collection 81-7-1 contains some forty at least, comprising the
accounts of the temple of Ninib, from the time of Ammiditana and
Ammizaduga.

IV. The collection 82-7-14 also has a few tablets of this period.

V. The collection 82-9-18 has at least one contract.

VI. The collection Bu. 88-5-18, purchased by Dr. E. A. W. Budge in the
East, consists of some seven hundred tablets. They are said to come from
Sippara; and date from b.c. 2300 to the time of Darius. These will be
denoted by B1.

VII. The collection Bu. 91-5-9, also purchased by Dr. E. A. W. Budge in the
East, consists of some three thousand tablets. These will be denoted by B2.

The purchases for the British Museum also include a large number of other
tablets of this period. They are now numbered consecutively, thus Bu. 91-5-

9, 606 is known as Brit. Mus. No. 92,679. This renders it difficult to further
particularize the contents of the collections; or to know whether a given
tablet belongs to one of the above collections.

In the Museum of the Louvre at Paris are a few tablets belonging to this
epoch. Seven of them are published in M. Heuzey's Découvertes en
Chaldée.28

[pg 020]

At the Berlin Museum is a collection known by the name of Homsy.

The tablets are marked V. A. Th., but this mark includes other tablets widely
separated in date and found at different sites.

At the University of Pennsylvania collections known as J. S., Kh., and H.
contain tablets of this period. Professor E. F. Harper, writing in Hebraica,29
gives some account of these collections; from which it appears that the J. S.
collection contains tablets of Ḥammurabi, Samsuiluna, and Ammiditana;
while the Kh. collection has tablets of Ḥammurabi, Samsuiluna,
Ammiditana, and Ammizaduga. He announced the discovery of the name of
Abêshu on contemporary documents,30 belonging to that reign. The two
collections contain over a thousand tablets. The H collection has six
hundred and thirty-two tablets, many of this epoch.

In the Imperial Ottoman Museum at Constantinople are a large number of
tablets of this period. They are denoted by N, the Nippur collection found
by the American explorers there; S, the Sippar collection from the
explorations conducted by Pater V. Scheil at Abu Habba; the T or Telloh
collection from the explorations of De Sarzec.

A few tablets are owned by Sir Henry Peek, Bart.

A few tablets exist in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, the gift of Mr.
Bosanquet.

The Rev. J. G. Ward possesses a tablet, published by Dr. T. G. Pinches in P.
S. B. A., XXI., pp. 158-63, of the time of Mana-balte-el, which seems to be

of this period.

A number of other tablets of the period are known to be in different
museums or in the hands of private individuals.

The historical value of the events used in dating these tablets was
recognized by G. Smith, who published the [pg 021] dates of a number of
the Loftus tablets, in the fourth volume of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of
Western Asia, p. 36.

The earliest publication of the texts was by Pater J. N. Strassmaier in the
Verhandlungen des V Internationalen Orientalistischen Congresses zu
Berlin, 1881. In the Beilage he gave the lithographed text of one hundred
and nine tablets under the title of Die altbabylonischen Verträge aus Warka.
He made many important observations upon their character and style, and
gave a valuable list of words and names. As was to be expected from a first
attempt, both his readings of the texts and his transcriptions from them
leave room for some improvement. He arranged his texts according to the
reigns of the kings mentioned.

This edition formed the subject of M. V. Revillout's article, Une Famille
commerçant de Warka, and of numerous articles by other scholars in the
journals. Dr. B. Meissner seems to have collated a number of these texts for
his Beiträge zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht.

In 1888, Dr. T. G. Pinches published Inscribed Babylonian Tablets in the
possession of Sir Henry Peek, Bart. It was followed by other parts and by
Babylonian and Assyrian Cylinder-seals and Signets in the possession of Sir
Henry Peek, Bart., in 1890. These are most valuable for their full treatment
—photographs of the originals, drawings, and descriptions of the seals,
transliterations, translations, and comments, giving a better idea of what
these documents are like than can be obtained without actually handling the
originals. Dr. Pinches in his introduction assigns their discovery to the ruins
of Sippara. The texts published by him only include three from our period,
Nos. 1, 13, 14; but nowhere will a beginner find more assistance in his
studies of this class of tablet.

In 1893 Dr. B. Meissner published his invaluable Beiträge [pg 022] zum
altbabylonischen Privatrecht, Vol. XI. of Delitzsch and Haupt's
Assyriologische Bibliothek. This gave a full transliteration and translation of
one hundred and eleven texts published in autography. Full notes and
comments were added giving practically all that could then be said on the
subject. His introduction summarized the information, to be extracted from
his texts, bearing on the social institutions of Babylonia. By arranging the
texts in classes according to their purport and contents he was able to
elucidate each text by comparison with similar documents and so to gain a
very clear idea of the meaning of separate clauses, even when the exact
shade of meaning of individual words remained obscure. Any advance
which the interpretation of these documents may make must be based on his
researches and follow his methods. He gave a useful glossary, but no list of
proper names.

In the fourth volume of Schrader's Keilinscriftliche Bibliothek, 1896, Dr. F.
E. Peiser adopted the plan of arranging the then known contract-texts in
chronological order. He gave, in transliteration and translation, the texts of
thirty-one tablets of this period. Of these many had been previously
published by Strassmaier and Meissner, but Dr. Peiser's renderings and
short notes are of great value.

In 1896 began the grand series of publications, Cuneiform Texts from
Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, printed by order of the
Trustees, which has been continued to the present date. Volumes II., IV.,
VI., and VIII. contain copies by Dr. T. G. Pinches of no fewer than three
hundred and ninety-five texts from the B1 and B2 Collections. They also
contain a number of letters and other texts, some of a date as late as Xerxes,
but from the same two collections.

In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,189731 and [pg 023] 1899,32 Dr.
T. G. Pinches gives transliterations, translations, and comments upon fifteen
of these texts.

A word of notice must be given to the excellent Guides published by the
trustees of the British Museum. The Guide to the Kouyunjik Gallery, with
four autotype plates, 1885, and the Guide to the Nimroud Central Saloon

are now superseded by the Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian
Antiquities with thirty-four plates, photographic reproductions of the
originals, 1900. On pages 104-13 will be found a most useful account of the
class of tablet and short descriptions of ninety-four exhibited case tablets.
Most of these tablets have been published by Strassmaier or in Cuneiform
Texts, but are now indicated by their new registration numbers.

It will be evident from the above remarks that only a small proportion of the
material in our museums has yet been published. It is greatly to be desired
that every existing tablet should be published, as in no other way can we
hope to solve many important problems. Not only the chronology but much
of the actual history can be recovered from these tablets, while the names of
the witnesses and parties to the transactions will settle the order of the years
which are still doubtful. It is from these deeds that the greater part of this
work will be constructed. They form the groundwork, while later
documents fill in details.

The years were given names. Thus the second year of Ḥammurabi is called
“the year in which Ḥammurabi the king established the heart of the land in
righteousness.” The year often received its name from the capture of some
city. Are we to suppose that these events actually occurred on the first day
of the year? If not, by what name was the year called up to the occurrence
of the event in question? There is evidence that some years passed by [pg
024] two names, one of which was probably conferred after the year had
begun. An examination of all dated tablets would doubtless result in fixing
the time of the year at which the new year-name came into use. This can
only be achieved by the custodians of our great collections. But, speaking
generally, it seems obvious that names were often given to the years which
attached to them a memory of the previous rather than a record for the
current year. When in after years scribes drew up lists of the dates of a
reign, they may well have made mistakes as to the exact year in which an
event took place and have also credited a king with too long a reign, by
counting as separate years two dates which were really the alternatives for
one and the same year. In this way we may perhaps account for the
discrepancies between the Chronicle and the King Lists.

The tablets often mention the name of the reigning king as well as the year-
name; thus we read as a date, “the year when Samsuiluna was king,”
e followed by “the year in which the canal of Samsuiluna named Ḥegallu was
f dug,” which was the year-name of Samsuiluna's fourth year. Also the parties
a often swore an oath to observe their contract by the name of one or more
gods and of the reigning king. Hence, very often, when the date is not
preserved at all, we know what reign was concerned. On the other hand, in
some reigns we have dated tablets from almost every year. If all the tablets
were published, the witnesses and other parties would enable us to fix the
sequence of the years. As these year-names each give a prominent event for
the year we could thus reconstruct a skeleton history of the reign. Indeed,
the present writer had already determined the order of several years, in
more than one reign, from consideration of the persons named in each. Of
course, no assurance could thus be had that some intermediate [pg 025]
years were not omitted in such a scheme, since there is no certainty that we
know the name-dates for each year of a reign. The order of the kings
themselves and the lengths of their reigns were already known from the
King List published by Dr. T. G. Pinches.33

It seemed probable that the scribes of those days would have made lists of
the year-names, in order to know how much time had elapsed since a given
event had occurred. Hence great was the excitement and delight when in C.
T. VI. was published a tablet which once contained a list of year-names from
Sumuabu to Ammizaduga. This was followed by the publication in Mr. L.
H. King's Letters of Ḥammurabi of a duplicate, which served to restore and
complete the list down to the tenth year of Ammizaduga's reign. Mr. King
further added the year-names actually used on the dated tablets then
published; thus showing how the year-names of the list were quoted and
either abbreviated or expanded. He very appropriately called this the
Chronicle of the Kings of Babylon. In the meantime Professor A. H. Sayce
had given a translation of the first published list.34 In the fourth volume of
the Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft,35 Dr. E. Lindl has given a
full discussion of the first published list. He further adds a small list of the
same character giving the year-names in order for part of the reigns of
Ḥammurabi and Samsuiluna.36 Dr. Lindl used the published dates of the
contracts to complete and restore the first list. Thus a great deal of excellent
work has been done on these lists. None of them are complete for the whole

dynasty, nor even for the part which they originally covered, and the known
dated documents do not serve to fully restore them. But [pg 026] so far as
they go, they must take the precedence of the King List, being almost
contemporary documents.

Besides the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon the collections above
referred to designate several other persons as kings. Thus the B collection
of the British Museum names Nûr-Adadi, Sin-idinnam, and Rim-Sin as
kings. The texts enable us to fix all these as kings of Larsa. Hence evidently
the Tell Sifr, where these tablets were found, was in the territory of Larsa.
The whole question is well discussed by Dr. Lindl.37 The date on the tablet
B. 34a refers to the setting-up of a throne for Shamash by Nûr-Adadi. The
date on B. 35 refers to the completion of a temple in Eridu by Sin-idinnam,
King of Larsa. It is scarcely conceivable that these refer to other than the
Nûr-Adadi, who set up the kingdom of Larsa in the south of Babylonia
about the same time as Sumuabi founded the dynasty of Babylon. Sin-
idinnam, his son, succeeded him as King of Larsa and claimed to be King
of Shumer and Akkad. Elam, however, under Kudurnanhundi I., invaded
the south, defeated Sin-idinnam and set up Rim-Sin as King of Larsa. It
seems that Rim-Sin reigned thirty-seven years, partly as vassal of
Ḥammurabi, from the seventeenth year of Sin-mubalit until the thirty-first
of Ḥammurabi. Whether Sin-idinnam was then restored to his throne as
vassal of Ḥammurabi, or whether Rim-Sin was succeeded by a second Sin-
idinnam, or whether the restoration of Sin-idinnam, after a temporary
expulsion of Rim-Sin, took place within the thirty-seven years of the latter's
reign, is not yet clear.

Of great interest is the fact of the use of an era in the south of Babylonia. A
large number of tablets are dated by the years after the capture of Isin. Thus
tablets are dated in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 18th, [pg
027] 22nd, 23rd, 26th, 27th, 28th, and 30th years after the capture of Isin.
Most of them are related to the kingdom ruled by Rim-Sin, which clearly
included Tell Sifr, Nippur, Eridu, as well as Larsa.38 The first year of this era
was probably the seventeenth year of Sin-mubalit.

A king Immeru is mentioned,39 usually alone, but once with Sumu-lâ-ilu;40
where the form of the oath, “by Shamash and Immerum, by Marduk and

Sumu-lâ-ilu,” suggests that while Sumu-lâ-ilu was king of Babylon, the
Marduk city, Immeru was king of a Shamash city. As he comes first, he was
probably king of Sippara, where Shamash was the city god, and whence the
collections, B1, B2, and V. A. Th., seem, on other grounds, to have come.
That it was needful to name Sumu-lâ-ilu also points to that king being
overlord of Sippara at the time.

The king Ilu-ma-ilu, named41 in the oaths, associated with Shamash, may
well be a vassal king of Sippara, though Professor Delitzsch42 suggests that
he may be the first king of the second dynasty of Babylon, whose name
appears in the King list B as Ilu-ma(ilu).

The king Mana-balte-el, on the Rev. J. G. Ward's tablet, seems to belong to
the First, or Second, Dynasty, perhaps as a vassal king, but may have
preceded them by some short period.

The king Bungunu-ilu, mentioned by King,43 was associated with Sumu-lâ-
ilu. Probably he was vassal king of Sippara before Immeru.

A number of extracts from the legal documents of the third period have
been given by Father V. Scheil in the Receuil [pg 028] de Travaux.44 The
d full text is rarely given and there is consequently nothing for use here. They
e come from Nippur and are at Constantinople. The Semitic language is used
largely, but a few Sumerian phrases remain. All the names of persons except
those of the kings are pure Babylonian. The determinative of personality
before proper names is common, but not before a king's name. The tablets
are dated by regnal years, no longer by year-names. The kings have a
determinative of divinity before their names. The money in use is either
gold or bronze, silver is hardly named, while in other epochs it is almost
always used. Gold was now legal tender, as silver was afterwards.

The many extremely fine charters of this period are of great value for the
questions concerning land tenure. Descriptions and figures of some of them
will be found in the Guide.45 The text of several was published by Dr. C. W.
Belser,46 under the title Babylonische Kudurru-inschriften. Some of these
are transliterated and translated in Schrader's Keilschriftliche Bibliothek,47
where references to the literature will be found. In many cases these

charters or boundary-stones are the only monumental evidence for their
period. They therefore figure largely in the histories.

Some of the best examples are found in the second volume of the Mémoires
de la Délégation en Perse, beautifully reproduced by photogravure,
admirably transliterated and translated by Professor V. Scheil. Some fine
examples are also to be found in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets,
etc., in the British Museum.48

[pg 029]
Of the time of Marduk-shum-iddin, b.c. 853-833, we have a black
boundary-stone, published by Dr. F. E. Peiser, in Keilschriftliche Acten-
stücke, No. 1. It is dated in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Nabû-
aplu-iddina, circa b.c. 858, and the eleventh year of Marduk-shum-iddina,
circa b.c. 842. It rehearses the contents of two or more deeds by which a
certain Kidinu came into possession of property in the city of Dilbat.

The Cappadocian tablets are still somewhat of a problem. The first notice of
them was given by Dr. T. G. Pinches.49 According to the dealer's account
one acquired by the British Museum had come from Cappadocia. The script
was then quite unfamiliar and it was thought that they were written in a
language neither Semitic nor Akkadian. Various attempts, which are best
forgotten, were made to transcribe and translate them under complete
misapprehension of the readings of the characters. But in 1891 Golénischeff
published twenty-four tablets of the same stamp, which he had acquired at
Kaisarieh. His copies were splendidly done for one who could make out
very little meaning. But he showed that many words were Assyrian and read
many names. Professor Delitzsch50 made a most valuable study of them,
and laid the foundation for their thorough understanding. Professor P.
Jensen51 added greatly to our knowledge of their reading and interpretation.
Dr. F. E. Peiser then52 gave a transcription and translation of nine texts of
contracts.

They are now recognized to be purely Semitic. They must have been
written in some place where Assyrian influence was all-powerful. There are
many names compounded of Ashur. They are dated by eponyms as in
Assyria. The [pg 030] discovery of many more of them at Boghaz Keui,
Kara Eyuk, and elsewhere published by Professor V. Scheil in the Mémoires

de la Mission en Cappadoce par Ernest Chantre, and commented on by M.
Boissier,53 make it certain that they are from this region.

If subject to Assyria, their date may be before the earliest eponyms whose
date is known from the Canon lists. They may be contemporary with the
very earliest kings of Assyria. But it is not impossible that the eponyms
referred to were local only and not Assyrian in origin. Dr. Peiser put them
after the First Dynasty of Babylon, but before the Third Dynasty.

They are full of unusual forms of words and have a phraseology of their
own. They cannot as yet be translated with any confidence. In general they
are very similar to the contracts, money-loans, and letters of the First
Dynasty of Babylon. As far as they can be understood, they offer no new
features of interest. The obscure phrases and words give rise to many
speculations which will be found in the above-mentioned works. These are
of great interest, but need further data for elucidation. They are too
questionable to be profitably embodied here.

The Elamite contract-tablets were found at Susa and are published by
Professor V. Scheil in Tome IV. of the Mémoires de la Délégation en
Perse.54

In external form they closely resemble the Babylonian documents of a
similar nature. They are drawn up in practically the same way. But there is a
blunt directness about them which recalls the usages of the First Dynasty of
Babylon, rather than Assyria, or the Second Babylonian Empire. Hence we
have little to indicate date. Until we are better acquainted with the Elamite
script at various periods we cannot hope to date them.

[pg 031]
They have many peculiar words and phrases. Some may be Elamite, or that
form of Semitic which obtained in Elam, but the rest of the language is
ordinary Babylonian. It is possible that some characters had a value in Elam
not known in Babylonia, or ideographic values not yet recognized. But, as a
rule, the general sense is fairly clear.

The legal documents of Assyria are in many respects a separate group. They
are sometimes said to have come from the library of Ashurbânipal, which

Mr. H. Rassam claims to have discovered at Kouyunjik in 1852-54. But it
seems far more probable that, as large numbers were already found by
h Layard in 1849-51, we have rather to do with the contents of some archives.
The absence of any large number of temple-accounts seems to exclude the
probability that they were connected with a temple; but the fact that nearly
every tablet has for one principal party some officer of the king, lends great
probability to the view that the transactions were really made on behalf of
the king; or—to be more exact—of the palace in Nineveh. The exceptions
may be accounted for as really deeds concerned with former sales; or
mortgages of property, finally bought in for the king. The conjecture is
raised to a moral certainty by the contents of such a collection as
Knudtzon's Gebete an den Sonnengott, found together with them; which
consisted of copies of the requests and inquiries made of the Sun-god oracle
regarding the troubles and difficulties of the king and royal family, domestic
as well as public, in the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbânipal. The letters
too, found in the same collection, are the letters received by the king from
his officers in all parts of his realm. The lists are connected with expenses
of his household. Such votive tablets as are preserved are concerned with
offerings of the royal family, or such high officers as probably were
permanent inmates of the palace. We have, in fact, the contents [pg 032] of
the muniment chests of the Sargonid kings of Assyria. That the royal library
was mixed up with these documents may be due to the contents of an upper
chamber falling, when its floor was burnt out; but the mixing may have
been done by the discoverers.

In a very real sense these come from a record office, but are confined to
royal rather than state documents; though a few duplicates of charters occur.
Hence we look in vain for many classes of documents, such as are common
in the archives of temples or private families. We have no marriage
settlements, no adoptions, no partnerships.

Can we believe that such transactions were less common in Nineveh than
fifteen centuries before in Sippara, or Larsa, or Babylon; or later in
Babylon, Sippara, or Nippur? There cannot be a shadow of doubt that such
documents exist in shoals somewhere in the ruins of Nineveh and will one
day be found. Hence we must regard it as extremely improbable that the
ordinary citizens of Nineveh contributed the records of their transactions to

the Kouyunjik Collections now in the British Museum. They either kept
them in their own houses or in some temple archives. As will be seen later,
a few have already been found; but it is extremely difficult to locate them
exactly. It is quite certain that a few of the tablets in the British Museum
were found at other localities, such as Sherif Khan, Ashur, Kalah, Erech,
Larsa, and Babylon.

For the most part these appear to have been placed in one collection by the
discoverers, and only internal evidence can now decide where they were
found. But the great bulk of the Kouyunjik Collections, as far as contracts,
legal documents, and kindred tablets are concerned, are the result of
explorations conducted on the site of the ancient Nineveh, by Layard and
Rassam. They probably came from palace archives, and as a result possess a
special character of their own.

[pg 033]

Aramaic dockets very early attracted the attention of Assyriologists. The
presence of short inscriptions in Aramaic on a few contract-tablets naturally
raised hopes, in the early days of decipherment, of finding some check upon
the reading of cuneiform. So far as these went they were by no means
inconsistent with the readings of the cuneiform. But they were too few, too
disconnected, and in themselves too uncertain, to be of great value. Indeed,
for many of them, it is the cuneiform that now gives the key to their
possible sense. The whole of these Aramaic inscriptions have now been
published by Dr. J. H. Stevenson in his Assyrian and Babylonian Contracts
with Aramaic Reference Notes, where references to the literature will be
found.

In connection with these Aramaic legends a number of the texts of Assyrian
contracts were published in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, Pars
Secunda, Tomus I. A number more were published in Vol. III. of the
Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, by Sir H. C. Rawlinson. A few
others were published in various journals; and by Oppert in his epoch-
making treatise on the juristic literature, Documents Juridiques; by Peiser,
in Vol. IV. of Schrader's Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek; and by Strassmaier in
his Alphabetisches Verzeichnis. The whole of the texts of the Assyrian
contracts from the Kouyunjik Collections in the British Museum are now

published in Assyrian Deeds and Documents recording the Transfer of
Property, etc. (three volumes published).55 A bibliography will be found
there, on page ix of the preface to Vol. I.

The very remarkable style which most of these tablets show is so unlike the
contemporary documents in Babylonia that we may expect that transactions
between private [pg 034] citizens in Assyria at this time were quite
different. A few such documents exist. Professor V. Scheil, in the Receuil de
Travaux,56 published the text of four which are quite unlike any of the
Kouyunjik examples.

In Assyrian Deeds and Documents the same plan of arrangement was
followed, to some extent, as in this work. Being all of one epoch and
n showing no signs of any development the tablets were grouped,
provisionally, according to subjects. The arrangement in each group was to
place first the best specimens of the group and then the injured and
e fragmentary specimens, which thus received illustration, and in some cases,
could be restored. It would, however, be an error to regard the Assyrian
documents as the intermediate link between the old and new Babylonian
documents, though they belong chronologically to an interval which
precedes the latter immediately. The Assyrian scribe used a formula that
was closer to the Old Babylonian than to the contemporary Babylonian. It
had an independent development, looking rather to the royal charters as
models than to the private document. In fact, the closest parallels of all are
to be found on the Babylonian boundary-stones and charters. When,
therefore, in our chronologically arranged sketch of a given subject,
reference is made to Assyrian usage, next to that of the First Dynasty of
Babylon, it will be understood that only the nature of the transaction is akin;
and that, as a rule, the verbal treatment of it is quite distinct.

A few contemporary documents have reached us from the cities of
Babylonia. They have little or no affinity with the immediately preceding
groups, but carry on the local development from the second epoch. They
come from many sites and are published in a variety of journals. A tentative
list of them will be found in the Appendix. [pg 035] They refer to
transactions in the reigns of Shalmaneser IV., Sargon II., Merodach-baladan

II., Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Shamash-shum-ukin, Kandalanu, Ashur-etil-
ilâni, and Sin-shar-ishkun. In style they belong to the next epoch.

The second Babylonian empire, commencing with Nabopolassar and
extending to the end of the independent existence of a Babylonian empire,
is represented by thousands of tablets in our museums. A small part of these
e has been published. Pater J. N. Strassmaier has given some one thousand
six hundred in his Babylonische Texte. Dr. Peiser published many more in
his Keilinschriftliche Acten-stücke and Babylonische Verträge. The Rev. B.
T. A. Evetts, Dr. Moldenke, Dr. Pinches and others have published many
more. A detailed list will be found in the Appendix.

In the times of the Persian kings very many documents were drawn up very
similar to these. The series is quite unbroken, down through Macedonian
rule, the Arsacid period, to as late as b.c. 82. The list will be found in the
Appendix.

Of the whole period we may say that the variety and quantity of written
evidence are amazing. Every sort of transaction that could be made the
subject of a deed or memorandum was written down. They come from most
of the chief cities in Babylonia.

The classification of this material is no easy task. As in the case of the
Bibliography, so here, the first and apparently the only attempt has been
made by Dr. C. Bezold in his invaluable Kurzgefasster Überblick.

The view taken there depended upon Professor Oppert's estimate of the
nature of the documents and that again was often founded on imperfect
copies of the text. A great advance has since been made in understanding
the contents of the texts then published, and the number published has
enormously increased.

[pg 036]
The publications, where accompanied by translations, have generally given
some classification. Dr. Peiser, in the fourth volume of Schrader's
Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, gives most suggestive indexes.57 Dr. Tallqvist,
in his Sprache der Contrakte Nabunâ'id's gives a very valuable

classification.58 Dr. Meissner classified his texts in Altbabylonische
Privatrecht.

A number of monographs have been written collecting the different texts
from many sources bearing on one subject, thus acting as a kind of
classification. A complete work on the subject is still needed.

Of great importance are Dr. F. E. Peiser's Jurisprudentiæ Babylonicæ quæ
supersunt, Cöthen, 1890 (Inaug. Diss.); Dr. B. Meissner's De Servitute
babylonico-assyriaca, Leipzig, 1882 (Inaug. Diss.); and Dr. V. Marx, Die
Stellung der Frauen in Babylonien (Nebuchadnezzar to Darius b.c. 604-
485) published in the Beiträge zur Assyriologie, Vol. IV., pp. 1-77. These
should certainly be read by any serious student of the times. To reproduce
their contents would occupy too much space.

On the whole subject of social life, as illustrated by these contracts, there is
a valuable study by Dr. F. E. Peiser, called Skizze der Babylonischen
Gesellschaft.59 Professor Sayce's Babylonians and Assyrians in the Semitic
Series, 1900, is an excellent account, though in some respects not
sufficiently critical. But in all such preliminary work it is easy to feel sure
of conclusions which have to be revised with fuller knowledge. Time will
doubtless show this to be true of what is said in the present work. But
wherever doubt is felt by the writer, it will be indicated.

[pg 039]

Laws And Contracts

I. The Earliest Babylonian Laws

We are still completely in the dark as to the rise of law in Babylonia. As far
back as we can trace the history or its written monuments, there is no time
f of which we can say, “As yet there was no law.” Our chief object to-day is
t to discover what the law was. For the most part, and until lately, we were
compelled almost entirely to infer this from such contracts as were drawn
up between parties and sworn to, witnessed, and sealed. Among them were
a large number of legal decisions which recorded the ruling of some judicial
functionary on points of law submitted to him. These and the hints given by
the legal phrase-books had allowed us to attain considerable knowledge of
what was legal and right in ancient Babylonia or Assyria.

But the question remained, Was it “right” or “law”? Were there enactments
by authority, making clear what was right, and in some cases creating right,
where there was none before? There was much to suggest the existence of
enacted law, even of a code of laws, and the word “law” had been freely
applied. But there was no known ascription of any law to a definite
legislator. There was no word for “law,” only the terms “judgments,”
“right,” and “wrong.” It was significant that the parties to a suit always
seemed to have agreed on what was right between man and man, and then
to have sworn by their gods to observe the “right.”

[pg 040]

We definitely know of one great code of laws, that of Ḥammurabi, and we
are greatly strengthened in the view that there were laws, and even codes,
centuries before him. The way in which contracts quote the phrases of his
e code is exactly parallel to the way in which far earlier contracts quote
y phrases which are evidently extracts, in the phrase-books, from some
connected work. Hence we are warranted in thinking that these extracts
come from a Sumerian code of laws. We do not yet know to whom we
should ascribe its compilation.

For the Code of Ḥammurabi is also a compilation. He did not invent his
laws. Phrases found in them appear in contracts before his time. Doubtless
he did enact some fresh laws. But he built for the most part on other men's
foundations. The decisions already passed by the judges had made men
f ready to accept as “right” what was now made “law.” But the question is
only carried back a stage further. Did not those judges decide according to
law? In some cases we know they did, for we have the law before them.
When we try to penetrate further into the background of history we can only
surmise. Documents fail us to prove whether judges first made or
administered the law. But we have now a very high antiquity for laws
recognized and obeyed as right.

That laws were already enacted in the pre-Semitic or Sumerian days we
may regard as certain. The legal phrase-books drawn up by later scribes,
especially those known as forming the series called ana ittišu, give as
d specimens certain laws. These were evidently given by the scribes as
e examples of connected prose in Sumerian, accompanied by a rendering into
Semitic. Their object was primarily grammatical, or at any rate educational;
but they are most valuable because they contain specimens of the Sumerian
legislation. Owing to their limited scope they were at first regarded as [pg
041] family laws. But there can be little doubt that they really are extracts
from something like a code of laws. We are as yet quite ignorant of the date
of their first promulgation, place of origin, and legislator. The seventh tablet
of the series ana ittišu, Col. III. l. 22 to Col. IV. l. 22, gives the seven
following laws:

I. If a son has said to his father, “You are not my father,” he may brand him,
lay fetters upon him, and sell him.
r

It may be doubted whether this applies to any but adopted sons. “You shall
not be my father” is a possible rendering. But the phrase may only refer to
rebellious conduct. The word rendered “brand” has often been taken to
mean “shave.” The cutting short of the hair was a mark of degradation. The
Semitic Babylonians wore their hair long, while slaves, and perhaps also
Sumerians as a race, are represented as hairless. However that may be, the
same word is used of “branding” cattle and it implies cutting or incision. It

may mean a tattooed mark. The word rendered “fetter” seems also to be
used of a branded body-mark. The whole law means that the rebellious son
is to be degraded to the status of a slave and treated as such.

II. If a son has said to his mother, “You are not my mother,” one shall brand
his forehead, drive him out of the city, and make him go out of the house.
f
y
Here the same ambiguity about branding is found. Some take the word
rendered “forehead” to mean the hair of the head. His head would then be
shaved. “To go out from the house” means “to be cut off from kith and kin.”
But here the son retains his freedom, only he is an exile and homeless. In
this case it is not the mother who exacts the penalty. The verb is plural and
may be taken impersonally. The family or the city magistrates are probably
the ones to execute the law.

[pg 042]

n III. If a father has said to his son, “You are not my son,” he shall leave house
and yard.

Here the father has power to repudiate a son, who must go. The word for
“leave” is literally “take himself up,” “go up out of.” The word “yard” is
simply “inclosure” and may mean the city walls, as a symbol of shelter.

IV. If a mother has said to her son, “You are not my son,” he shall leave
house and property.
n

Here we expect, by analogy with Laws I. and II., that this penalty is rather
less than that in III. The “property” means “house furniture.” The son must
leave home and can take no house furniture with him. He has no claim to
inherit anything. But he need not leave the city. Hence it seems likely that
III. denied him the right of city shelter.

V. If a wife hates her husband and has said, “You are not my husband,” one
shall throw her into the river.

f
VI. If a husband has said to his wife, “You are not my wife,” he shall pay half
a mina of silver.

e
The contrast in the penalties is startling. Note the impersonal form of V. The
executioners here are the family, or city, not the husband. Publicity is
therefore implied. It is not a private quarrel, but a refusal of conjugal rights.
In the second case the man divorces, or puts away, his wife, but pays a
heavy fine.

VII. If a man has hired a slave and he dies, is lost, has fled, has been
incapacitated, or has fallen sick, he shall measure out 10 ḲA of corn per diem
f as his wages.

Here the Sumerian text differs from the Semitic. In the former the employer
is said to “cause” the slave to suffer these detriments, in the latter he is said
to come by them. The verb rendered “lost” is used in that sense in the later
Code of Ḥammurabi. What is the exact sense of the verb rendered “has been
incapacitated” is not clear. Professor [pg 043] Hommel60 renders
durchbrennen, Delitzsch61 renders weichen, entweichen, oder zu arbeiten
aufhören. But it is clear that the employer is to pay a daily fine for injury
done to the slave, or for loss to his owner, caused or connived at by him.
The slave's refusal to work could not be made the ground for fining him. If
anyone paid for that it would be the owner. The employer pays for his work,
but is bound to keep him safe and treat him reasonably well and return him
in good condition to his owner. In later times the owner often took the risk
of death and flight, but then he probably charged more hire. At any rate it is
clear that the owner is not named in this law.

It is not profitable to discuss these mere fragments of a code. The most
interesting thing is their existence. We may one day recover the Code in
full. These are not retranslations into Sumerian, by learned scribes, of late
laws. For exactly these words and phrases occur in the contracts of the First

Dynasty of Babylon, before and after the Code of Ḥammurabi, which deals
with the same cases, but in different words. In fact, this Sumerian Code is
quoted, as the later Code was quoted, in documents which embody the
sworn agreement of the parties to observe the section of the Code applying
to their case. This is indeed the characteristic of the early contracts: after
indicating the particulars of the case, an oath is added to the effect that the
parties will abide by the law concerning it. Even where no reference is
made to a law, it is because either no law had been promulgated on the
point, or because the law was understood too well to need mention. Later
this law-abiding spirit was less in evidence and the contract became a
private undertaking to carry out mutual engagements. But even then it was
assumed that a law existed which would hold the parties to the terms of an
engagement voluntarily contracted.

[pg 044]

II. The Code Of Ḥammurabi

§ 1. If a man has accused another of laying a nêrtu (death spell?) upon him,
but has not proved it, he shall be put to death.

e § 2. If a man has accused another of laying a kišpu (spell) upon him, but has
y not proved it, the accused shall go to the sacred river, he shall plunge into
the sacred river, and if the sacred river shall conquer him, he that accused
him shall take possession of his house. If the sacred river shall show his
innocence and he is saved, his accuser shall be put to death. He that plunged
into the sacred river shall appropriate the house of him that accused him.

§ 3. If a man has borne false witness in a trial, or has not established the
statement that he has made, if that case be a capital trial, that man shall be
put to death.
n
§ 4. If he has borne false witness in a civil law case, he shall pay the
damages in that suit.
l
§ 5. If a judge has given a verdict, rendered a decision, granted a written
judgment, and afterward has altered his judgment, that judge shall be
prosecuted for altering the judgment he gave and shall pay twelvefold the
n penalty laid down in that judgment. Further, he shall be publicly expelled
e from his judgment-seat and shall not return nor take his seat with the judges
at a trial.

§ 6. If a man has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to
death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to
death.

§ 7. If a man has bought or received on deposit from a minor or a slave,
n either silver, gold, male or female slave, ox, ass, or sheep, or anything else,

except by consent of elders, or power of attorney, he shall be put to death
for theft.

§ 8. If a patrician has stolen ox, sheep, ass, pig, or ship, whether from a
temple, or a house, he shall pay thirtyfold. If he be a [pg 045] plebeian, he
shall return tenfold. If the thief cannot pay, he shall be put to death.

§ 9. If a man has lost property and some of it be detected in the possession
of another, and the holder has said, “A man sold it to me, I bought it in the
presence of witnesses”; and if the claimant has said, “I can bring witnesses
f who know it to be property lost by me”; then the alleged buyer on his part
shall produce the man who sold it to him and the witnesses before whom he
bought it; the claimant shall on his part produce the witnesses who know it
t to be his lost property. The judge shall examine their pleas. The witnesses to
the sale and the witnesses who identify the lost property shall state on oath
what they know. Such a seller is the thief and shall be put to death. The
owner of the lost property shall recover his lost property. The buyer shall
recoup himself from the seller's estate.

§ 10. If the alleged buyer on his part has not produced the seller or the
witnesses before whom the sale took place, but the owner of the lost
property on his part has produced the witnesses who identify it as his, then
the [pretended] buyer is the thief; he shall be put to death. The owner of the
lost property shall take his lost property.

§ 11. If, on the other hand, the claimant of the lost property has not brought
the witnesses that know his lost property, he has been guilty of slander, he
has stirred up strife, he shall be put to death.

§ 12. If the seller has in the meantime died, the buyer shall take from his
estate fivefold the value sued for.

§ 13. If a man has not his witnesses at hand, the judge shall set him a fixed
time not exceeding six months, and if within six months he has not
produced his witnesses, the man has lied; he shall bear the penalty of the
suit.

§ 14. If a man has stolen a child, he shall be put to death.

§ 15. If a man has induced either a male or female slave from the house of a
patrician, or plebeian, to leave the city, he shall be put to death.

§ 16. If a man has harbored in his house a male or female slave from a
patrician's or plebeian's house, and has not caused the fugitive to leave on
the demand of the officer over the slaves condemned to public forced labor,
e that householder shall be put to death.

[pg 046]

§ 17. If a man has caught either a male or female runaway slave in the open
field and has brought him back to his owner, the owner of the slave shall
give him two shekels of silver.
f
e § 18. If such a slave will not name his owner, his captor shall bring him to
the palace, where he shall be examined as to his past and returned to his
owner.

§ 19. If the captor has secreted that slave in his house and afterward that
slave has been caught in his possession, he shall be put to death.

§ 20. If the slave has fled from the hands of his captor, the latter shall swear
to the owner of the slave and he shall be free from blame.

§ 21. If a man has broken into a house he shall be killed before the breach
and buried there.

§ 22. If a man has committed highway robbery and has been caught, that
man shall be put to death.

§ 23. If the highwayman has not been caught, the man that has been robbed
shall state on oath what he has lost and the city or district governor in
whose territory or district the robbery took place shall restore to him what
he has lost.

§ 24. If a life [has been lost], the city or district governor shall pay one mina
of silver to the deceased's relatives.

§ 25. If a fire has broken out in a man's house and one who has come to put
it out has coveted the property of the householder and appropriated any of
a it, that man shall be cast into the self-same fire.

§ 26. If a levy-master, or warrant-officer, who has been detailed on the
king's service, has not gone, or has hired a substitute in his place, that levy-
d master, or warrant-officer, shall be put to death and the hired substitute shall
take his office.
n
§ 27. If a levy-master, or warrant-officer, has been assigned to garrison
e duty, and in his absence his field and garden have been given to another
who has carried on his duty, when the absentee has returned and regained
his city, his field and garden shall be given back to him and he shall resume
his duty.

§ 28. If a levy-master, or warrant-officer, has been assigned to garrison
duty, and has a son able to carry on his official duty, the field and garden
d shall be given to him and he shall carry on his father's duty.
f
§ 29. If the son be a child and is not able to carry on his father's duty, one-
third of the field and garden shall be given to his mother to educate him.

[pg 047]

§ 30. If such an official has neglected the care of his field, garden, or house,
and let them go to waste, and if another has taken his field, garden, or
r house, in his absence, and carried on the duty for three years, if the absentee
f has returned and would cultivate his field, garden, or house, it shall not be
given him; he who has taken it and carried on the duty connected with it
shall continue to do so.

§ 31. If for one year only he has let things go to waste and he has returned,
his field, garden, and house shall be given him, and he himself shall carry
on his duty.

§ 32. If such an official has been assigned to the king's service (and
captured by the enemy) and has been ransomed by a merchant and helped to
regain his city, if he has had means in his house to pay his ransom, he

himself shall do so. If he has not had means of his own, he shall be
ransomed by the temple treasury. If there has not been means in the temple
treasury of his city, the state will ransom him. His field, garden, or house
f shall not be given for his ransom.

§ 33. If either a governor or a prefect has appropriated to his own use the
corvée, or has accepted and sent on the king's service a hired substitute in
f his place, that governor, or prefect, shall be put to death.

§ 34. If either a governor, or a prefect, has appropriated the property of a
levy-master, has hired him out, has robbed him by high-handedness at a
trial, has taken the salary which the king gave to him, that governor, or
prefect, shall be put to death.

§ 35. If a man has bought from a levy-master the sheep, or oxen, which the
king gave him, he shall lose his money.
f § 36. The field, garden, or house, of a levy-master, warrant-officer, or
tributary shall not be sold.

§ 37. If a man has bought field, garden, or house, of a levy-master, a
r warrant-officer, or tributary, his title-deed shall be destroyed and he shall
lose his money. He shall return the field, garden, or house to its owner.

§ 38. A levy-master, warrant-officer, or tributary, shall not bequeath
anything from the field, garden, or house of his benefice to his wife or
e daughter, nor shall he give it for his debt.

§ 39. From the field, garden, or house which he has bought and acquired, he
shall make bequests to his wife, or daughter, or shall assign for his debt.

[pg 048]

§ 40. A votary, merchant, or resident alien may sell his field, garden, or
house, and the buyer shall discharge the public service connected with the
field, garden, or house that he has bought.

a

f § 41. If a man has given property in exchange for the field, garden, or
house, of a levy-master, warrant-officer, or tributary, such an official shall
e return to his field, garden, or house, and he shall appropriate the property
e given in exchange.

§ 42. If a man has hired a field to cultivate and has caused no corn to grow
on the field, he shall be held responsible for not doing the work on the field
and shall pay an average rent.
f
§ 43. If he has not cultivated the field and has left it alone, he shall give to
the owner of the field an average rent, and the field which he has neglected
he shall break up with mattocks and plough it, and shall return it to the
owner of the field.

§ 44. If a man has taken a piece of virgin soil to open up, on a three years'
lease, but has left it alone, has not opened up the land, in the fourth year he
f shall break it up, hoe it, and plough it, and shall return it to the owner of the
field, and shall measure out ten GUR of corn for each GAN of land.

§ 45. If a man has let his field to a farmer and has received his rent for the
field but afterward the field has been flooded by rain, or a storm has carried
f off the crop, the loss shall be the farmer's.
y
§ 46. If he has not received the rent of his field, whether he let it for a half,
or for a third, of the crop, the farmer and the owner of the field shall share
n the corn that is left in the field, according to their agreement.

§ 47. If a tenant farmer, because he did not start farming in the early part of
the year, has sublet the field, the owner of the field shall not object; his field
has been cultivated; at harvest-time he shall take rent, according to his
agreement.
a
§ 48. If a man has incurred a debt and a storm has flooded his field or
t carried away the crop, or the corn has not grown because of drought, in that
year he shall not pay his creditor. Further, he shall post-date his bond and
n shall not pay interest for that year.
f

r § 49. If a man has received money from a merchant and has given to the
merchant a field, planted with corn, or sesame, and has said to him,
a “Cultivate the field and reap and take the corn, or sesame, that shall be
grown”; if the bailiff has reared corn, or sesame, in the field, at harvest-time
the owner of the field shall take what corn, or [pg 049] sesame, has been
grown in the field and shall pay corn to the merchant for his money that he
took of him and its interest, and for the maintenance of the bailiff.

§ 50. If the field he gave was [already] cultivated, or the sesame was grown
up, the owner of the field shall take the corn, or sesame, that has been
grown in the field, and shall return the money and its interest to the
merchant.

§ 51. If he has not money enough, he shall give to the merchant sesame, or
corn, according to its market price, for the money which he took from the
merchant and its interest, according to the king's standard.

§ 52. If the bailiff has not reared corn or sesame in the field the debtor's
obligation shall not be lessened.

§§ 53, 54. If a man has neglected to strengthen his dike and has not kept his
dike strong, and a breach has broken out in his dike, and the waters have
flooded the meadow, the man in whose dike the breach has broken out shall
restore the corn he has caused to be lost. [54]. If he be not able to restore the
corn, he and his goods shall be sold, and the owners of the meadow whose
corn the water has carried away shall share the money.

§ 55. If a man has opened his runnel for watering and has left it open, and
the water has flooded his neighbor's field, he shall pay him an average crop.
r
§ 56. If a man has let out the waters and they flood the young plants in his
f neighbor's field, he shall measure out ten GUR of corn for each GAN of
land.

§ 57. If a shepherd has not agreed with the owner of the field to allow his
sheep to eat off the green crop and without consent of the owner has let his
sheep feed off it, the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, but the
shepherd who without consent of the owner of the field caused his sheep to

eat it shall give to the owner of the field, over and above his crop, twenty
y GUR of corn for each GAN of land.

§ 58. If, after the sheep have come up out of the meadows and have passed
into the common fold at the city gate, a shepherd has placed his sheep in a
field and caused his sheep to feed in the field, the shepherd shall keep the
field he has grazed, and, at harvest-time, he shall measure out to the owner
sixty GUR of corn for each GAN of land.

[pg 050]

§ 59. If a man without the consent of the owner has cut down a tree in an
orchard, he shall weigh out half a mina of silver.
a §§ 60, 61. If a man has given a field to a gardener to plant a garden and the
gardener has planted the garden, he shall train the garden four years; in the
a fifth year the owner of the garden and the gardener shall share the garden
equally, the owner of the garden shall gather his share and take it. [61]. If
the gardener, in planting the garden, has not planted all, but has left a bare
patch, he shall reckon the bare patch in his share.

§ 62. If he has not planted the field which was given him as a garden; then,
if it was arable land, the gardener shall measure out to the owner of the field
an average rent for the years that were neglected, and shall perform the
stipulated work on the field (i.e., make it into a garden), and return it to the
owner of the field.

§ 63. If the land was uncultivated, he shall do the stipulated work on the
field, and return to the owner of the field and shall measure out for each
year ten GUR of corn for each GAN.

§ 64. If a man has given his garden to a gardener to farm, the gardener, as
long as he holds the garden, shall give the owner of the garden two-thirds of
the produce of the garden and shall take one-third himself.
n
§ 65. If the gardener has not tilled the garden and has diminished the yield,
the gardener shall pay an average rent.

Here came the five erased columns, of which the three following sections
are restored from copies in Ashurbânipal's library:

§ X. [If a man has borrowed money of a merchant and has given a date
grove] to the merchant and has said to him, “Take the dates that are in my
grove for your money”; that merchant shall not consent, the owner of the
r grove shall take the dates that are in the grove and shall answer to the
a merchant for the money and its interest, according to the tenor of his
agreement, and the owner of the grove shall take the surplus of the dates
that are in the grove.

§ Y. [If a man has let a house] and the tenant has paid to the owner of the
house the full rent for a term of years, and if the owner of the house has
f ordered the tenant to leave before his time [pg 051] is up, the owner of the
house, because he has ordered his tenant to leave before his time is up,
[shall repay a proportionate amount] from what the tenant has paid him.

§ Z. [If a man has borrowed money of a merchant] and has not corn or
money wherewith [to pay], but has goods; whatever is in his hands, he shall
give to the merchant, before the elders. The merchant shall not object; he
shall receive it.
t
n After the loss of about thirty-five sections the Code resumes:
f
r § 100. [If an agent has received money of a merchant, he shall write down
the amount] and [what is to be] the interest of the money, and when his time
is up, he shall settle with his merchant.
a
§ 101. If he has not had success on his travels, he shall return double what
he received to the merchant.

§§ 102, 103. If the merchant has given money, as a speculation, to the
agent, who during his travels has met with misfortune, he shall return the
full sum to the merchant. [103]. If, on his travels, an enemy has forced him
to give up some of the goods he was carrying, the agent shall specify the
amount on oath and shall be acquitted.
d

§ 104. If a merchant has given to an agent corn, wool, oil, or any sort of
goods, to traffic with, the agent shall write down the money value, and shall
return that to the merchant. The agent shall then take a sealed receipt for the
e money that he has given to the merchant.

l § 105. If the agent forgets and has not taken a sealed receipt for the money
he gave to the merchant, money that has not been acknowledged by receipt
shall not be put down in the accounts.

§ 106. If an agent has taken money of a merchant, and his principal suspects
him, that principal shall prosecute his agent, put him on oath before the
elders, as to the money taken; the agent shall pay to the merchant threefold
d what he misappropriated.

§ 107. If the principal has overcharged the agent and the agent has [really]
returned to his principal whatever his principal gave him, and if the
principal has disputed what the agent has given him, that agent shall put his
principal on oath before the elders, and the merchant, because he has
defrauded the agent, shall pay to the agent sixfold what he misappropriated.

[pg 052]

§ 108. If the mistress of a beer-shop has not received corn as the price of
beer or has demanded silver on an excessive scale, and has made the
n measure of beer less than the measure of corn, that beer-seller shall be
prosecuted and drowned.

§ 109. If the mistress of a beer-shop has assembled seditious slanderers in
her house and those seditious persons have not been captured and have not
been haled to the palace, that beer-seller shall be put to death.
t
§ 110. If a votary, who is not living in the convent, open a beer-shop, or
enter a beer-shop for drink, that woman shall be put to death.

§ 111. If the mistress of a beer-shop has given sixty ḲA of sakani beer in the
time of thirst, at harvest, she shall take fifty ḲA of corn.
f

§ 112. If a man staying abroad has given silver, gold, precious stones, or
portable goods to another man to transport, and if that man has not
delivered the consignment, where he has carried it, but has appropriated it,
the owner of the consignment shall prosecute him, and the carrier shall give
to the owner of the consignment fivefold whatever was intrusted to him.
f § 113. If a man has a debt of corn, or money, due from another and without
the consent of the owner of the corn has taken corn from the granary, or
barn, the owner of the corn shall prosecute him for taking the corn from the
e granary, or barn, without his consent, and the man shall return all the corn
he took, and further lose whatever it was that he had lent.
a
§ 114. If a man has no debt of corn or money due from a man on whom he
has levied a distraint, for each such distraint he shall pay one-third of a
mina of silver.
f
§ 115. If a man has corn or money due from another man and has levied a
distraint and the hostage has died a natural death in the house of the
creditor, he cannot be held responsible.
r § 116. If the hostage has died of blows or want in the house of the creditor,
the owner of the hostage shall prosecute his creditor, and if the deceased
n were free born, the creditor's son shall be put to death; if a slave, the
creditor shall pay one-third of a mina of silver, Further, he shall lose
whatever it was that he lent.

§ 117. If a man owes a debt, and he has given his wife, his son, or his
daughter [as hostage] for the money, or has handed someone over to work it
off, the hostage shall do the work of the creditor's house; but in the fourth
e year he shall set them free.
f
[pg 053]
§ 118. If a debtor has handed over a male or female slave to work off a debt,
and the creditor proceeds to sell same, no one can complain.

§ 119. If a man owes a debt, and he has assigned a maid who has borne him
children for the money, the owner of the maid shall repay the money which
the merchant gave him and shall ransom his maid.

§ 120. If a man has deposited his corn for safe keeping in another's house
and it has suffered damage in the granary, or if the owner of the house has
opened the store and taken the corn, or has disputed the amount of the corn
f that was stored in his house, the owner of the corn shall declare on oath the
f amount of his corn, and the owner of the house shall return him double.

§ 121. If a man has stored corn in another man's house he shall give, on
each GUR of corn, five ḲA of corn, yearly, as the rent for storage.
f
§ 122. If a man has given another gold, silver, or any goods whatever, on
e deposit, all that he gives shall he show to witnesses, and take a bond and so
r give on deposit.
f
§ 123. If he has given on deposit without witnesses and bonds, and has been
defrauded where he made his deposit, he has no claim to prosecute.

§ 124. If a man has given on deposit to another, before witnesses, gold,
silver, or any goods whatever, and his claim has been contested, he shall
prosecute that man, and [the man] shall return double what he disputed.
f
§ 125. If a man has given anything whatever on deposit, and, where he has
made his deposit, something of his has been lost together with something
n belonging to the owner of the house, either by house-breaking or a
rebellion, the owner of the house who is in default shall make good all that
has been given him on deposit, which he has lost, and shall return it to the
owner of the goods. The owner of the house shall look after what he has lost
and recover it from the thief.

§ 126. If a man has said that something of his is lost, which is not lost, or
has alleged a depreciation, though nothing of his is lost, he shall estimate
the depreciation on oath, and he shall pay double whatever he has claimed.
f
§ 127. If a man has caused the finger to be pointed at a votary, or a man's
wife, and has not justified himself, that man shall be brought before the
f judges, and have his forehead branded.
r
[pg 054]

§ 128. If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage-contract,
that woman is not a wife.

§ 129. If a man's wife be caught lying with another, they shall be strangled
and cast into the water. If the wife's husband would save his wife, the king
can save his servant.
f
§ 130. If a man has ravished another's betrothed wife, who is a virgin, while
still living in her father's house, and has been caught in the act, that man
a shall be put to death; the woman shall go free.

§ 131. If a man's wife has been accused by her husband, and has not been
caught lying with another, she shall swear her innocence, and return to her
house.
y
y § 132. If a man's wife has the finger pointed at her on account of another,
but has not been caught lying with him, for her husband's sake she shall
f plunge into the sacred river.

§ 133. If a man has been taken captive, and there was maintenance in his
house, but his wife has left her house and entered into another man's house;
d because that woman has not preserved her body, and has entered into the
f house of another, that woman shall be prosecuted and shall be drowned.

e § 134. If a man has been taken captive, but there was not maintenance in his
e house, and his wife has entered into the house of another, that woman has
n no blame.
n
§ 135. If a man has been taken captive, but there was no maintenance in his
house for his wife, and she has entered into the house of another, and has
borne him children, if in the future her [first] husband shall return and
regain his city, that woman shall return to her first husband, but the children
shall follow their own father.

§ 136. If a man has left his city and fled, and, after he has gone, his wife has
entered into the house of another; if the man return and seize his wife, the
a wife of the fugitive shall not return to her husband, because he hated his
city and fled.

§ 137. If a man has determined to divorce a concubine who has borne him
children, or a votary who has granted him children, he shall return to that
a woman her marriage-portion, and shall give her the usufruct of field,
garden, and goods, to bring up her children. After her children have grown
up, out of whatever is given to her children, they shall give her one son's
s share, and the husband of her choice shall marry her.

[pg 055]

§ 138. If a man has divorced his wife, who has not borne him children, he
shall pay over to her as much money as was given for her bride-price and
a the marriage-portion which she brought from her father's house, and so
shall divorce her.

§ 139. If there was no bride-price, he shall give her one mina of silver, as a
price of divorce.

§ 140. If he be a plebeian, he shall give her one-third of a mina of silver.

§ 141. If a man's wife, living in her husband's house, has persisted in going
out, has acted the fool, has wasted her house, has belittled her husband, he
a shall prosecute her. If her husband has said, “I divorce her,” she shall go her
way; he shall give her nothing as her price of divorce. If her husband has
said, “I will not divorce her,” he may take another woman to wife; the wife
shall live as a slave in her husband's house.

§ 142. If a woman has hated her husband and has said, “You shall not
possess me,” her past shall be inquired into, as to what she lacks. If she has
a been discreet, and has no vice, and her husband has gone out, and has
greatly belittled her, that woman has no blame, she shall take her marriage-
portion and go off to her father's house.

§ 143. If she has not been discreet, has gone out, ruined her house, belittled
her husband, she shall be drowned.

§ 144. If a man has married a votary, and that votary has given a maid to her
husband, and so caused him to have children, and, if that man is inclined to

marry a concubine, that man shall not be allowed to do so, he shall not
marry a concubine.
a § 145. If a man has married a votary, and she has not granted him children,
and he is determined to marry a concubine, that man shall marry the
concubine, and bring her into his house, but the concubine shall not place
herself on an equality with the votary.

§ 146. If a man has married a votary, and she has given a maid to her
husband, and the maid has borne children, and if afterward that maid has
placed herself on an equality with her mistress, because she has borne
children, her mistress shall not sell her, she shall place a slave-mark upon
a her, and reckon her with the slave-girls.

§ 147. If she has not borne children, her mistress shall sell her.

[pg 056]

§ 148. If a man has married a wife and a disease has seized her, if he is
determined to marry a second wife, he shall marry her. He shall not divorce
a the wife whom the disease has seized. In the home they made together she
shall dwell, and he shall maintain her as long as she lives.
a § 149. If that woman was not pleased to stay in her husband's house, he
shall pay over to her the marriage-portion which she brought from her
father's house, and she shall go away.

§ 150. If a man has presented field, garden, house, or goods to his wife, has
granted her a deed of gift, her children, after her husband's death, shall not
dispute her right; the mother shall leave it after her death to that one of her
children whom she loves best. She shall not leave it to her kindred.

§ 151. If a woman, who is living in a man's house, has persuaded her
r husband to bind himself, and grant her a deed to the effect that she shall not
be held for debt by a creditor of her husband's; if that man had a debt upon
him before he married that woman, his creditor shall not take his wife for it.
r Also, if that woman had a debt upon her before she entered that man's
house, her creditor shall not take her husband for it.

§ 152. From the time that that woman entered into the man's house they
together shall be liable for all debts subsequently incurred.

§ 153. If a man's wife, for the sake of another, has caused her husband to be
killed, that woman shall be impaled.

t § 154. If a man has committed incest with his daughter, that man shall be
banished from the city.
yh
§ 155. If a man has betrothed a maiden to his son and his son has known
her, and afterward the man has lain in her bosom, and been caught, that man
h shall be strangled and she shall be cast into the water.

§ 156. If a man has betrothed a maiden to his son, and his son has not
known her, and that man has lain in her bosom, he shall pay her half a mina
of silver, and shall pay over to her whatever she brought from her father's
house, and the husband of her choice shall marry her.

§ 157. If a man, after his father's death, has lain in the bosom of his mother,
they shall both of them be burnt together.
h
§ 158. If a man, after his father's death, be caught in the bosom of his step-
mother, who has borne children, that man shall be cut off from his father's
h house.

[pg 057]

§ 159. If a man, who has presented a gift to the house of his prospective
father-in-law and has given the bride-price, has afterward looked upon
r another woman and has said to his father-in-law, “I will not marry your
f daughter”; the father of the girl shall keep whatever he has brought as a
present.

§ 160. If a man has presented a gift to the house of his prospective father-in-
law, and has given the bride-price, but the father of the girl has said, “I will
a not give you my daughter,” the father shall return double all that was
presented him.

§ 161. If a man has brought a gift to the house of his prospective father-in-
law, and has given the bride-price, but his comrade has slandered him and
his father-in-law has said to the suitor, “You shall not marry my daughter,”
[the father] shall return double all that was presented him. Further, the
y comrade shall not marry the girl.

§ 162. If a man has married a wife, and she has borne him children, and that
woman has gone to her fate, her father shall lay no claim to her marriage-
portion. Her marriage-portion is her children's only.

§ 163. If a man has married a wife, and she has not borne him children, and
that woman has gone to her fate; if his father-in-law has returned to him the
bride-price, which that man brought into the house of his father-in-law, her
husband shall have no claim on the marriage-portion of that woman. Her
marriage-portion indeed belongs to her father's house.

§ 164. If the father-in-law has not returned the bride-price, the husband
shall deduct the amount of her bride-price from her marriage-portion, and
shall return her marriage-portion to her father's house.

§ 165. If a man has presented field, garden, or house to his son, the first in
his eyes, and has written him a deed of gift; after the father has gone to his
fate, when the brothers share, he shall keep the present his father gave him,
e and over and above shall share equally with them in the goods of his
father's estate.
a
§ 166. If a man has taken wives for the other sons he had, but has not taken
a a wife for his young son, after the father has gone to his fate, when the
brothers share, they shall set aside from the goods of their father's estate
a money, as a bride-price, for their young brother, who has not married a
wife, over and above his share, and they shall cause him to take a wife.
a
[pg 058]

§ 167. If a man has taken a wife, and she has borne him children and that
woman has gone to her fate, and he has taken a second wife, and she also
has borne children; after the father has gone to his fate, the sons shall not
f

n share according to mothers, but each family shall take the marriage-portion
f of its mother, and all shall share the goods of their father's estate equally.

§ 168. If a man has determined to disinherit his son and has declared before
the judge, “I cut off my son,” the judge shall inquire into the son's past, and,
if the son has not committed a grave misdemeanor such as should cut him
a off from sonship, the father shall disinherit his son.

§ 169. If he has committed a grave crime against his father, which cuts off
from sonship, for the first offence he shall pardon him. If he has committed
a grave crime a second time, the father shall cut off his son from sonship.

§ 170. If a man has had children borne to him by his wife, and also by a
maid, if the father in his lifetime has said, “My sons,” to the children whom
f his maid bore him, and has reckoned them with the sons of his wife; then
after the father has gone to his fate, the children of the wife and of the maid
shall share equally. The children of the wife shall apportion the shares and
make their own selections.

§ 171. And if the father, in his lifetime, has not said, “My sons,” to the
children whom the maid bore him, after the father has gone to his fate, the
children of the maid shall not share with the children of the wife in the
goods of their father's house. The maid and her children, however, shall
obtain their freedom. The children of the wife have no claim for service on
the children of the maid.

The wife shall take her marriage-portion, and any gift that her husband has
given her and for which he has written a deed of gift and she shall dwell in
her husband's house; as long as she lives, she shall enjoy it, she shall not
a sell it. After her death it is indeed her children's.
n
§ 172. If her husband has not given her a gift, her marriage-portion shall be
given her in full, and, from the goods of her husband's estate, she shall take
a share equal to that of one son.

If her children have persecuted her in order to have her leave the house, and
the judge has inquired into her past, and laid the blame on the children, that
woman shall not leave her husband's house. If [pg 059] that woman has

determined to leave, she shall relinquish to her children the gift her husband
gave her, she shall take the marriage-portion of her father's estate, and the
s husband of her choice may marry her.
e
§ 173. If that woman, where she has gone, has borne children to her later
husband, after that woman has died, the children of both marriages shall
share her marriage-portion.
f
§ 174. If she has not borne children to her later husband, the children of her
first husband shall take her marriage-portion.
d
§ 175. If either a slave of a patrician, or of a plebeian, has married the
daughter of a free man, and she has borne children, the owner of the slave
shall have no claim for service on the children of a free woman. And if a
f slave, either of a patrician or of a plebeian, has married a free woman and
when he married her she entered the slave's house with a marriage-portion
f from her father's estate, be he slave of a patrician or of a plebeian, and from
the time that they started to keep house, they have acquired property; after
d the slave, whether of a patrician or of a plebeian, has gone to his fate, the
free woman shall take her marriage-portion, and whatever her husband and
she acquired, since they started house-keeping. She shall divide it into two
portions. The master of the slave shall take one half, the other half the free
woman shall take for her children.

§ 176. If the free woman had no marriage-portion, whatever her husband
and she acquired since they started house-keeping he shall divide into two
portions. The owner of the slave shall take one half, the other half the free
woman shall take for her children.

§ 177. If a widow, whose children are young, has determined to marry
again, she shall not marry without consent of the judge. When she is
allowed to remarry, the judge shall inquire as to what remains of the
f property of her former husband, and shall intrust the property of her former
g husband to that woman and her second husband. He shall give them an
f inventory. They shall watch over the property, and bring up the children.
w Not a utensil shall they sell. A buyer of any utensil belonging to the widow's
children shall lose his money and shall return the article to its owners.

§ 178. If a female votary, or vowed woman, has had given her by her father
a portion, as for marriage, and he has written her a deed, and in the deed
which he has written her he has not written that she may leave it as she
pleases, and has not granted her all her [pg 060] desire; after her father has
a gone to his fate, her brothers shall take her field, or garden, and, according
to the value of her share, shall give her corn, oil, and wool, and shall
content her heart. If they do not give her corn, oil, and wool, according to
the value of her share, and do not satisfy her, she shall let her field and
garden to a farmer, whom she chooses, and the farmer shall support her.
The field, garden, or whatever her father gave her, she shall enjoy, as long
as she lives. She shall not sell it, nor mortgage it. The reversion of her
inheritance indeed belongs to her brothers.

§ 179. If a female votary, or vowed woman, has had a portion given her by
her father, and he has written her a deed, and in the deed that he has written
t her has [declared] that she may give it as she pleases, and has granted her
y all her desire; after her father has gone to his fate, she shall leave it as she
pleases; her brothers shall make no claim against her.

§ 180. If the father has not given a portion to his daughter, who is a female
votary, or vowed woman; after her father has gone to his fate, she shall
t share in the property of her father's house, like any other child. As long as
she lives, she shall enjoy her share; after her, it indeed belongs to her
brothers.

§ 181. If a father has vowed his daughter to a god, as a temple maid, or a
virgin, and has given her no portion; after the father has gone to his fate, she
shall share in the property of her father's estate, taking one-third of a child's
share. She shall enjoy her share, as long as she lives. After her, it belongs to
r her brothers.

§ 182. If a father has not given a portion, as for marriage, to his daughter, a
votary of Marduk of Babylon, and has not written her a deed; after her
father has gone to his fate, she shall share with her brothers from the goods
of her father's estate, taking one-third of a child's share. She shall not be
y subject to duty. The votary of Marduk shall leave it after her to whom she
k pleases.
n

§ 183. If a father has given a portion, as for marriage, to his daughter by a
concubine, and has given her to a husband, and has written her a deed; after
a her father has gone to his fate, she shall not share in the goods of her
father's house.
a
§ 184. If a man has not given a portion, as for marriage, to his daughter by a
d concubine, and has not given her to a husband; after her father has gone to
y his fate, her brothers shall present her with a [pg 061] marriage-portion,
n according to the wealth of her father's estate, and shall give her to a
y husband.

§ 185. If a man has taken a young child, a natural son of his, to be his son,
and has brought him up, no one shall make a claim against that foster child.

l § 186. If a man has taken a young child to be his son, and after he has taken
him, the child discover his own parents, he shall return to his father's house.
f § 187. The son of a royal favorite, of one that stands in the palace, or the
son of a votary shall not be reclaimed.

§§ 188, 189. If a craftsman has taken a child to bring up and has taught him
his handicraft, he shall not be reclaimed. If he has not taught him his
handicraft that foster child shall return to his father's house.
a
§ 190. If a man has brought up the child, whom he has taken to be his son,
but has not reckoned him with his sons, that foster child shall return to his
f father's house.

n § 191. If a man has brought up the child, whom he took to be his son, and
then sets up a home, and after he has acquired children, decides to disinherit
the foster child, that son shall not go his way [penniless]; the father that
n brought him up shall give him one-third of a son's share in his goods and he
shall depart. He shall not give him field, garden, or house.
d
§ 192. If the son of a palace favorite or the son of a vowed woman has said
to the father that brought him up, “You are not my father,” or to the mother
that brought him up, “You are not my mother,” his tongue shall be cut out.
e

§ 193. If the son of a palace favorite or the son of a vowed woman has
f come to know his father's house and has hated his father that brought him
up, or his mother that brought him up, and shall go off to his father's house,
his eyes shall be torn out.

§ 194. If a man has given his son to a wet-nurse to suckle, and that son has
died in the hands of the nurse, and the nurse, without consent of the child's
f father or mother, has nursed another child, they shall prosecute her; because
she has nursed another child, without consent of the father or mother, her
e breasts shall be cut off.
r
§ 195. If a son has struck his father, his hands shall be cut off.

n [pg 062]

§ 196. If a man has knocked out the eye of a patrician, his eye shall be
knocked out.

§ 197. If he has broken the limb of a patrician, his limb shall be broken.
t
y § 198. If he has knocked out the eye of a plebeian or has broken the limb of
a plebeian, he shall pay one mina of silver.

§ 199. If he has knocked out the eye of a patrician's servant, or broken the
limb of a patrician's servant, he shall pay half his value.

§ 200. If a patrician has knocked out the tooth of a man that is his equal, his
tooth shall be knocked out.

§ 201. If he has knocked out the tooth of a plebeian, he shall pay one-third
of a mina of silver.

§ 202. If a man has smitten the privates of a man, higher in rank than he, he
shall be scourged with sixty blows of an ox-hide scourge, in the assembly.

§ 203. If a man has smitten the privates of a patrician of his own rank, he
shall pay one mina of silver.

§ 204. If a plebeian has smitten the privates of a plebeian, he shall pay ten
shekels of silver.

§ 205. If the slave of anyone has smitten the privates of a free-born man, his
ear shall be cut off.

§ 206. If a man has struck another in a quarrel, and caused him a permanent
injury, that man shall swear, “I struck him without malice,” and shall pay
the doctor.

§ 207. If he has died of his blows, [the man] shall swear [similarly], and pay
one-half a mina of silver; or,

§ 208. If [the deceased] was a plebeian, he shall pay one-third of a mina of
silver.

§ 209. If a man has struck a free woman with child, and has caused her to
miscarry, he shall pay ten shekels for her miscarriage.

§ 210. If that woman die, his daughter shall be killed.

§ 211. If it be the daughter of a plebeian, that has miscarried through his
blows, he shall pay five shekels of silver.

§ 212. If that woman die, he shall pay half a mina of silver.

§ 213. If he has struck a man's maid and caused her to miscarry, he shall
pay two shekels of silver.

§ 214. If that woman die, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

[pg 063]

§ 215. If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a
serious injury, and has cured him, or has removed with a bronze lancet a
cataract for a patrician, and has cured his eye, he shall take ten shekels of
silver.

§ 216. If it be plebeian, he shall take five shekels of silver.

§ 217. If it be a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of
silver to the surgeon.

§ 218. If a surgeon has operated with the bronze lancet on a patrician for a
serious injury, and has caused his death, or has removed a cataract for a
patrician, with the bronze lancet, and has made him lose his eye, his hands
shall be cut off.

§ 219. If the surgeon has treated a serious injury of a plebeian's slave, with
the bronze lancet, and has caused his death, he shall render slave for slave.

§ 220. If he has removed a cataract with the bronze lancet, and made the
slave lose his eye, he shall pay half his value.

§ 221. If a surgeon has cured the limb of a patrician, or has doctored a
diseased bowel, the patient shall pay five shekels of silver to the surgeon.
f
r § 222. If he be a plebeian, he shall pay three shekels of silver.

§ 223. If he be a man's slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels
of silver to the doctor.

§ 224. If a veterinary surgeon has treated an ox, or an ass, for a severe
injury, and cured it, the owner of the ox, or the ass, shall pay the surgeon
r one-sixth of a shekel of silver, as his fee.

§ 225. If he has treated an ox, or an ass, for a severe injury, and caused it to
e die, he shall pay one-quarter of its value to the owner of the ox, or the ass.
f
§ 226. If a brander has cut out a mark on a slave, without the consent of his
owner, that brander shall have his hands cut off.

§ 227. If someone has deceived the brander, and induced him to cut out a
mark on a slave, that man shall be put to death and buried in his house; the
brander shall swear, “I did not mark him knowingly,” and shall go free.

§ 228. If a builder has built a house for a man, and finished it, he shall pay
him a fee of two shekels of silver, for each SAR built on.

[pg 064]
§ 229. If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not made his work
sound, and the house he built has fallen, and caused the death of its owner,
d that builder shall be put to death.

d § 230. If it is the owner's son that is killed, the builder's son shall be put to
death.

§ 231. If it is the slave of the owner that is killed, the builder shall give
slave for slave to the owner of the house.

§ 232. If he has caused the loss of goods, he shall render back whatever he
has destroyed. Moreover, because he did not make sound the house he built,
and it fell, at his own cost he shall rebuild the house that fell.

§ 233. If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not keyed his work,
and the wall has fallen, that builder shall make that wall firm at his own
expense.

§ 234. If a boatman has built a boat of sixty GUR for a man, he shall pay
him a fee of two shekels of silver.

d § 235. If a boatman has built a boat for a man, and has not made his work
sound, and in that same year that boat is sent on a voyage and suffers
damage, the boatman shall rebuild that boat, and, at his own expense, shall
make it strong, or shall give a strong boat to the owner.

§ 236. If a man has let his boat to a boatman, and the boatman has been
careless and the boat has been sunk or lost, the boatman shall restore a boat
f to the owner.

§ 237. If a man has hired a boat and boatman, and loaded it with corn, wool,
oil, or dates, or whatever it be, and the boatman has been careless, and sunk
the boat, or lost what is in it, the boatman shall restore the boat which he
f sank, and whatever he lost that was in it.

§ 238. If a boatman has sunk a man's boat, and has floated it again, he shall
pay half its value in silver.

§ 239. If a man has hired a boatman, he shall pay him six GUR of corn
yearly.

§ 240. If a boat, on its course, has run into a boat at anchor, and sunk it, the
owner of the boat that was sunk shall estimate on oath whatever was lost in
f his boat, and the owner of the moving vessel, which sank the boat at anchor,
shall make good his boat and what was lost in it.

§ 241. If a man has levied a distraint on a working ox, he shall pay one-
third of a mina of silver.

[pg 065]

§ 242. If a man has hired a working ox for one year, its hire is four GUR of
corn.
f
d § 243. As the hire of a milch cow one shall give three GUR of corn to its
owner.

§ 244. If a man has hired an ox, or an ass, and a lion has killed it in the open
field, the loss falls on its owner.

f § 245. If a man has hired an ox and has caused its death, by carelessness, or
s blows, he shall restore ox for ox, to the owner of the ox.

r § 246. If a man has hired an ox, and has broken its leg, or cut its neck (?),
x he shall restore ox for ox, to the owner of the ox.
-
§ 247. If a man has hired an ox, and knocked out its eye, he shall pay to the
owner of the ox half its value.

§ 248. If a man has hired an ox, and has broken its horn, cut off its tail, or
torn its muzzle, he shall pay one-quarter of its value.
r § 249. If a man has hired an ox, and God has struck it, and it has died, the
man that hired the ox shall make affidavit and go free.

d § 250. If a bull has gone wild and gored a man, and caused his death, there
can be no suit against the owner.

§ 251. If a man's ox be a gorer, and has revealed its evil propensity as a
gorer, and he has not blunted its horn, or shut up the ox, and then that ox
y has gored a free man, and caused his death, the owner shall pay half a mina
a of silver.

§ 252. If it be a slave that has been killed, he shall pay one-third of a mina
of silver.

§ 253. If a man has set another over his field, hired him, allotted him tools,
and intrusted him with oxen for cultivating the field and provided harnesses
for them, and if that man has appropriated the seed or provender, and they
a have been found in his possession, his hands shall be cut off.

§ 254. If he has taken the provender or rations and has enfeebled the oxen,
he shall make it good from the corn he has hoed.

§ 255. If he has let out the man's oxen for hire, or stolen the seed-corn, or
has not produced a crop, that man shall be prosecuted, and he shall pay
sixty GUR of corn for each GAN.

§ 256. If he is not able to pay his compensation, he shall be torn in pieces
on that field by the oxen.

§ 257. If a man has hired a field-laborer, he shall pay him eight GUR of
corn yearly.
f
§ 258. If anyone has hired an ox-herd he shall pay him six GUR of corn
yearly.

[pg 066]

§ 259. If a man has stolen a watering-machine from the meadow, he shall
pay five shekels of silver to the owner of the watering-machine.
f
§ 260. If a man has stolen a shadduf, or a plough, he shall pay three shekels
of silver.

§ 261. If a man has hired a herdsman, to pasture oxen, or sheep, he shall
pay him eight GUR of corn yearly.

§ 262. If a man has intrusted ox or ass to ... [Passage mutilated.]
f § 263. If he has lost the ox, or ass, given to him, he shall restore ox for ox,
and ass for ass to its owner.

§ 264. If a herdsman, who has had oxen or sheep given to him to pasture,
has received his wages for the business, and been satisfied, then diminish
the herd or lessen the offspring, he shall give increase and produce
according to the nature of his agreements.

§ 265. If a herdsman, to whom oxen or sheep have been given, has
defaulted, has altered the price, or sold them, he shall be prosecuted, and
shall restore oxen, or sheep, tenfold, to their owner.

§ 266. If lightning has struck a fold, or a lion has made a slaughter, the
herdsman shall purge himself by oath, and the owner of the fold shall bear
the loss of the fold.

§ 267. If the herdsman has been careless, and a loss has occurred in the
fold, the herdsman shall make good the loss in the fold; he shall repay the
oxen, or sheep, to their owner.

§ 268. If a man has hired an ox, for threshing, its hire is twenty ḲA of corn.
f § 269. If he has hired an ass, for threshing, its hire is ten ḲA of corn.

§ 270. If he has hired a young animal, for threshing, its hire is one ḲA of
corn.

§ 271. If a man has hired oxen, a wagon, and its driver, he shall pay one
hundred and sixty ḲA of corn daily.
f
§ 272. If a man has hired the wagon alone, he shall pay forty ḲA of corn
d daily.

§ 273. If a man has hired a laborer from the beginning of the year to the
fifth month, he shall pay six ŠE of silver daily; from the sixth month to the
close of the year, he shall pay five ŠE of silver daily.
f

[pg 067]

§ 274. If a man has hired an artisan, he shall pay as his daily wages, to a ...
five ŠE of silver, to a potter five ŠE of silver, to a tailor five ŠE of silver, to
f a stone-cutter ... ŠE of silver, to a ... ŠE of silver, to a ... ŠE of silver, to a
carpenter four ŠE of silver, to a rope-maker four ŠE of silver, to a ... ŠE of
silver, to a builder ... ŠE of silver.

§ 275. If a man has hired a boat, its hire is three ŠE of silver daily.
f § 276. If he has hired a fast boat he shall pay two and a half ŠE daily.

§ 277. If a man has hired a ship of sixty GUR he shall pay one-sixth of a
shekel of silver daily for its hire.

§ 278. If a man has bought a male or female slave and the slave has not
fulfilled his month, but the bennu disease has fallen upon him, he shall
return the slave to the seller and the buyer shall take back the money he
r paid.

§ 279. If a man has bought a male or female slave and a claim has been
e raised, the seller shall answer the claim.

§ 280. If a man, in a foreign land, has bought a male, or female, slave of
another, and if when he has come home the owner of the male or female
slave has recognized his slave, and if the slave be a native of the land, he
f shall grant him his liberty without money.

§ 281. If the slave was a native of another country, the buyer shall declare
on oath the amount of money he paid, and the owner of the slave shall
n repay the merchant what he paid and keep his slave.
t
y § 282. If a slave has said to his master, “You are not my master,” he shall be
brought to account as his slave, and his master shall cut off his ear.

r This is not the place to write a commentary on the Code, but there are a few
necessary cautions. One of the first is that most clauses are permissive
rather than positive. The verb “shall” is not an imperative, but a future.

e Doubtless in case of heinous crimes the death-penalty had to be inflicted.
But there was always a trial, and proof was demanded on oath. In many
cases the “shall” is only permissive, as when the Code says a widow “shall”
marry again. There is no proof that the jury decided only facts and found
the prisoner guilty or not, leaving the judge no [pg 068] option but to inflict
the extreme penalty. The judge, on the contrary, seems to have had much
legislative power. When this view is taken, the Code appears no more
severe than those of the Middle Ages, or even of recent times, when a man
was hanged for sheep-stealing. There are many humanitarian clauses and
much protection is given the weak and the helpless. One of the best proofs
of its inherent excellence is that it helped to build up an empire, which
lasted many centuries and was regarded with reverence almost to the end.

[pg 069]

III. Later Babylonian Law

Very little is yet known regarding later Babylonian law. Dr. F. E. Peiser
published in the Sitzungsberichte der Königliche Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1889, pp. 823 ff.) a very interesting fragmentarily
preserved text (82-7-14, 988, in the British Museum), which contains either
a collection of abstracts of cases which have been decided, or precedents, or
else an extract from some code later than that of Ḥammurabi. Dr. Peiser
thought that the date was the second year of Ashurbânipal, king of Babylon.
This seems rather unlikely, but may, of course, be true.

In his inaugural dissertation, Dr. Peiser, under the title of Jurisprudentiae
Babylonicae quae supersunt, commented upon and illustrated the above
text by numerous examples of cases, actually occurring during the period of
the second empire. But the whole collection of fragments of law with which
he had to deal was too small to do more than show what may be hoped for
as the result of future discoveries.

As specimens of these laws we may take the following:

Law A. [Col. II. 4-14.]
t
The man who has sealed a tablet, by the name of another, in favor of an
owner of a field, or has sealed a bond, and has not caused to be executed a
deed giving him power of attorney, or has not taken a duplicate of such a
f tablet [cannot take possession]; the man, in whose name the tablet, or bond,
is written, shall take that field, or house.

[pg 070]
If a man acted as buyer, or lender, for another, he incurred liabilities, for
which he could not indemnify himself, unless he had secured from his
principal a deed empowering him so to act. But, if without such power of

attorney, A had acted for B, and bought a house, or field, of C, and had the
conveyance made out to B, of course paying C; or had lent money to C, in
the name of B; and the transaction had been completed, by sealing the deed
of sale or bond; then B was the owner of the field, or house, or the creditor
for the loan. A could not plead that he was the real owner, even if he had not
been able to recover the purchase-money or loan from B, in whose name he
had made it. B, whose name appeared in the deed or in the bond, was the
rightful owner.

Law B. [Col. II. 15-23.]

e The man, who has sold a female slave and has had an objection made
concerning her, shall take her back. The seller shall give to the buyer the
price named in the deed of sale, to its exact amount, and shall pay half a
shekel of silver for each of the children born to her.

How long after sale objection could be raised is not stated. In early times a
month was allowed for fever to develop; in Assyrian contracts a hundred
days were allowed for fever or seizure. But a sartu, or “vice,” could be
pleaded, at any time, as ground for returning the slave. Here it is clear that
time was allowed for a slave to bear one or more children, before the
repudiation lost effect. It is noteworthy that the seller had to buy back such
children. The maid may have been bought to bear her master children, and
if these were not sound, the master had ground for complaint and could not
be held responsible for them. Also it was objectionable to separate mother
and children. The price named is trifling. Compare § 278 of the Code,
where, however, no mention is made of the children of a maid.

[pg 071]
The next law is unintelligible at present, owing to the lacunae, and doubtful
readings of the text, which, moreover, is only given in transcription. It
appears to concern a woman and her interests in a field or plantation and the
trees in it, and its produce.

Law C. [Col. III. 3-15.]

A man has given his daughter to a freeborn man and the father has fixed
something in a deed and given to his son, and the first-named has fixed a
marriage-portion for his daughter and they have mutually executed deeds of
settlement. They shall not alter their deeds. The father shall give in full the
t settlement (nuṣurru), which he had promised his son by deed, to the father-
in-law, and deliver it.

f
d The father here named appears to be the father of the bridegroom. He must
make a settlement on his son, as well as the father of the bride on his
daughter. The point of the law seems to be that these settlements on the part
of the parents to the young couple are irrevocable. No subsequent
engagements entered into can affect them. This settlement by the
bridegroom's father on his son, which he has to pay over to the bride's
father, evidently takes the place of the terḫatu, or “bride-price” of the Code.
The obligation of a father to find his son the means for a bride-price appears
in the Code, § 166; but there is no section which answers directly to this
law. The marriage-portion is now nudunnu, in the Code it was šeriktu, while
nudunnu was the husband's gift to the wife.

Law D. [Col. III. 16-22.]

f When the father [of the bridegroom] has had his wife taken away by fate, has
f taken to himself a second wife, and she has borne him sons, the sons of the
second wife shall take a third of his property remaining.

This appears as part of the same section as Law C, and is enacted again in
Law K, page 69. It is not easy to see why it is here, except to make plain
that settlements on [pg 072] marriages of the sons of the first family are a
first charge on the father's property. The second family takes a third, not of
all the father once had, but of what is left after these gifts by deed have been
taken out. The married sons of the first family are not disinherited by virtue
of these gifts, but take among them two-thirds of what is left. This is against
the Code, § 167.

Law E. [Col. III. 23-31.]

A man who has promised a marriage-portion to his daughter, or has written
her a deed of gift, and afterward his means have diminished, shall give to his
daughter a marriage-portion according to his means that are left. Father-in-
e law and son-in-law shall not quarrel one with the other.

Dr. Peiser has shown that the marriage-portion was often held back a long
t time. Suits were brought to recover it from fathers-in-law. There is no
corresponding section in the Code.
f

Law F. [Col. III. 32-37.]

f A man has given a marriage-portion to his daughter and she has neither son
nor daughter and fate has carried her off; her marriage-portion returns to her
father's house.

Exactly as in the Code, § 163.

The first seven lines of Col. IV. are too fragmentary to give a connected
sense, but are still concerned with the marriage-portion.

Law G. [Col. IV. 8-24.]
f
A wife, whose marriage-portion her husband has received, who has no son or
a daughter, and fate has carried off her husband, shall be given from her
husband's property the marriage-portion, whatever that was. If her husband
has made her a gift, she shall receive the gift of her husband with her
marriage-portion and take it away. If she had no marriage-portion, the judge
shall estimate the property of her husband and, according to her husband's
means, shall grant her something.

[pg 073]
It is noteworthy that in the above laws the old usage is reversed. Now the
nudunnu is the marriage-portion, given with the bride, and the šeriktu is the
husband's assignment to the wife. With this alteration the law agrees with
the Code, § 171. But there she has a family.

Law H. [Col. IV. 25-45.]

A man has married a wife and she has borne him children; after that man has
a been carried off by fate, and that woman has set her face to enter the house of
another, she shall take the marriage-portion which she brought from her
father's house, and whatever her husband presented her as a gift, and shall
n marry the husband of her choice. As long as she lives, she shall enjoy food
and drink from them. If there be children of this husband, they and the
children of the former husband shall share her marriage-portion. The
sisters....

This is practically the same as Code, § 170, but it is differently arranged and
the phrases differ markedly. Note that the sisters were separately treated.

Law K. [Col. V. 33-46.]

e A man has married a wife and she has borne him children, and fate has
a carried off his wife; he has married a second wife and she has borne him
e children; after the father has gone to his fate, the children of the former wife
shall take two-thirds of the goods of their father's house, the children of the
second wife shall take one-third. Their sisters who are dwelling in their
father's house....

This must be contrasted with § 167 of the Code. There all sons share
equally. Here the first family take two-thirds. The sisters were also treated
separately. It is clear that we have to do with a code which preserves many
features of the early times, but has many new features of its own. It is
greatly to be desired that further portions should be published.

[pg 074]

IV. The Social Organization Of The Ancient
Babylonian State

The State appears in the light of the Ḥammurabi Code to have been
composed of three great classes, the amêlu, the muškênu, and the ardu. To
e the first class belonged the king and the chief officers of state, and also the
landed proprietors. Their liabilities for fines and punishments were higher.
f Also in their case the old law of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” still held;
while others came under a scale of compensations and damages. This may
point to a racial difference. The ancient laws of Arabia may have been
e carried with them by Ḥammurabi's tribal followers, while the older subject-
e residents accepted the more commercial system of fines. The old pride of
the Arab tribesman may have forbidden his taking money as payment for
d his damaged eye, or tooth. But the muškênu was more “humble,” as his
name denotes, and may well have formed the bulk of the subject-
population. He was a free man, not a beggar. He was not without
considerable means, as we see from the sections referring to theft from him.
He had slaves,62 and seems to have been liable to conscription. His fees to a
doctor or surgeon were less than those paid by an amêlu. He paid less to his
wife for a divorce,63 and could assault another poor man more cheaply than
could an amêlu. There can be no doubt that the amêlu was the [pg 075]
“gentleman” or “nobleman,” and the muškênu a common man, or poor man.
But the exact force of the terms is uncertain.

In process of time amêlu came to be used, like our “sir,” and even
“esquire,” of those who had no special qualifications for the title. Like the
“gentleman's gentleman” of the servant's hall, he was only a respectable
person. So, even in the Code, amêlu usually means no more than “man.” It
already appears as a mere determinative of personality in the titles of
laborers and artisans,64 when it cannot stamp them as landed proprietors.
But it may mark them as members of the guilds of craftsmen and recall the

respect due to such. If, however, we press this, we must admit a guild of
day laborers.

There is no suggestion of any legal disability on the part of a muškênu; he is
merely a person of less consideration. Whether or not his ranks were
recruited from the children of slaves by free parents is not clear, but it is
very probable that they were.

The slave was at his master's command and, like a child in his father's
house, to some extent a chattel. He could be pledged for debt, as could a
wife or child. He was subject to the levy,65 and his lot was so far unpleasant
that we hear much of runaway slaves. It was penal to harbor a slave, or to
keep one caught as a fugitive.66 Any injury done to him was paid for, and
his master received the damages.67 But he was free to marry a free woman
and the children were free. So a slave-girl was free on her master's death, if
she had borne him children; and the children were also free. He was subject
to mutilation for assaulting a free man, or repudiating his master.68 But his
master had to pay for his cure, if sick.69 He was not free to contract, except
by deed and bond.70 Yet he and his free wife [pg 076] could acquire
property, half of which would fall to his wife and children on his death.

The Code reveals the existence of a class of men, who were indeed known
from the letters of Ḥammurabi and the contemporary contracts, but whose
- functions are not easy to fix. They were the rîd ṣâbî and the bâ´iru. By their
d etymology these titles seemed to mean “slave-driver,” and “catcher.” But
the Code sets them in a clearer light. They were closely connected, if not
identical, officials. They had charge of the levy, the local quota for the
army, or for public works. Hence “levy-master” and “warrant-officer” are
suggestive renderings. For the former official, “taskmaster,” the one over
the gang of forced laborers and reminiscent of the old time press-gang
officers, is a fair translation. “Field cornet” would perhaps suit the military
side. For some aspects of their office the ancient “reeve” may be compared.
Whether the “catcher” actually was a local policeman, whose chief duty
was to apprehend criminals and reluctant conscripts, is not yet clear. The
same name is used of “fishermen,” who were “catchers” in another sense,
and of hunters. A really satisfactory rendering is impossible, as we have
now no officials whose duties actually correspond to theirs.

Each of these officials held what may be called a benefice, or perhaps a
feoff. It consisted of land, house, and garden, certain sheep and cattle as
stock, and a salary. It was directly ascribed to the king as benefactor. We
may compare the Norman lords settled in England by the Conqueror, or the
Roman soldier-colonists. The men may well have been the followers of the
first founder of the dynasty. In a very similar way the Chaldean conqueror,
Merodach-baladan II., long after, settled his Chaldean troops in Babylonia.
We may regard these men as retainers of the king, and probably as
originally foreigners. The benefice was held by them for [pg 077] personal
service. They were to go “on the king's errand” when ordered. It was a
penal offence to send a substitute.71 The errand might take them away from
home and detain them a very long time. In such enforced absence the
official might delegate his son to take his place and carry on his duty.72 This
implies that there was a local duty besides the personal service. Further, this
needed a grown man to discharge it.73 The locum tenens enjoyed the
benefice,74 with a reserve of one-third for the wife to bring up the children
of the absent official. An official by neglecting the care of his benefice ran
the risk of forfeiture.75 This came about by his absence giving the locum
tenens opportunity to acquire a prescriptive right, which he might do in
three years, if he showed himself a more worthy holder. But this was only if
the absentee had been neglectful, and a one-year tenancy conferred no such
right.76

The service on which the official might be engaged was evidently military
and had risks. It is not certain whether the dannatu77 is really a “fortress,” or
a “defeat.” The word has both meanings. It does not really matter. Either
c way the official is captured by the enemy of the king. He was bound to pay
for his own ransom, if he had the means; or if not, his town must ransom
him and, failing that, the state. But he could not raise money on his
benefice. Moreover, while it could descend to his son, it was inalienable.
No diminution by bequest to his female relatives, no sale of part of it, no
mortgage on it, nor even its exchange for other like estate, was allowed.

Further, the official and his benefice were protected. He could not be hired
out by his superior officers, nor in any way plundered or oppressed. He held
tax free, subject only to his feudal duty.

In some cases the tributary there is associated with these [pg 078] two
officials. No duty is set down for him, beyond that implied in his name of
paying a tribute. It is not clear that all land was held on one or the other
scheme, but it is so in parts of the East still. Some land is held by personal
service, some on payment of a tax. This tax later became the tithe. The
personal service was later compounded for by furnishing a soldier or two
for the army. The liability to serve in the levy continued to be borne by
slaves and the lower classes.

That all land did owe either personal service, or tax, is probably to be
deduced from § 40, where we read that though a levy-master, warrant-
d officer, or tributary could alienate nothing of their holdings, other land-
owners could do so. But they did so subject to the buyer taking over the
duty, or service, of the land so transferred. One of the classes here named,
the votary, appears subject to service elsewhere. The votary of Marduk is
expressly exempt from this service.78 The merchant, who represents another
class, appears very often to have been a foreigner, only temporarily resident
in the country.

The votary was already known to us from the contracts, but there was little
to fix her functions. As seen in the Code, she was a highly favored person.
Vowed to God, usually to Shamash at Sippara, or Marduk at Babylon, there
seems little to connect her with the prostitute-votaries of Ishtar at Erech.
She ordinarily lived in the convent, or “bride-house” of Shamash. She was
given a portion, exactly like a bride, on taking her vow and becoming the
“bride” of Shamash. But her property did not go to the convent. At her
father's death, with her consent, her estate might be administered by her
brothers, or she could farm it out. At any rate, she was provided for during
her lifetime. But at her death, unless her father had specially given her
power to bequeath it, her property went [pg 079] back to her family. She
was not, however, doomed to spend all her days in the convent. She could
leave it and even marry. But she was expected to maintain a high standard
of respectability. For her to open a beer-shop or even enter one for drink
was punished by burning. She remained a virgin, even if married. She could
have no children and must provide her husband with a maid, if he wished to
have a family. But she was carefully guarded from any reproach as
childless. She ranks as a married woman, even if unmarried, and is

protected from slander. Many noble ladies, and even kings' daughters, were
votaries.79

The merchant continually appears. Some passages suggest that he was a
state official. But this is really pressing far the interest which the state took
in him. He was, doubtless, like the Jew of the Middle Ages, a valuable asset
to the king. He seems to have been the usual moneylender, so much so that
in many places “merchant” and “creditor” are interchangeable. A man is
usually said to borrow of “his merchant,” as we say “of his banker.”
Doubtless, the king also borrowed from him. It is certain that the Code was
very lenient to him. But the merchant also did business in the way of
ordinary trade. As a capitalist he sent out his travellers and agents with
goods far and wide, even into domains where the king's authority did not
reach. Much of the Code is occupied with regulating the relations between
the merchant and his agent. The agency was that form of commenda which
is so characteristic of the East at the present. The agent takes stock or
money of his principal, signs for it, agrees to pay so much profit, and goes
off to seek a market, making what profit he can. There is much to suggest
that the merchant was not usually a Babylonian. In later times, the
Arameans were the chief merchants, and travelled all over Mesopotamia,
Palestine, Syria, and into Asia Minor.

[pg 080]

V. Judges, Law-Courts, And Legal Processes

Partly because specific references to judges and legal processes are not
necessarily to be expected in historical inscriptions, and partly because we
do not really know which are the earliest monuments of the race, it is
e impossible to decide when law-courts first came into existence. It is
generally admitted, however, that the stele of Manistusu is one of the
earliest known monuments. There we read of Galzu, a judge. There also we
find many of the officials, who later acted as judges upon occasion. Hence
it may fairly be said that judges were to be found in ancient Babylonia from
time immemorial. They must have decided what was right when there was
no written law to which to appeal. With the judges were associated as
assessors the elders of the city. This was so marked a feature, that in some
cases we read, that after hearing the complaint the judge “assembled the
city” to hear the case. In Babylonia the maxim, littera scripta manet, was so
well understood that hardly anything of importance was done without
committing it to writing. Hence we are as well informed about domestic
affairs in Babylonia as about those of Europe in the Middle Ages.

It seems best to consider legal usages first, because they are essential to the
understanding of all others. When we have a simple contract between two
f parties we do not at once see where the reference to the law comes in. But
[pg 081] the contract was not valid unless sealed and witnessed. The sealing
was accompanied by an oath. The oath probably had to be made in court.
y The witnesses seem often to have been a body of men who could only be
found at the court. Even when there is least trace of the law and the judge,
the case is similar to others where the judge appears explicitly. It is also
worthy of remark that, partly owing to our possession of the Code and
partly owing to the fuller nature of the legal decisions, we know far more of
this subject, as of many others, in the early periods than in the later. Hence
the discussion of early legal usage is unusually full. When the evidence
from later times merely supports this, it will not be noticed. Only

divergences are worthy of record. As a rule, the procedure changes very
little for many centuries.

1. Judges. The references to judges are less numerous than one would
expect in the Code. But it seems probable that the sentences there laid down
t had to be pronounced by the judge, if not carried out by him. We are,
however, still in complete ignorance as to the machinery of police
administration. We may argue from analogy in other countries and ages, but
this is not a theoretical treatise on comparative sociology. We must content
ourselves with direct evidence.

Some sections deal explicitly with the duties of a judge. Thus,80 if a judge
had given a judgment, decided the case, and embodied it in a legal decision,
he was subjected to severe penalties for afterwards revoking his decision. If
he had inflicted a penalty, he had now to repay it twelvefold to him from
whom it was exacted. Further he was to be publicly deposed from his
office, expelled from his seat of judgment, kussû daianûtišu, and no longer
be permitted to sit with the judges. It is, of course, assumed that when [pg
082] he was called to account he could not justify his former judgment, or
else could not justify the change. But, as the law reads, it seems simply
calculated to render a judgment, once pronounced, irrevocable,—at any
rate, for that judge. Probably its revocation, in the case of injustice, was
provided for by the right of appeal.

He had to consider the words of the witnesses, amâtišunu amâru, literally,
“to see their words,” perhaps implying that the depositions were written, but
there are instances where amâru simply means “to consider.”81

In a criminal case, where a man had to produce witnesses to save his life
from a death-sentence, the judge might grant him six months' grace in
which to produce his witnesses.82 In later times we have many examples of
such a stay of process that evidence might be produced.83

Special directions are also given to a judge as to his procedure, when a
father was minded to disinherit his son; or, when a widow with a young
family wished to marry again.84 A slanderer was summoned before the
judge,85 a son could not be cut off without referring the case to a judge,86 the

children who wished to turn their widowed mother out of her house had to
appear before a judge.87

For the most part judges constituted a distinct profession, but it must not be
understood that they had no other means of livelihood. Indeed, there is no
hint anywhere that they received any remuneration for their services. But it
d was a high honor and by no means subsidiary to another office. Among
those who officiated as judges we find most of the higher officials.
Doubtless the king himself acted as judge on occasions, and probably no
great official of the realm was wholly free from the call to act in a judicial
capacity. But, as a rule, the judge is simply noted as “judge.” That the
priests were judges is quite unproved. [pg 083] The judges were men of
great importance and high rank, but there is nothing to show that they were
priests. An age qualification is more likely.

The judge was a professional man. We often find a man, bearing the title
“judge,” acting as party to a suit, or witness to a deed, when he is certainly
f not acting in his judicial capacity. To a certain extent he was a territorial
officer, had his own district for jurisdiction, and was jealous of cases being
taken elsewhere. How the ranks of the judges were filled we do not know,
but there is a hint of royal appointment in the phrase, “the king's judges.”
On the other hand, there is clear evidence of the office being hereditary.
Thus, Ibik-Anunîtum had no less than three sons, Idin-Ishtar, Marduk-
mushallim, and Nannar-idinnam, all judges. Whether a right to the office
descended in the female line is not quite clear, but we find a lady, Ishtar-
ummu, among the judges, on occasion. She was also the scribe.88

Though many high officials acted as judges, and so doing are named before
the simple “judge,” there is no evidence of the existence of any “chief
- judge.” The order of names appears to be that of seniority alone. This may
be due to the nature of our documents. The phrase-books name a “chief
judge” for Sumerian times. In the later Assyrian period the chief-justice was
called sartênu, evidently because he fixed the sartu, or fine, on the
condemned party. Then also many high officials acted as judges.89

2. Scribes.—The scribe exercised his craft as a profession. One often meets
with a scribe, tupšarru, acting in a private capacity, as party to a suit, or as
witness. He retains the title even when the deed is drawn up by another

writer. The class was very numerous. Almost every document is drawn up
by a fresh scribe, so far as the scribe's name is [pg 084] recorded, for he
often omits his title. Generally he is the last of the witnesses, but not always
so.

He wrote the whole of the document, including the names of the witnesses.
There is no evidence that anyone else ever wrote a word on the document.
As a rule, even when the names of the fathers of the witnesses are given, the
scribe is content to write only his title after his name. Hence we have no
evidence whether the office was hereditary or not.

Women certainly were scribes. Out of a total of ninety names of scribes
known, at least ten were women. Here a difficulty arises from the way in
which women's names occur. At this period proper names are usually
written without the determinative which marks sex. Nor do the names
decide, for both men and women bore the same name. Thus Taribatum is
the name of two men and also of two women. Only when the title tupšarru
is given, is the feminine determinative prefixed to that. We have, however,
ten clear examples.

In the later times the scribe usually was a man, but female scribes are
known.90 The Aramaic scribe is often named, also the Egyptian. The scribe
usually “held” the agreement, which probably means that the parties were
willing to leave it in his safe-keeping.

The scribe was not a judge. It may be true that he sometimes acted as judge
or became one, but then the higher office overshadowed the lower. He was
e no longer scribe but judge. A judge may sometimes have written down his
legal decision and so acted as scribe, but we have no evidence of such a
case. The judge seems never to have dispensed with the services of the
scribe.

The scribe was not a priest. There is no evidence whatever that either priests
were all scribes, or could all write, [pg 085] or that scribes were necessarily
e priests. As a matter of fact, the same man may have acted both as scribe and
priest. But the offices are distinct and no one man ever bears both titles.
That in later times the amêlu RID, whose title can be read šangû, usually
acts as scribe is due to the peculiar nature of the documents. These concern

transactions in which the property of the temple, or of its officials, was in
question, and one of the college of priests attached to that temple was
charged with the duty of notary where temple interests were concerned. One
might as well say that every clerk in the Middle Ages was a priest, because
all the deeds of the monastery with which we were dealing were drawn up
by Brother A, whose name was entered in some monastery list of the
brethren as a priest. Whether the scribes were clerics, and always attached
to some temple, in minor orders, is not clear. On the whole, the evidence is
against this conclusion.

3. Witnesses.—The word used to designate a witness is šîbu, which denotes
those who are “gray-headed,” but it is not certain that it can have no other
meaning. It may mean those who were “present.” In actual use we can
distinguish three classes of persons to whom the term “witness” can be
applied.

First we have the elders, the šîbu, of a city.91 Possibly the Kar-sippar, by
which some men swore, or in presence of which a contract was drawn up,
were these elders of Sippar. They formed the puḫru, or “assembly,” in
whose presence a man was scourged,92 from which a prevaricating judge
was expelled.93 They may have been nominated, or at least approved, by the
king; for we read of šîbê šarri. They were not exclusively men, for we have
šîbê û šîbatu.94 The recurrence of the same names, at the same dates,
indicates that a body of official witnesses were held in readiness [pg 086] to
act on such occasions. Many of them were temple officials, or members of
the guild of Shamash votaries.

Sometimes they are associated with the judges in such a way as to show
that they were assessors.95 They included judges sometimes, at any rate
y “this witness” is attached to a list of names which included a nâgiru of
Babylon, a judge, and other high officials.96 In the time of Nûr-Adadi they
sent a case before the king.97 They actually gave judgment.98 We may regard
them as a jury, especially a grand jury, qualified by their own knowledge to
understand the rights of the case and to judge of evidence. The judge gave
the sentence.

Secondly, we may distinguish the witnesses examined on oath. It is not
clear that these were called by the same name. In the Code we read of šîbi

mûdi, “the witnesses that know,” who seem to resemble very closely the
Greek Histores. These, of course, were usually not on the jury. They
testified, and were chosen by the parties to the suit. But the judge might
examine persons who, in his opinion, would know. He selected and sent for
them, directing the parties whom to produce. He might even adjourn the
case for the production of witnesses.99

Thirdly, we may distinguish the witnesses to a document. Very often we can
discern that these had an interest in the case. They might be relatives of the
parties, neighbors of the estate in question, officials whose rights were
concerned. In later times they received the special name of mukinnu, “the
establishers.” They may be presumed to have known at least the general
purport of the deed which they witnessed. When the deed was called in
question, they would be cited to state what they knew. In the case of legal
decisions, both judges and jury occur as witnesses in this sense. Hence, in a
great many cases the distinctions drawn [pg 087] above do not hold.
Whether the term šîbu was ever applied to the third class is doubtful. Their
names are usually preceded by the sign which means “before,” however it
was read.

4. Cases of dispute settled out of court.—When parties disagreed, they
might discuss their difference between themselves and arrive at an
agreement. Then they procured a scribe, who embodied the agreement in a
f binding compact, duppu lâ ragâmi. This took the form of a contract, the
parties mutually undertaking not to withdraw from the agreement, re-open
the dispute, or bring legal action, one against the other. To give sanction to
this agreement, they swore by the gods and the king. Witnesses were called
upon to be cognizant of and attest the contract; and their names were added
to the contract. To authenticate their names both parties and witnesses often
impressed their seals or, in default of seals, made a nail-mark. The date was
then added. Each party seems to have taken a copy of the agreement and the
scribe held a third, or deposited it in the archives. Such cases may be said to
have been settled “out of court.” At any rate they contain no reference to a
judge, or court. But it is possible that the administration of the oath was a
judicial, or perhaps a sacerdotal function. Further, the witnesses may have
been drawn from a body of men held in readiness at court to perform that
function. It is certain in some cases, that agreements arrived at

independently were taken to a judge for confirmation,100 and the Code
expressly directs some cases to be taken to a judge. But it is probable that
many cases were settled by mutual agreement.

When the intervention of a judge was deemed essential, one of the parties
“complained.” The word really means to “cry out,” “protest”; but it is used
in the freest way as [pg 088] equivalent to bringing the action. There is no
evidence that anyone then submitted to wrong “under protest.” Whether the
people were naturally litigious, or simply because access to the courts was
so easy, a protest usually involved a suit.

The plea was made by the principals to the suit. There is no mention of an
advocate, or solicitor. But the verb generally used of the plea ragâmu, gives
rise to targumânu, the original of the modern dragoman. He usually appears
in later texts as the “interpreter,” but may originally have been the
“advocate.” At any rate, in the bilingual days he might well have combined
the offices. Another verb common at this period, pakâru, gave rise to
pâkirânu, later the usual word for “plaintiff,” or “claimant.”

Here may be noted a peculiarity of the scribe's conception of the case. It
will be found that, as he puts the case, the plaintiff generally loses. This is
because the scribe will not prejudge the case by saying who was right. He
n writes “A claimed the property of B.” In actual fact it may have been that B
laid claim to what he proved was his. But that excludes the scribe from
saying that B claimed the property of A, because it never was A's. Hence,
writing after the event, he ascribes the property to the rightful owner from
the start of his document, and regards the wrongful holder as laying claim
to it. Hence, we must not assume that the parties were not both claimants. In
fact, both parties agreed, as a rule, so far as to submit their case to a judge.
This is clear from the statements which follow the statement of the cause of
dispute. Both parties “went to the judges,” or rather quaintly, “they captured
a judge.” The preliminary discussion between the parties resulted in
agreement to submit the case to a judge. Both were willing to abide by the
decision. Once, it is true, the plaintiff is said to have caught the
defendant;101 but there is no evidence [pg 089] of unwillingness to submit.
So too, when the parties are said to “receive a judge,” they evidently both
sought him.

Sometimes affairs did not go so smoothly. One party had to act and bring
the other before the judges102 or “caused them to come before the judge.”
e There are indications that the judges sometimes had to summon a party
before them, or as the scribe puts it, “bring him before the other party.” This
is also expressed by the judges “sending up” a party.103

There is considerable evidence that cases might be sent before the judges by
a higher party, the king himself. These cases were probably on the suit of a
plaintiff. In the letters of the First Dynasty we have examples of the king
sending to the local judges his own decision on the case, which they had to
carry out; or in other cases he simply sent the case for trial.104

The parties, having found a judge and obtained a day for hearing, “entered,”
or “went down to,” the great temple of Shamash, at Sippara, called
Ebabbarim.105 There, as we know, Ḥammurabi set up one of the copies of
r the Code. The case was heard sometimes at the “old gate.”106 At Babylon,
a the parties were taken to the temple of Merodach, Esagila.107 At Larsa, the
“gate” of NIN-MAR-KI, or the temple of Sin, might be chosen.108 The
temple of Ishhara is also named.109

5. Procedure.—We have only scattered hints regarding legal procedure.
The Code says that the judges “saw the pleas.”110 The scribe uses the same
expression.111 As a rule, he records the plaintiff's statement of claim first.
Then he records a counter-statement. There is a strong [pg 090] suggestion
that he quotes from written documents. The judges read these, or heard the
verbal statements.

As part of the legal process, the object in dispute, or, at any rate, the deeds
relating to it, were brought into court, and resigned into the hands of the
y god.112 He was to discern the rightful owner and restore the object to him.
Hence the decision was “the judgment of Shamash in the house of
Shamash,113 the judgment of the house of Shamash.”114 So the defendant
f was said “to make his account before Shamash.”115 In bringing a suit the
l parties “sought the altar of Shamash.”116 In case of loss or damage, the
claimant recounted it “before god.”

In confirmation of the statements alleged witnesses might be called for, who
were put on oath before god and the king. They were supposed to know the
object claimed and whose it was,117 or to know that a transaction had taken
place.118

Tampering with witnesses, or with a jury, was penalized by the Code.119 The
judges might refuse to accept the witness,120 and then might decide the case
on the sworn deposition of the plaintiff.

Documentary evidence might be demanded. The judges might decide to
take the evidence of their own senses and go to see an estate or a house in
dispute.121 Or they might determine that it was a case for the accused to
f purge himself, which he did by oath.122

Having thus informed themselves of the rights of the case the judges
proceeded to pronounce a decision, “they caused them to receive
judgment.” This phrase nearly always occurs in the legal decisions. The
decision might be called “the judgment of the particular judge,” for
example, dîn Išarlim, “Israel's judgment.”123 The sentence [pg 091] is
sometimes stated in the words of the judges themselves, introduced by ikbu,
“they said.”124 Thus we read “the tablet which A granted to B is good, they
said.”125

If one party was in the wrong, the judges “laid the wrong on him,”126 or “put
him in the wrong.”127 When the suit was to recover a debt, or find
compensation, the judges might name a sum which they paid over to the
proper person.128 This was damages, not a fine.

A ceremony which often took place on the annulment of a former
agreement, or cancelling of a deed was the breaking of the tablet
a embodying the former contract. The same ceremony took place on
repayment of a debt, or on dissolution of a partnership, apparently without
recourse to judges. This was ordered by the Code in case of purchases of
property which it was illegal to sell or buy, such as the benefice of a reeve
or runner.129 So when an adopted child had failed to carry out the bond to
nourish and care for the adoptive parent, the deed of adoption was formally
broken by the judges.130

For later times we have little evidence. What there is was collected by
Kohler-Peiser,131 and agrees in general with the above.

6. The decision.—In these ways the judges “quieted the strife,” “composed
the complaint.”132 It was the standard conception of a legal decision that it
l should be irrevocable. The Code enacts the deprivation and deposition of a
judge for revoking his judgment.133 The legal decisions lay down the
stipulation that the losing party shall not “turn back,” shall not “complain.”
These phrases nearly always occur, as they do also in contracts. To insure
compliance with the decision the judges again exacted an oath. Whether
both parties swore, or only the losers, is not clear. The statement [pg 092]
usually is “they swore,” without mention of the persons who did so.

The decision, being complete, was embodied in a document drawn up by
the scribe, regularly witnessed, often by the judges, and sealed. Thus it was
that the judges granted him an irrevocable tablet.134 These irrevocable
tablets, practically imperishable also, have now come after thousands of
years, to tell their tale.

7. Administration of the oath.—The ceremony of swearing to the truth of
evidence, or the terms of a compact, is continually mentioned. The exact
form of words used in taking the oath is not certain; but in actual suits, in
f the law-court procedure, the judges administered an oath to both parties and
witnesses. In the Code oaths were admitted for purgation of alleged
crime,135 as evidence of loss, deposit, injury;136 and the reception of a sworn
deposition is recorded.137 References to oaths continually occur in the
contracts.

The judges “gave them to the oath before Shamash and Adad,”138 or, more
briefly, “gave him to the oath of god.”139 The name of the god by whom
f men swore is usually given. As might be expected, the god who figured
most prominently in the Code was Shamash, the chief deity of Sippara,
often associated with his consort, Aia, or Malkatu. Sometimes the oath was
“by the king.”140 Often one or more gods and the king are named together.
When Babylon became supreme it was usual to swear by Marduk and the
local gods as well. The significance of these oaths for historical purposes is
great, both as indicating political relationships, and as often affording by the
name of the king the only clew to the date of the document. Mr. King, in his

[pg 093] edition of the Chronicle,141 and Dr. Lindl,142 have made skilful use
of these oaths in determining chronology.

The administration of the oath took place before the censer of Shamash143 or
at the shrine, Šašaru, of Shamash,144 in Sippara; or before the emblematic
e dragon sculptured on the doors of the Marduk temple at Babylon.145 Other
t places are named which we are not yet able to identify. A kind of magical
conjuration appears sometimes to have been employed,146 which is not yet
understood.

The purport of the oath was, not to give false evidence, or, in the case of
contracts, not to alter the stipulated agreements. It is often followed by the
words, “whoever shall alter or dispute the words of this tablet,” evidently a
quotation of the words of the oath; but the consequence of so doing is not
given. Either it was too well known, or too awful, for the scribe to write it
down.

In Assyrian times the oath did not play such an important part. Still, it was
in use occasionally. The oath is generally found in documents of the grand
l style, such as royal charters. Oaths also are of interest for the pantheon of
n Assyria.147 A common way of expressing the same thing was to call on a
god to be judge of the case, as for example, “Shamash be judge,” or
“Shamash be advocate,” that is, “take up the case.” So the king's son, or
crown prince, is invoked to be the advocate. An appeal was also made to the
decision of the king. The gods, “Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Bêl, and Nabû, the
gods of Assyria, shall require it at his hands” is another way of putting the
case. These examples illustrate the meaning of the older oaths. There do not
seem to be any cases of the witnesses being put on oath.

But the oath lingered on into very late Babylonian times, [pg 094] when we
have some very full forms. If anyone shall change or alter the agreement,
“may Marduk and Zarpanit decree his destruction.”148 In Persian times we
find a curse on the same breach of faith in the terms, “whosoever shall
n attempt to alter this agreement, may Anu, Bêl, and Ea curse him with a
bitter curse, may Nabû, the scribe of Esagila, put a period to his future.”149 It
is curious thus to note a recrudescence of old forms in these later times. Was
it merely an antiquarian fashion or had the Persians earlier come under
strong Babylonian influence and preserved the old forms which had died

out in their native home? The Elamite contracts suggest exactly the same
question. In them it seems evident that Elam, once under Babylonian
influence, adopted and preserved, under native rulers, forms of which we
have no trace in Babylonia, but which clearly came from that country.
Assyria is another case in point. She kept forms which we know date back
before the time of her independence and which had disappeared from the
contemporary Babylonian documents. In the later Babylonian times we still
find the parties and the witnesses in a law-court put to the oath.150

8. Penalties.—An unsuccessful suitor was not allowed to get off merely
with the loss of his suit. He had been put on his oath and been unable to
justify himself, or the word that he had spoken. According to the Code, if
the suit was a capital suit, this was punished with death.151 But even if the
case was less serious, it was slander to have brought a false accusation, and
the penalty for slander was branding.152 This penalty was inflicted on an
unsuccessful suitor for possession of a house sold by his father.153 Another
form of penalty for unsuccessful litigation was that the suitor should not
only lose his case but actually be condemned [pg 095] to pay the penalty
which he, if successful, would have brought on the other party.154 That this
is what was really intended by the clauses is shown by the case of
Belilitum, who as late as b.c. 555,155having brought a suit to recover a debt
which she alleged was not paid, was convicted of perjury by the production
of the receipt, and by the evidence of her own children, and not only lost
her case, but was condemned to pay the sum for which she had sued to him
from whom she sought to obtain it. This was of course a form of retaliation.

In Assyrian times the parties usually bound themselves not to litigate, nor
attempt to disturb the settlement made between them, under heavy forfeits
to the treasury of a god, often tenfold the value of the object in dispute, and
sometimes prohibitive in amount. Such sums as two talents of silver, or two
talents of gold, controvert the idea that these forfeits were looked upon as
possible deposits by a claimant desiring to reopen the case. They were
terrific penalties intended to deter any attempt at litigation.

The forfeit sometimes took the form of white horses, or foals (?), which
were dedicated to a divinity. Very interesting is the mention of the
f dedication of the eldest child to a god, or goddess. This is worded as if the

dedication was to be by fire. The additional mention of incense or
cedarwood, as accompanying the offering, renders it probable that it was
really meant that the litigant should be punished by the sacrifice of his child
as a “burnt offering” to the god. But this only makes it clearer that such
penalties were simply meant to be deterrent. We have no proof that such an
offering ever took place. It was a memory of bygone horrors, but not less
interesting as showing what had once been possible. A more natural and
extremely common penalty was the payment of a tenfold value to the
disturbed [pg 096] owner. In later times this was twelvefold. This was an
example of the multiple restitution so common in the Code.

Something very like an ordeal was occasionally imposed. The very
fragmentary condition of the texts which give it adds to its obscurity. But it
appears to have consisted in the litigant being compelled to eat a mina
weight of some magically concocted food and to drink the contents of an
inscribed bowl. What the result was expected to be is not stated. One
fragmentary text appears to name the ingredients of the magic potion. All
that can be made out points to an ordeal, somewhat similar to that inflicted
upon a suspected wife in Numbers v. 12-31.

9. Penalties for wrong-doing.—We are chiefly indebted to the Code for
our knowledge of the penalties which the judge and his assessors might
inflict.

Foremost we may place the death-penalty. This was inflicted by the Code
for witchcraft, for theft, for corruption of justice, for rape, for causing death
by assault, for neglect of duties by certain officials, for allowing a seditious
assembly, for causing death by bad building, and for varieties of these
crimes. It is curious that no mention is made of murder pure and simple.
But this is only accidental. It is evidently assumed. For the Code brings
several cases of murder under this penalty. Procuring the death of a husband
is punished by it; even a fatal assault, as that on a pregnant woman who dies
of miscarriage as the result. The need of an oath to establish lack of malice
in giving a blow in a quarrel which led to death tends to show that murder
was punished by death, and that it was regarded as death intentionally
caused. An explicit statement was clearly not needed. We do not yet know
how this sentence was carried out. Usually the Code only says “he shall be

killed”; by whom, or how, is not stated. For special cases the manner is
described.

[pg 097]

Death by drowning was inflicted on a beer-seller for selling beer too
cheaply; on a woman for adultery, for being a bad wife, for incest, or for
desertion of her husband's house. In every case the victim was a woman.
When men were drowned they shared a woman's fate. In two cases,
adultery and incest, we read of the criminals being bound. In the latter, §
155, it seems that the man was “bound” and the woman drowned. In the
former, § 129, both were “bound” and both drowned. It is hardly likely that
“bound” can mean merely tied up, or imprisoned, in the case of the man
who committed incest. I would suggest that in both cases it means
“strangled.” The alternative would be that the confusion in § 155 is due to
the scribe.

Death by fire is directly ordered for a votary who opens or enters a beer-
shop, for a man and his mother in incest, and indirectly for a thief at a fire.

Impalement on a stake is ordered for a wife procuring her husband's death.

Indirectly the death-penalty would often be the consequence of an appeal to
the ordeal by water, in §§ 2, 132.
y
The various sorts of mutilation named are of two types: (1) retaliation for
bodily disfigurement, (2) symbolical of the offence itself. Thus eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, limb for limb, are pure retaliations. But the hands cut off
mark the sin of the hands in striking a father, in unlawful surgery, or in
branding. The eye torn out was the punishing of unlawful curiosity. The ear
cut off marked the sin of the organ of hearing and obedience. The tongue
was cut out for the ingratitude evidenced in speech.

Scourging is the only other form of corporal punishment. It was done with
an ox-hide scourge, or thong, and sixty strokes were ordered to be publicly
inflicted for a gross assault on a superior.

[pg 098]

Banishment from the city was the penalty for incest.156

Restitution may, perhaps, hardly be regarded as a penalty. Thus a man who
was found in possession of lost property had to restore it. In case of loss
caused by neglect or ill-treatment of hired property, or of goods deposited
or intrusted, or by want of care in treating diseased limbs, restitution, goods
for goods, ox for ox, ass for ass, et cetera, was ordered.157

But restitution of many times the damage inflicted is a distinct penalty. The
Code orders threefold for cheating a principal,158 fivefold for loss or theft of
goods by carrier,159 sixfold for defrauding an agent,160 tenfold for theft by a
poor man, or for careless loss by shepherd or herdsman,161 twelvefold for a
false sentence by a judge,162 thirtyfold for theft on the part of a gentleman.

The infliction of the same loss on a criminal that he caused another is seen
in the cases of mutilation, eye for eye, limb for limb, tooth for tooth,163 but
also in the penalty of son for son, daughter for daughter, slave for slave;164
and in the rule that a vexatious suitor shall pay the penalty which his suit
was calculated to bring on the defendant.

This retaliation is the explanation of what seems to be vicarious
punishment, where a man suffers in the person of his son, or daughter, for
the loss he has caused to the son or daughter of another.165

Another penalty was the voidance of a claim. If a man took the law into his
own hands to repay his debt, he lost all claim to recover it through the
f courts. When the purchase was illegal and void, as that of an officer's
benefice or of a ward's property, the purchaser had to return his purchase
and lose what he had paid for it.

[pg 099]

In certain cases no suit was allowed to gain standing. Contributory
negligence,166 the natural death of hostage for debt,167 the accidental goring
of a man by a wild bull,168 are excluded from litigation. Such events cancel
all further claim or are expressly said to have no remedy. There is no case
for prosecution.

Compensation for loss caused by crime, or neglect, is ordered on a scale
fixed by the Code. Where a tenant takes a field on produce-rent his neglect
to cultivate caused a loss to the landlord. He was thus bound to pay an
average yield, or a crop like his neighbor's, or that of the next field.169 In
later times, the vagueness of this rule, which might give rise to dispute, was
avoided by stating in the lease the average rent to be expected. For certain
classes of land, where no comparison with the next field could be instituted,
a fixed rate was set down.170 Compensation for premature ejectment was
ordered.171

[pg 100]

VI. Legal Decisions

By a legal decision we understand a “judgment” pronounced by some
judicial authority upon a case submitted. It is not easy to say whether the
Babylonians had a separate name for this sort of transaction; but it had
some peculiarities by which it can be easily recognized. It usually opens
with the words, duppu ana, “tablet on,” followed by the statement of the
object in dispute. This is very often abbreviated to a simple ana, “on,” or
aššum = ana šum, “concerning,” or eli with the same sense.

These usages explain the curious tablet172 where we have a long series of
sections each containing names associated with other names by the word
aššum. Thus we read:173

“Nishînishu, daughter of Rîsh-Sin, aššum Shamash-ellatsu, son of Itti-Sin-
dinim.”

It is not clear whether Shamash-ellatsu was the adversary of Nishînishu, or
the subject of her suit. But we clearly have here a “trial list” of seventeen
cases. Whether they were all decided in one day, month, or year, or whether
they were reserved for the royal audience, we have no means of telling. It is
merely a list. The object in dispute, “two SAR of land,” is occasionally
given; or the court is named “the temple of Shamash,” or “at the gate of
Shamash.” The whole text is too fragmentary to be translated, but we may
[pg 101] note that some lady or other is always a party to the suit. If we
could find the tablets referring to the decisions intended and they should
turn out to be of different years, this list might prove of value for
chronology.

Legal decisions relate to all manner of subjects and consequently are
difficult to arrange. Dr. Meissner adopted the excellent plan of appending
them to the groups concerned with the class of property dealt with under

them. Thus a legal decision concerned with the sale of a house would be
grouped with the house sales. But this does not suit all cases, and both in
formula and subject the legal decisions are really distinct. Most legal
decisions add nothing to our knowledge of the law, merely recording that
“A sued B and lost the day and is now bound over not to renew the
litigation.” A large number go only a little further, thus:174

Ribatum, daughter of Salâ, was sued by the sons of Erib-Sin, Shumma-ilu
and Mâr-erṣitim, concerning what Salâ, her father, and Mullubtim, her
mother, had left her. They took judges who restored to her one-half GAN of
land, her property. Shumma-ilu and Mâr-erṣitim, sons of Erib-Sin, shall not
renounce this agreement nor dispute it. They swore by Shamash, Malkat,
Marduk, and Samsu-iluna the king. Four judges appear as witnesses. Dated
the 10th of Elul, in the second year of Samsu-iluna.

Here it is not stated what was the ground on which the parties disagreed,
nor that they laid claim to more than one-half GAN of land. They lost the
case. That is all we know in many other cases. Often we do not know the
object in dispute. Other cases are quite full and often very instructive.
Thus:175

About the maid Adkallim, whom Aiatîa had left to her daughter Ḥulaltum.
r Ḥulaltum had taken care of her mother Aiatîa; while Sin-nâṣir, the husband of
Aiatîa, who was in Buzu for twenty years, [pg 102] had left Aiatîa to her
fate, loved her not. Now after Aiatîa was dead, Sin-nâṣir laid claim on
whatever Aiatîa had, and on Ḥulaltum for the maid Adkallim. Isharlim, the
rabiânu of Sippar, with the Kar-Sippar, assigned sentence; they laid the
blame on him. He shall not renounce the agreement, nor dispute it. They
swore by Shamash, Marduk, and Ḥammurabi the king. The judgment of
Isharlim. Four witnesses. Dated in Elul, the 9th year of Ḥammurabi.

This was a bad case of desertion. The husband, Sin-nâṣir, deserted his wife
for twenty years, but on her death came back and claimed her property. This
he was not allowed to do, by the Code.176 In his absence, Ḥulaltum had
cared for Aiatîa, either as his real, or only adopted, daughter. In either case,

Aiatîa had left Ḥulaltum a slave-girl, Adkallim, whom Sin-nâṣir now
claimed. His claim was disallowed.

The decisions which we now possess give little further information as to the
legal procedure, but a series of abstracts will illustrate the legal points
which they raise.

Ṣilli-Ishtar and Amêl-ili, sons of Ilu-eriba, were sued by Eribam-Sin, son of
Ubar-Sin, concerning a house, etc., which they bought of Sin-mubaliṭ and his
brothers. They say that they bought with money which Ṣilli-Ishtar received
from his mother and which formed no part of that which they had in common
177
with plaintiff as partners. Deposition accepted. Ḥammurabi 34.

The sons of Zâziâ sue Sin-imgurâni and Sin-uzilli for rights in a house next
the temple of Ningirsu, five days' income in the temple of Sin, sixteen days'
income in the shrine of Bêlit, and eight days' income in the shrine of Gula.
178
Claim not made out. Era of Isin 6.

Idin-Adadi and Mattatum have no claim on property which Ḥishatum has or
179
shall inherit. Rim-Sin (?).

Adadi-idinnam and Ardi-Martu agree on dissolution of partnership. Zabum
180
1.

[pg 103]
Brothers of Ur-ilishu agree not to proceed against Sala-ilu and Ur-ilishu
181
concerning property left by latter. Apil-Sin (?).

Family of Urra-gâmil sue Erib-Sin for account of his partnership with and his
182
indebtedness to Urra-gâmil deceased. Erib-Sin settles. N. D.

Sin-ellâtsu gave a ring to Ramê-Ishḫara. The children of Sin-ellâtsu agree not
183
to sue her for it. Ḥammurabi (?).

184
Private settlement of claims to property. N. D.

In the above cases there is no explicit mention of judges. The next group are
cases before judges where fact of suit, subject and result are given, but not

the pleas presented.

Imgur-Sin and Ilu-eriba sue Iatratum concerning a house which she bought of
185
their father. Nonsuited. Before judges of Babylon and Sippara.

Ṣilli-Ishtar and Eribam-Sin entered into partnership. On dissolution of their
partnership they chose judges, paid in their common stock and shared
equally. The shares are scheduled in the deed of settlement. Ḥammurabi
186
34.

Pala-Shamash and Apil-itishu dispute concerning a division of property. They
obtain judges and city witnesses. The whole house and income is shared
187
equally and each agrees to waive further claim. Ḥammurabi (?).

The two sons of Ḳû-Ishtar disagreed as to their shares. Nidnat-Sin, the rab
188
Martu, makes equitable division. Ḥammurabi 33.

Apil-ilishu and Pala-Shamash dispute the latter's right to a house, ship,
servants, money, and property in his possession. The city elders from Ḥuda
189
and Shibabi gave judgment and confirmed the title of Pala-Shamash.

The sons of Nûr-Shamash sue Bêlitum for the property left her. Before
190
judges. Nonsuited. Sumu-lâ-ilu.

Shunu-ma-ili and Mâr-erṣitim sue Ribatum concerning her right to the legacy
of Salâ and Mullubtim. The judges assign her an income, ḫibiltu. Samsu-
191
iluna 2.

Marduk-mubaliṭ and Sin-idinnam sue Shâd-Malkat concerning her house in
192
Bît Gagim. Judges confirm her title. Apil-Sin.

[pg 104]
Ḥuzalum and Pî-Malkat, children of Nabi-Shamash implead Shidi-
lamazatanḫu of Gagim concerning various rights to incomes and rations in
193
the temple of Shamash. The judges assign shares to each. Samsu-iluna (?).

Aliḳu and Sumu-ramê sue Shakumâtim about a house they sold him.
194
Nonsuited. N. D.

Shamash-bêl-ili repudiates a sale of land to the Lady Mannashi. He is
195
nonsuited. Ḥammurabi 15.

Family of Ardi-rabish against Erib-Sin on account of property left them by
196
Ardi-rabish. Nonsuited. Sin-mubalit 20.

Ḥamaziru sues Manutum for house and property but is nonsuited. Sumu-lâ-
197
ilu.

Kasha-Upi bought a house of Itti-itishu and his sons, Bêlshunu and Ilushu-
bânî. Amêl-Ninshuna, son of Bêlshunu, brought a suit about the house.
Judges condemn him to be branded on the forehead and confirm Kasha-Upi's
198
title. Sin-mubalit.

Nishinishu sues Ana-erishti-Malkat for three SAR of land before the king's
199
judges. Nonsuited. Samsu-iluna 2.

Malkat-kuzub-mâtim sues Ani-talime for restitution of a field, before the
judges of Babylon and Sippara. The witnesses sustain her claim, which is
200
granted. Samsu-iluna 3.

The family of Izidaria sue the family of Azalîa about the property of Izidaria
201
deceased. Their title is confirmed. Zabum 12.

Shamash-bêl-ili sues Nidnusha concerning a house bought by him of her. The
202
judges grant him two shekels of silver. Ḥammurabi 1.

203
Shî-lamazi sues her brothers for a field and wins her case.

Before Lushtamar, nâgiru of Babylon, Adadi-idinnam and Ibku-Ishtar,
judges, Zariku was put to the oath and replied to Erib-Sin. He was told that as
his domicile was at Sippara, he must not make his appeal to the judges of
204
Babylon. So his case was dismissed. Ḥammurabi 28. The record is
defective.

Cases before judges where the plea and its result can be made out with
some certainty are as follows:

Ardi-Sin, son of Eṭiru, sued the sons of Shamash-nâṣir who had sold a plot of
land, two and a half GAN in area, to Ibni-Adadi the [pg 105] merchant. He
claimed the land as ancestral domain, bît abišu, and denied that he had ever
alienated it. The sons of Ibni-Adadi, now in possession, produced the deed of
sale, duppu šimâti, which Eṭiru and Sin-nâdin-shûmi, his brother, had
executed to Shamash-nâṣir and his son. The judges assigned a small portion
of the land, about a sixth, to Ardi-Sin, but make up the rest, apparently, from
205
another quarter. Ammizaduga (?).

Mâr-Martu bought the garden of Sin-mâgir. Ilubânî disputed the legality,
ṣimdattu, of the sale. Before the judges at the gate of Nin-marki he deposed
that he was the adopted son of Sin-mâgir, which adoption had never been
revoked. In the time of Rim-Sin the house and garden had been awarded to
Ilubânî and then Sin-mubaliṭ had brought a suit against Ilubânî, which was
regularly heard before judges and witnesses from Nin-marki. They had
awarded the house and garden to Ilubânî. Sin-mubaliṭ was now bound over to
206
dispute the title no more. Ḥammurabi.

Here it seems that on the deposition of Rim-Sin by Ḥammurabi, Sin-
mubaliṭ, excluded by his bond from disputing Ilubânî's title, sold his claim
to Mâr-Martu, who attempted to enter into possession. Possibly it was
thought that the new rulers would reverse the old decision.

The sons of Namiatum sue their mother, Iashuḫatum, about her share of their
a father's property. She appears before the judges of Babylon and puts in an
n inventory to show that she has taken nothing from the family possessions.
Then the sons of Namiatum renounce further claim on the ground of family
r possession to the property of Idin-Adadi, Iashuḫatum and their descendants.
207
Samsu-iluna 2.
r

It seems that, after the death of Namiatum, Iashuḫatum married again. The
children of the first marriage bring an action to secure judgment that she
shall not take with her any property of their father's. She had, as we know, a
right to take with her her marriage-portion, but not her husband's gifts to
her.

[pg 106]

Amêl-Ninsaḫ sues Garudu for the rent of a field. The debtor not paying was
208
ejected. Apil-Sin.

Shûmi-erṣitim sues for right to a sheep and some corn, the naptánu of a god.
209
Judges grant him half share. Ḥammurabi 9.

Judges summon Ibik-iltum before Elali-bânî to account for corn. He purges
210
himself on oath. N. D.

Amat-Shamash claims to be the adopted daughter of Shamash-gâmil and his
wife Ummi-Araḫtum. Her witnesses proving unsatisfactory, her claim was
disallowed on the oath of Ummi-Araḫtum that they had never adopted her.
211
Ḥammurabi (?).

Ilushu-abushu hired a pack-ass, imer bilti, of Ardi-Sin and Ṣilli-Ishtar and
lost it. The judges awarded them sixteen shekels of silver as compensation.
212
Apil-Sin 5.

Babilîtum sued Erish-Saggil, Ubar-Nabium, and Marduk-nâṣir for a share of
her family possessions, bît abiša. The judges assigned her a share. Samsu-
213
iluna 5.

Nidnusha and Shamash-abilu sue the daughter of Sin-eribam about property
which she claimed to have inherited. They charge her with having forged the
will of Amti-Shamash in her favor. The judges went to Gagim, where the
property was, and examined witnesses who proved that Amti-Shamash had
left the property to the daughter of Sin-eribam. The judges therefore
214
confirmed her title. N. D.

Mâr-erṣitim left a female slave Damiḳtum to Erib-Sin. His wife Mazabatum
and his brother Ibni-Shamash dispute this legacy. The judges inspect a
document by which Erib-Sin, on the suit of Mâr-erṣitim, had granted
Damiḳtum to Mazabatum and Ibni-Shamash. The judges return Damiḳtum to
215
Mazabatum. Ḥammurabi (?).

In Assyrian times we have comparatively few legal decisions. The judges
who appear are the sartênu, or chief-justice; the ḫazânu, the chief civil
magistrate of a city, the parallel of the ancient rabiânu; the sukallu, or
f chamberlain; and one or two others, besides the simple daiânu, or judge.
Some of these are not judicial officers, but act in that capacity.

[pg 107]
Usually the judge is said to lay the blame on the guilty party, arnam eli A
emêdu; or to lay the penalty upon one, sartu eli A emêdu. The sentence
itself was a dienu, or “judgment.” As in former times, the legal decisions
refer to all manner of cases, and here more than anywhere else a mere
translation does not convey much meaning to the reader.

216
Thus: a scribe A prosecuted a farmer B for the theft of a bull. They came
before Nabû-zêr-kênish-lîshir, the deputy ḫazânu of Nineveh. Restitution,
bull for bull, was imposed on the defendant, who meantime was held for the
fine. “On the day that he shall have made good the value of the bull he shall
go free.” Dated the 12th of Elul. Eponymy of Mushallim-Ashur. Twelve
witnesses.

217
Again: A stole four slaves of B, who summoned him before the sukallu.
The judge laid on him a fine of two hundred and ten minas of copper. B then
deposited a pledge with A, either himself, or a slave, to perform work
equivalent to the amount of the debt. If B, or any representative of his, pays
the money, the pledge is void. “Whoever shall withdraw from this agreement,
Ashur and Shamash shall be his judges, he shall pay ten minas of silver and
ten minas of gold, he shall pay it in the treasury of Bêlit.” Dated the 10th of
Adar, b.c. 678. Eleven witnesses.

Here is another case, relating to a breach of trust:218

The decision of the chief-justice, which he laid on Ḥanî. Three hundred
sheep, with their belongings, property of the king's son were lost, or killed by
y the shepherds. Each shepherd was condemned to pay two talents of bronze as
his fine. Ḥanî, and his people, and his fields, were taken as security for the
payment for the three hundred sheep, and the fines due from the shepherds.

“Whoever shall demand him, his šaknu, his rab kiṣir, or any representative of
his, shall pay for three hundred sheep and the fines for the shepherds and
then Ḥanî shall be released.” Dated 27th of Sebat, b.c. 679. Four witnesses.

The defendant had been intrusted with three hundred sheep, which he had to
return in full, with a proper increase [pg 108] of lambs. But, evidently in the
disorders which arose on the death of Sennacherib, Ḥanî had lost or made
away with them. If he had intrusted them to shepherds, either the shepherds
had killed them, or, as some take it, Ḥanî had killed the shepherds. In the
former case he owed two talents of bronze as fine from each shepherd, in
the latter he had to pay the same amount for each. Either way, he was held
responsible for the value of three hundred sheep and two talents of bronze
for each shepherd. He and all he had were seized for the liability. It is
interesting to note that his district governor, or the colonel of the regiment
to which he belonged, was thought likely to liberate him; but some other
representative might do so. The lost property belonged to the king's son.
This may have been Esarhaddon, or one of Sennacherib's other sons. But, at
any rate, it is clear that Esarhaddon was putting his household in order.

The other examples known to us do not add to our legal knowledge. The
subjects are chiefly misappropriations of property and there is little variety.

The later Babylonian tablets throw some light upon legal procedure in
Babylon. The greater detail exhibited by them is due largely to the fact that
for this period we have so many private documents. The greater portion of
the material for this part of the subject has been worked over by Professor J.
Kohler and Dr. F. E. Peiser, in their valuable treatise Aus Babylonische
Rechtsleben. Little can be added beyond additional examples and
illustration.

The judges acted as a college and not separately. There might be present at
a case a chief judge and several judges assisting. Other cases were decided
f before a single judge. The šibûtu continue to act as a jury. They were the
elders of the city, competent to decide the rights of the case. But the exact
form of the organization is not yet quite clear.

[pg 109]

The process began with the charge. The plaintiff preferred this himself, or
by a messenger. His plea was heard and his proofs considered. Then the
court caused the accused to come before them and answer the charge.

The process admitted of a third person intervening. Thus, A had pledged a
plot of land to B for thirty-two shekels. Then he sold the property to C. C,
dying, left the property to D, who wished to take possession from B, who
continued to hold it in pledge. B goes to the judges and complains against
D. A, being yet alive, intervenes and probably has to pay B. But the tablet
being defective, we are not able to follow the case further. Only we see the
sort of right which each had.

Another case is where two parties dispute as to the possession of a sum
which is actually in the hands of a banker. The banker accordingly
undertakes to produce the sum and its interest in court, and to pay it over to
e the successful party in the suit. The decision was written down and the
notary of the court gave a copy to the plaintiff, if not also to the defendant,
m and kept one copy for the archives. The plaintiff thus obtained a guarantee
against the defendant. But how it was enforced we have no evidence.

The kind of points in dispute and decided are, as before, exceedingly varied.
The decisions for the most part illustrate other subjects rather than the
processes in court; but a few examples may be of interest: A made an
advance of forty-four shekels to B, who pledged a house for it. This state of
n affairs continued until both were dead. Their sons inherited. A's son
demanded forty-four shekels of B's son who refused to pay. Both came
before the judges. B's son, pleaded that the money was never loaned or else
repaid long ago. The judges demanded evidence. Either the contract or a
receipt must be produced. The claimant was able to present the contract, but
no receipt was produced. So the [pg 110] judges assigned the claimant a
plot of land belonging to the defendant as satisfaction for the proved debt.
Here we have the tablet witnessed by the chief judge, the judges, and the
notary.219 What is curious is that the claimant was not content to keep the
pledge. But it is probable that the debt was secured on a house which the
creditor did not take into his possession. It is also surprising that the judges
did not order the house to be handed over to the claimant. That may have
been avoided, because of the family rights over the house. The debtor might

thus have been rendered houseless, or have lost “his father's house.” The
widow may still have been an inmate. A great part of the document is taken
up with the specification of the land handed over to the claimant. Hence a
complete translation is not given.

A common type of case was a vindication of right to some sort of property.
Thus220 A had sold B a slave, but C came forward and said: “He is my slave
who fled from me,” and took an oath by Bêl and Nabû, that he knew where
that slave was living with A. The judges decide that C shall go where the
slave is, and when he has proved that he is with A, the slave shall return to
C.

We have an acknowledgment before the court and a promise to pay the
debt. This promise was usually made on oath, or guarantees were given.
Here is an involved case. A is father of B's mother. B's father is long dead.
f The property of A, his grandfather, has now come into B's hands. He finds
an old bond for an advance from A to C and D. The latter D is also dead but
had a son E, who inherited. Hence B now sues C and E for the money. The
bond is shown to C, who remembers and acknowledges the debt and he
now undertakes to bring his fellow-debtor E and discharge the debt.

[pg 111]

Men did not always stand their trial, but sometimes settled the case by an
agreement out of court.221 A and his wife sued B for some slaves, people of
their house. B dreads the trial and does not appear. The wife was B's
f mother, evidently remarried. B brings the slaves whom he still has and
offers four minas as payment for one who has died in his house. The offer is
accepted and parties agree to be quit.

The decision of a dispute was not always referred to professional judges. A
very interesting example occurs,222 when the eldest member of the family
e and kinatti aplišu, “the family of his son,” act as judges. The plaintiff is an
old lady, who had been married, and had a daughter married. These facts are
not rehearsed in the tablet itself, which concerns a division of property, but
are collected from a number of tablets, spread over some sixty years. The
way in which information is thus collected is an instructive example of the

manner in which the different documents illustrate and explain one
another.223

Connected with legal decisions are the undertakings to appear before the
court, of which we have several examples. Thus,224 A undertakes to bring B
to Babylon and answer the complaint of C. Or again, a certain gardener
r spoke to A before an official of the mâr banûtu. This official was
subpœnaed, as we should say, and swore by Bêl, Nabû, and Darius, that on
the 8th of Sebat, two days hence, he would come and take up the case.225

The production of witnesses is the subject of not a few undertakings.
Thus,226 by a fixed date, five days hence, A shall bring B to be questioned
about some asses belonging to the royal household. Again,227 N swears to
come, six days hence, and bring another, on account of the witness about A.
He further undertakes to establish the partnership. [pg 112] What was the
exact cause of quarrel was not stated. These agreements to abide by the
testimony of a named witness may have been entered into without reference
to judges, but the oath may have been administered before the court.
Thus,228 two parties agree to waive their dispute and abide by witness
produced. This they do before the atû official of the gate of the temple.
Again,229 A is to bring witnesses on the second of Ab, to the door of the
tikkalu's house, and prove when and to whom he gave certain garments. If
this be proved, that B had received them, B will restore the said garments to
A; if not, B is free. Further, if B does not appear on that day, he shall be
bound to restore the garments. Several other examples illustrate the point.230

A common method was, as has already been shown, to produce the bond or
other document, establishing the claim. If, for some reason, the document
was not producible, the oath of the scribe who wrote it might be admitted.231
The witnesses whose names appear on the document do not seem to have
been summoned. But in one case,232 when two Persians had sold two slave-
girls, also Persians, to a Babylonian; a third Persian, who had been witness
to the sale, was called on to swear, “I know that the money was paid,” and
he sealed the document.

[pg 113]

VII. Public Rights

The early inhabitants of Babylonia are usually regarded as a non-Semitic
race, whom we term Sumerians. Upon them was superimposed a layer of
d Semitic peoples. The first dynasty of Babylon is now often called Arabian.
But the evidence of a previous admixture of peoples is not lacking. The
subsequent history bears witness to many invasions by Kassites, Elamites,
and nomad tribes, some Semitic, some probably not. Later came Persians
and Medes, not to speak of Greeks and Parthians.

The foreign wars brought slaves from all the surrounding countries, even as
far away as Egypt. We cannot here enter into any discussion of the foreign
elements in the population; but it is important to note what the attitude of
s the Babylonians was to the foreigners resident in their midst. The evidence
t on the whole is very slight. It may be said, that as a rule, resident aliens
became citizens and were under no disabilities. One section of the Code, if
we correctly understand it, allows an alien to purchase an estate, provided
he bears the liabilities to the state233 which lay upon it. The “merchant” was
probably usually an alien, and only temporarily resident. In the contracts of
the Ḥammurabi period, with the exception of the frequent West-Semitic
names, we have little trace of aliens. When the Kassites came we may
expect the conquering race to [pg 114] have had full rights. In Assyria there
is no trace of disability. Egyptians, Elamites, Armenians, Jews, Arameans,
contract exactly like natives. In later Babylonian times we find the same
freedom. Of course Persians, and, later, Greeks, were under no disabilities.
Hence there is very little at any time to chronicle under this head.

We have marriages between Persians and Egyptians, with witnesses,
Babylonian, Persian, Aramean, and Egyptian.234 Medes rent a Babylonian's
house, and live there.235 A Persian buys of a Babylonian.236 A Persian father
gives Babylonian names to his children.237 A vivid picture of the mixed
nationality in the time of Artaxerxes II. is given in the “Business

Documents of Murashû Sons,” and the list of proper names attached to
Professor Hilprecht's edition sufficiently illustrates the point.

Ownership of land carried its liabilities of tax or service. These were
carefully guarded and it was the mark of an oppressor to exceed the normal
n demand. That, however, seems to have been regularly and continually paid.
A very good illustration of public rights over land, or the relation between
the state and the private owner, is afforded by the construction, in the reign
of Cyrus, of a canal of Shamash by the priest of Sippara. It was to pass
through certain lands and the consent of the owners had to be obtained. The
magistrates and honorables of the city A, through which it would pass, and
the peoples of the neighboring fields were assembled. They were asked to
swear, as Susians, subjects of the King of Susa, that they would raise no
difficulty. Then the priest took on himself the cost of the work on the canal,
but stipulated that when it was completed, the neighbors should keep it in
repair. Also he forbade the construction of any rival canal.238 Riparians [pg
115] were responsible for the care of the canal as shown in the Code.239

The state undertook some duties. In the Code we note that the palace would,
failing other means, redeem an official from captivity.240

There were certain local liabilities of a public nature. Thus the Code shows
that the magistrate and his district were held responsible for highway
robbery or brigandage in their midst.241 It may be assumed that the funds to
meet such liabilities were furnished by the city temple, for we note that if an
official were captured, and his private means were not sufficient for his
ransom, his city temple had to furnish the money.242

The whole question of taxation is full of difficulties. There were certain
persons who paid tribute, that is, some proportionate part of their produce,
others did personal service. There is frequent mention of dues of various
f sorts, at ferries, market-places and the like. Demands were made on the
stock or crops of the farmers. But we are not yet in a position even to sketch
the system of taxation.

[pg 116]

VIII. Criminal Law

Cases concerned with criminal law were naturally not embodied in
contracts. Some cases doubtless may be inferred from the legal decisions,
r but these are only where the penalty had already been commuted from
f death or punishment to payment or restitution. They are better taken as
examples of civil law. But this distinction is not the cause of their rarity or
absence. When a man had to be put to death, scourged, or exiled, there was
no need for a written bond. Hence the only references which we have
outside the Code and the phrase-books, are the penalties set down in
marriage-contracts for conjugal infidelity, or for breach of contract
voluntarily agreed to by the parties to it.

We have one case from Assyrian times of the assignment of a slave-girl, as
composition for manslaughter. Atarkâmu, a scribe, had caused the death of
Samaku, whose son Shamash-ukîn-aḫi had the right to exact vengeance.
Whether as the result of a legal decision or not, Atarkâmu hands over a
slave-girl to Shamash-ukîn-aḫi and they agree to be at peace. The name of
Ashurbânipal occurs in a position which strongly suggests that the king
himself sat in judgment upon the case. The tablet is so fragmentary that
little else can be made out, but it seems to have been stipulated that the
slave should be handed over “at the grave.”243

[pg 117]

In later Babylonian times we have a reference to imprisonment arising out
of a case of guarantee.244 The priest of Shamash at Sippara had put A in
prison in fetters; B, a fellow-official of his of the same standing, bails him
out, giving guarantee to the priests and šibûtu that A shall not go away, or if
he does, that B will do his work.

A case of assault and forcible entry into a house occurs.245 But the tablet is
so defective that we cannot make out the rights of the case. The

superintendent of the city Shaḫrin, in the eighth year of Cyrus complained
to the priest of Shamash at Sippara, to the following effect: He had taken
into his house, as a prisoner, a certain man A. He pleads that he is uncle to
the priest and chief magistrate of the city. Why then has the priest raised his
hand over him? Further, seven men, who are armed, have burst in his door
and entered his house and taken a mina of gold. Whether this was a rescue
by relatives of the prisoner, or by order of the priest, does not appear. As a
result of this complaint, the elders of the city were assembled and
depositions made. Beyond the plea on the part of the house-breakers that
someone had paid them to break in the door, and that the prisoner A was
someone's pledge, we get no further information.

A case of procuration of desertion, forbidden by the Code246 under pain of
death, was condoned by the injured party.247 A caused a maid of B's to leave
her master's house. B received her back, pardoned A, and took no money of
him.

Adultery was punished in the Code by drowning.248 The Code in this and
similar cases of sexual irregularity is explicit that the case must be flagrant.
Suspicion was not enough.249 But conduct leading to scandal had to be
atoned [pg 118] for by submission to the ordeal. The Code did not take a
higher ground than public opinion. The private contracts name death as
punishment for adultery. Usually it is drowning, but being thrown from a
high place, temple, tower, or pillar is named. In the later contracts death was
still the penalty for a wife's adultery, but the penalty had ceased to be
drowning only. The adulteress might be put to the sword.250

A woman's procuring her husband's death, for love of another, was punished
by impalement.251

Incest on the part of a man with his own daughter involved his
banishment.252 Incest with a daughter-in-law, if she was his son's full wife,
was apparently punished by his being drowned. The Code is obscure here
and we are not sure whether she was drowned also.253 If the girl was not yet
fully married, the case was treated as one of ordinary seduction, and the
culprit was fined half a mina.254

If a man committed incest with his own mother, both were burned.255 If a
man had intercourse with his foster-mother, or step-mother, who had borne
children to his father, he was disinherited.256

[pg 119]

IX. The Family Organization

Marriage is the bond which unites the different members of the family. The
married pair, their children, slaves, and adjuncts, one side or the other,
constitute the family unit. The Sumerian laws presuppose marriage; but, so
f far as known, merely attached penalties to repudiation of the wedded ties.
The Code is very full and explicit and forms the basis of all our knowledge.
The contemporary documents extend it in some particulars. In Assyrian
times we know little or nothing about the laws concerning marriage. In later
Babylonian times very little is known until the Persian period, when we
have many illustrations. But what we know, or can gather from scattered
hints, makes it clear that the state of things represented in the Code
remained practically unchanged for the whole period.

The Code is explicit that a woman was not a wife without “bonds.”257 This
was a marriage-contract; of which the essentials were that the names of the
parties and their lineage were given, the proper consents obtained and the
declaration of the man that he has taken so-and-so to wife inserted. As a
rule, stringent penalties are set down for a repudiation of the marriage-tie.
In these bonds a man might be required to insert the clause that his wife was
not to be held responsible for any debts he might have incurred before
marriage. The Code enacts that such a clause shall be held to act both ways;
if it is inserted, then the man shall [pg 120] not be liable for his wife's debts
before marriage.258 But, if no such bond existed, the wedded pair were one
body as far as liability for debt was concerned, by whichever it had been
contracted and, in spite of such a bond, both were liable together for all
debts contracted after marriage.

The family relationship was of primary importance. Whatever may be said
about traces of matriarchy in Babylonia, we have no legal documents which
recognize the institution. The father is the head of the family and possesses
full power over his wife and family. But the woman is not in that degraded

condition in which marriage by capture, or purchase, left her. She was a
man's inferior in some respects, but his helper and an honorable wife.

Not only was the family, which consisted of the wedded pair and their
dependents, a unit, but there was also a connection with ancestors and
posterity which enlarged the family to a clan or gens. In this sense it often
appears. The family thus constituted had definite rights over its members. It
was very important to a man to be sure of his family connection. We may
note the importance attached at all epochs to a man's genealogy as
distinguishing his individuality. His family identified him. There was a very
large number of well-marked and distinguished families, which took their
names from a remote ancestor. So far as our evidence goes, these ancestors
were by no means mythical, but actually lived in the time of the first
dynasty of Babylon. To all appearances they date back “to the Conquest.”
Unfortunately no attempt has yet been made to work out the family
histories. But men of such families were the mâr bânê, or “sons of
ancestors,” and had special privileges, which continually emerge into
notice. We may compare the hundred families of China and the patricians of
many nations. There were other families of scarcely less antiquity [pg 121]
and consideration. They do not name their ancestor, but refer to him as a
tradesman. They were sons of “the baker,” of “the measurer,” et cetera,
with which we may compare our proper names Baker and Lemesurier.
There was a court of ancestry, bît mâr bânûti, which investigated questions
arising from claims to belong to such families and which doubtless
preserved in its archives the genealogical lists of these exclusive families.
They must have registered the birth of all fresh members and all adoptions;
for men were adopted freely into such families.

It is not clear whether all members of a family which traced descent, real or
putative, from a trade-father, actually carried on that trade. If so, we should
f have examples of a workmen's guild. Certainly many men who carried on a
trade were “sons” of the trade-father, but apparently not all. The Code notes
the adoption of a child by an artisan who teaches him his trade. In certain
cities the trades had their quarters. We read of the “city of the goldsmiths”
in Nineveh.

It may well be that these guilds were close corporations at first and
continued so to be in the less crowded trades, but rivals outside the guild
also came to be tolerated. The slaves were artisans in great numbers and
their increase may have led to the decay of the old artisan guilds of free
workers.

The importance of descent was not a sentimental matter only. The laws of
inheritance involved a careful distinction between proper heirs and a variety
of claimants. Hence it seems likely that there was a registration of births,
deaths, and marriages, at least covering the patrician families. We have such
y examples as a man claiming to be of same father as another, claiming
brotherhood. The other repudiates the claim.259 The tablet is too fragmentary
for us [pg 122] to follow the arguments. The slave Bariki-ilu claimed to be
a mâr bânû and his claim was heard before the court of the mâr bânê.260

Further, as the wife's marriage-portion, if she died childless, went back to
the “house of her father,” and as a man who died without issue had to leave
his property to his “father's house,” and as many had only a life-interest in
their property, while the family usually had a right of pre-emption in the
case of proposed sales, we see that the family always had a strong hold over
property. Not only was it for the man's interest to be registered as of a
certain family, but it was also for the family's interest to register all its
members.

There are suggestions that the family assumed certain responsibilities over
the man; for in Assyria it appears that the family might come forward and
liberate a man from his debt. A free man, who had been sold as a slave to
f Ashnunnak, and who escaped to Babylon, after five years, being claimed as
a slave by the levy-masters there, chose to serve his father's house. His
brothers swore by Marduk and Ammiditana the king, making an irrevocable
declaration that as long as he lived he should take up the duties of his
father's house with his brothers.261 In the later Babylonian times, the head of
the family, though only a distant relation, was called upon to act as judge in
a dispute concerning the disposition of property.

[pg 123]

X. Courtship And Marriage

The suitor came with presents to the parents of the girl. Most writers see in
this a survival of the purchase of the bride. The name of this gift, terḫatu, is
f undoubtedly connected with the name of the bride, marḫitu. This present, or
- bride-price, differed greatly with the circumstances of the parties. Both
money and slaves were given, but a simple sum of money was more
common. In cases where the bride was rich or highly placed the amount
seems less. A very usual amount was ten shekels, but we have examples
from one shekel up to three minas.262 The Code assessed it at one mina of
silver for a patrician and a third of a mina for a plebeian.263

Without this bride-price the young man could not take a wife. Hence it was
expressly secured to him by the Code, if his father died before he was of
age to marry, and reserved as a first charge on the father's estate. There is
some evidence that a woman might make this present to her future husband.
But that may have been because he was too poor to make it himself and she
found him the means. As a rule, the parents gave this money to the bride.
But we are not in a position to say whether they did so at once, on the
consummation of the marriage, or on the birth of a child. The suggestion
that it was her Morgengabe remains without support. Certain it is that it was
not returned [pg 124] always. In the contracts it seems to be given to the
bridegroom with the bride. On a wife dying without children, the husband
was bound to return her marriage-portion to her family. But if the bride-
price which he had given for her had not been returned to him, he could
deduct its value. On a divorce, he was bound to let his wife have not only
her marriage-portion, but the bride-price paid back to him. If there had been
none, he must give her a fixed sum instead of it.

From the phrase-books we may gather that there was a sort of ceremony
about presenting the bride-price to the father: it was placed on a salver and
brought in before the parents.264 This was probably a part of the ceremony
of betrothal.

If the father rejected the suitor, he was bound to return the bride-price
offered.265 A curious section of the Code enacts that if the suitor's comrade
intrigued to break off the match, he was excluded from marrying the girl
himself.266

If, after he had brought in the bride-price to his prospective father-in-law,
the suitor took a fancy to another girl, he might withdraw from the suit. But
r he then forfeited what he had offered. If this really was the result of having
f taken a dislike to a plain girl, we may suppose that such a maiden might
accumulate several bride-prices and so acquire some wealth. This may
explain Herodotus's idea that the handsome girls made a dowry for the plain
ones. But there is not a shred of evidence for their doing so in the way he
suggests. A girl was a virgin when she was married.267

Of interest in the later Babylonian texts is the fact that the preliminaries of
the marriage are more fully illustrated. Thus we read of the wedding of the
daughter of Neriglissar:268 Nabû-shum-ukîn, the êrib bîti of Nabû, judge of
f Êzida, [pg 125] spoke to the King Neriglissar, saying thus: “Give to me
Gigîtum, your young daughter, to wife.” The tablet has only preserved a
few lines, from which we cannot be sure that the marriage took place. The
tablet was called a duplicate of Êzida, showing that it was preserved in the
Nabû temple at Borsippa.

The following case is one of the clearest:269

Nabû-nâdin-aḫi, son of Bêl-aḫê-iddin, grandson of Ardi-Nêrgal, spoke thus to
Shûm-ukîn, son of Mushallimu, saying: “Give me thy daughter, Ina-Esaggil-
a banat, the maiden, to wife, for Uballitsu-Gula, my son.” Shûm-ukîn listened
r to him and gave his maiden daughter, Ina-Esaggil-banat to Uballitsu-Gula,
his son. He gave also one mina of silver, three female slaves named, and
house furniture, with Ina-Esaggil-banat, his daughter, as a marriage-portion
to Nabû-nâdin-aḫi. Nanâ-kishirat, the maid of Shûm-ukîn in lieu of two-
thirds of a mina of silver, her full price, Shûm-ukîn gave to Nabû-nâdin-aḫi
out of the one mina of silver for her marriage-portion. The deficiency, one-
third of a mina of silver, Shûm-ukîn will give Nabû-nâdin-aḫi, and then her
marriage-portion is paid. Each took a writing.

Here the father negotiates for his son. There is no evidence of any bride-
price being paid. But the examples of this kind of document are too few for
us to establish any fixed conclusions. In the following case something very
like it appears.270

Dâgil-ilâni, son of Zambubu, spoke thus to Ḥammâ, daughter of Nêrgal-
iddin, son of Babûtu, saying: “Give me thy daughter, Latubashinni, she shall
a be my wife.” Ḥammâ listened to him and gave him her daughter,
r Latubashinni, to wife; and Dâgil-ilâni, in the joy of his heart, gave to Ḥammâ
for Latubashinni, her daughter, Ana-eli-bêli-âmur, a maid, for half a mina of
silver and a mina and a half of silver to boot. The day that Dâgil-ilâni shall
take a second wife, Dâgil-ilâni shall give Latubashinni a mina of silver and
she shall go back where she was before. With the cognisance of Shûm-iddin,
son of Ina-êšhi-eter, son of Sin-damaku.

[pg 126]
Here the man himself negotiates. The mother gives the bride. Whether he
really buys her is hard to say. The mother may have adopted the girl to care
for her old age, as was often done. The bridegroom may have compensated
the mother with means to adopt another daughter. What locus standi Shûm-
iddin had is not clear. He may have been the real father of the bride and so
had to be satisfied that she was fairly treated by the change in her position.
Or his consent to the bridegroom's alliance may have been needed. The
penalty set down for divorce is not high and the bride was probably poor;
we see she was portionless. In other cases it was as high as six minas of
silver.271 Occasionally the deed of marriage also named a penalty for
adultery on the part of the wife.

Women were given in marriage. The suitor for her hand did not perhaps see
her until marriage, but this is not likely, since he is contemplated by the
e Code as capable of having cast his eyes upon another, and so desiring to
retreat from his suit. At any rate, he brought presents to her father, who
accepted or rejected him. There is no hint that the woman had any choice.
The result of this power over the child's marriage was that conditions might
be imposed on the marriage. The bride might be required to do service to an
existing wife, or to the bridegroom's mother. Further, the disposal of

property was not entirely free after marriage. It depended upon what the
father had laid down in the marriage-settlement on his daughter. It was
strictly limited to the woman's children, and if there were none it went back
to her father's house.

In early times, the father usually gives the bride. But in a great many cases
this duty fell on the mother. How this came about we do not usually know.
The father being dead, or the girl illegitimate, seem the best explanations, as
e a rule. [pg 127] In the absence of father and mother, the brother as head of
the family assumed the duty. The examples of this are common enough.272

For later times also the examples are numerous of the power of agnates to
give in marriage. It may perhaps be deduced that the children, in these
cases, were young.273

Women once married, were free to marry again of their own choice,
whether divorced, separated, or widowed. A betrothed girl, or bride, if her
marriage were not yet consummated, being seduced by her father-in-law, in
whose house she had gone to live, was also free to marry. But it does not
f seem that women who were yet virgins could choose their own husbands.
Even princesses were given in marriage.

The man was not altogether free to marry. The Code contemplates a boy left
by the death of his father too young to marry. The brothers, when they
f divided the father's property, were bound to set aside for him, in addition to
his share of his father's property, a sum for a bride-price, and take him a
r wife. It seems probable that men married while still young and living at
home. For the Code contemplates the bride being brought to live in her
father-in-law's house.274

l In later Babylonian times, at any rate, the son could not marry without his
father's consent. This we learn from a suit in high life, in the time of
Cyrus.275 A high official of the king's, A, brought a suit against B, who was
“over the house,” before the nobles and the king's judges. A accused B and
C, an official of his house, of having given a tablet of marriage-contract of
D, a sister of C's, to A's son without A's consent. Put to the oath, B swore
that he did not seal the tablet. Then D was questioned. Then C
acknowledged that he had drawn up and sealed with B's seal the [pg 128]

marriage-contract of D to A's son. The judges ordered D to return to her
brother's house. The tablet was to be broken whenever found. If afterward
D should be seen with A's son, she was to bear the sign of a concubine.

From other examples the conclusion is inevitable that if a woman desired to
be a full and proper wife she had to obtain the consent of her bridegroom's
t father. Thus we read:276 “The day that the woman A is seen with B he shall
bring her to the wedding-house. If she does not say to the master of the
wedding-house: Send for C, the father of B, then she shall wear the sign of
a concubine.” Her mother was present at the sealing of this agreement.
From this we may deduce that weddings took place at a definite spot, called
the “wedding-house.” The name was literally “house of the males,” or “of
the named ones,” and also house of the mâr bânê, or “sons of ancestors.” It
is clear that this was a registration court where all who had pretensions to
ancestry, or were people of position, were enrolled. One whose name was
found there was a man “with a name,” also a “son of an ancestor.” He was
probably registered there at birth, marriage, and death. The master of that
house was a registrar and evidently could marry people. It was expected in
this case that the woman, if she wished to be properly married, would send
for the bridegroom's father, whose consent was necessary. Another name for
the house was bît pirṣatum, the meaning of which is obscure. But as Ishtar
was bêlit parṣê, the “lady of the parṣê,” we may connect it also with
weddings.

We have seen that the terḫatu, or present made to the parents by the suitor
before marriage, was usually handed over to the bride on her going to her
husband's house. There is frequent reference to this essential preliminary. It
had to be carefully laid aside for the young man by his [pg 129] mother or
brethren, if he had not married in his father's lifetime, and was secured to
him by law, apart from and above what might come to him as a share of his
father's property. Otherwise he would suffer loss in having to find it out of
his own pocket, when his married brothers had been provided with the
means during their father's lifetime. Usually it was an amount of silver, one
shekel up to three minas. In later Babylonian times there is little evidence of
the parents receiving gifts. We now and then find it so. Thus a man gave a
slave and a mina and a half of silver for his wife to her mother,277 but it is
not clear whether or not this was to buy her.

A far more valuable endowment of the bride was her marriage-portion. If
her father was not alive to give it to her, the duty fell on his heirs, and she
had a right to it over and above her daughter's share of his property. Thus
we find that the brothers, on giving their sister a share, contract to further
endow her if she marries.278

We have one or two lists that show what might be expected as a trousseau
by a Babylonian bride. One which illustrates the Code279 extremely well,
narrates first what had been given a notary and NU-BAR of Marduk by her
father on her taking her vow and entering the temple of Anunitum. This was
his “grant” to her and was known by the same name as the marriage-portion
of a bride. It included half a shekel of gold for a nose-ring (?), two shekels
of silver as a finger-ring, another ring of silver of one shekel, one malumsa,
three cloaks, three turbans, one small seal worth five minas, two jewels of
unknown character, one bed, five chairs, five different sorts of things
apparently made of reeds, the concubine Suratum, her step-mother.
Unfortunately many of these renderings are still quite conjectural. It is
interesting to note that the father left to his [pg 130] daughter his concubine,
who was probably a slave, and possibly really the girl's mother. But now
this girl is about to marry and her own mother, Shubultum, at any rate, her
father's full wife, together with her brothers and sisters, give her all this
property and cause it to enter her husband's house. They had a reversionary
right to her property, since as a votary she could not alienate it from her
family.280 So now they waive their right, as it will after her marriage pass to
her children, if she has any.281 So they are said to “give” her what her father
had already “granted” her. Further, they return to her husband the terḫatu,
of one-third of a mina of silver, which he had presented to them.282 The
marriage-portion could not be reclaimed by the wife's family at her death if
she had children. If she had none, it went back to her family.283

Another long list, also a “grant” to a votary, is found in two documents
which contain apparently a complaint of oppression made to the king.
f Neither is sufficiently complete to be decisive as to the purpose of the
letters or reports which are written in the first person. But they are
duplicates as far as they preserve the list and in many other long phrases.
Here is the list:

Four ... of gold, two rings ... each of them one ... two dishes, carved with
karakku birds, one dish carved as a lion, whose head is of AB wood, and its
border of KU wood, one chair of KU wood, three chairs (of different makes)
of AB wood, one oil-pot, šalla, one oil-pot containing two hundred ḲA of
Carchemish work, one mixing-pot of copper, one dupru kanku containing
thirty ḲA, two kundulu of copper, one ... two ..., one for ...

Although this list is full of words of which the meaning is obscure as yet,
one can see the main drift of it, jewelry, household furniture, pots and pans,
and whatever went to [pg 131] the domestic equipment of the house. It is of
interest to note that already Carchemish was celebrated for its wares.284

With these lists may be compared the Tell-el-Amarna lists given in
transcription, with a few hints at translation, by Dr. Winckler.285 They are
lists of presents sent by a king of Egypt to a king of Babylon; by Dushratta,
King of Mitanni, to Nimuria, King of Egypt, as the marriage-portion of his
daughter, Taduḫipa, and another list of her dowry. The greater part of the
names of these articles defy translation.

During the Fourth Dynasty of Babylon, the celebrated Michaux Stone286
records the gift of lands by a father to his daughter on her marriage. From
Kassite times we have a list similar to the above, but not easily translatable.
The supposed examples of dowry in Assyrian times are not really such. But
in the later Babylonian era the marriage-portion was still given by the
father. It bears, however, the name nudunnu, once reserved for the
husband's free gift to his wife. The nudunnu, in one case, is ten minas of
silver, four maid-servants, house-furniture, and the like.287 It might include
sheep and oxen.288 See also the later Babylonian laws about the marriage-
portion.289 A long list might be made out from these sources of the house-
furniture,290 but as before we do not know what half of the terms mean.

There are many examples of receipts given for the marriage-portion
received in full.291 Sometimes it was merely promised. It was not always
paid promptly. Law C made a note of this. The father might have promised
e a portion, and even given a deed of gift for it to his daughter. But if his
means have diminished he cannot be held to a literal fulfilment of the
promise. He may do what he can. The [pg 132] law adds significantly that

“father-in-law and son-in-law shall not oppress one another.” We find that
actions were frequently brought to obtain a marriage-portion. We have an
instance where the payment was withheld for nine years.292

A husband might make a settlement on his wife. In the time of the Code this
was called a nudunnu. It had to be by deed of gift. It might cover income-
producing estate as well as personal property. But it was hers only for life.
She could leave it as she chose among her children of the marriage, but not
to members of her own family.293 We may regard it as pin-money. Her
husband's heirs could not disturb her possession of it as long as she lived.
But she forfeited it, if she married again.294

The betrothed maiden did not at once leave her father's house. This we learn
from the Code, which enacts a penalty on one who should seduce a
d betrothed maiden living in her father's house.295 It seems that on both sides
betrothal took place in early life and that the arrangements were in the
hands of the parents. A father was expected to take a wife for his son.

Neither the Code nor any contracts throw light upon the marriage-
ceremony, but a tablet published by Dr. Pinches in the Proceedings of the
Victoria Institute, 1892-93, reprinted as “Notes on some recent discoveries
in the realm of Assyriology,” contains certain suggestions.296 It is very
fragmentary and in the form of an interlinear translation from the Sumerian.
It is not always clear who are the actors referred to, but we may perhaps
take it that the officiating ministers, priests, or elders, first placed their
hands and feet against the hands and feet of the bridegroom, then the bride
laid her head on his shoulder and he was made to say to her: “I am the son
of nobles, silver and gold shall fill [pg 133] your lap, you shall be my wife,
I will be your husband. Like the fruit of a garden I will give you offspring.”
Then there is a wide gap. But in the next column we seem to have a further
part of the wedding-ritual. The officiating ministers ceremoniously bound
sandals on the feet of the newly wedded pair, gave them a leather girdle (?
or strap) and fastened to it a pouch or purse of silver and gold. The further
ceremony included placing them somewhere in the desert. Then turning
their faces to the sunset and addressing the man, the minister says: “I swear
by the great gods and you may go.” He bids him not to put off the garment
of Ea, nor something belonging to Marduk of Eridu. Then comes a wide

gap, but the fourth column seems to read “until you have settled in the
house, until you have reached the city, eat no food and drink no water, taste
not the waters of the sea, sweet waters, bitter waters, the waters of the
Tigris, the waters of the Euphrates, waters of the well, nor waters of the
river, to fly up to heaven direct not your wings, to burrow in the earth set
not your dwelling. As a hero, the son of his god, let him be pure.”

The passage is very difficult and much of the rendering is conjectural, but
the point of the address seems to be that the young man was to go straight
home, live with his wife, and be good, as a true child of God. The first
column seems to be an enumeration of men who are cursed with
misfortunes, for example, “one whom his mother brought forth with
weeping,” and perhaps forms part of a prayer that the bridegroom may not
ever be like such men. We must hope some day to find a fuller text and so
to determine the connection of the various columns. But it is difficult to
imagine what else the text can be than part of a wedding-ceremony.

The young couple did not always set up a house of their own; they often
went to live with the bridegroom's father. [pg 134] This is shown by the
t penalty fixed by the Code for the seduction of a daughter-in-law by a father-
in-law. The daughter-in-law was living in his house.297

In the earlier days monogamy prevailed. A man ordinarily had one wife.
Polygamy, however, was not unknown. For a variety of reasons men did
sometimes have two wives, but these cases were treated as exceptions. A
t man might also have a concubine or a slave-girl to bear him children. These
y did not bear legitimate children. He might adopt them, but was not bound to
do so. If a man married twice, the children of both marriages shared equally
in his possessions; but they did not put their mothers' marriage-portions into
a common fund and divide that equally. The children of the first wife
divided among themselves their own mother's marriage-portion, and the
children of the second marriage did likewise.298

In Assyrian times there is clear evidence that among the slaves and serfs, at
least, polygamy was fairly common.299 In the later Babylonian era
polygamy also existed. Wives might be sisters.300 We read of a “second
r wife.”301 But taking a second wife was held to be a slight upon the first, in
whose marriage-contract the clause was inserted that in such a case the

husband must pay her a mina of silver and allow her to go back to her
father's house. In that case the man was hardly bigamous. It was a case of
divorce, and perhaps a legal ceremony before judges was also necessary.

A man might form a connection with a woman other than his wife. A
concubine was a free woman, but had not the status of a wife; nevertheless
she might bring with her a marriage-portion, over which she had the same
rights as [pg 135] a legal wife.302 She was taken into the same house as the
wife, but she might not rival her. A man's excuse for taking a concubine was
that his wife was childless. He was not allowed to take a concubine, even if
his wife was childless, if she gave him a maid to bear him children. Only
when the wife was herself childless and would not allow him a maid, was
he allowed to bring a concubine into his house. This second wife was
married to him. She often seems to have been bound to serve the first wife
and treat her as her mistress. But she had the same rights as a wife. If she
were put away, the husband had to return her marriage-portion, if she had
any. She had the usufruct of house, field, and goods. She was not deprived
of her children, but had the custody and education of them. When they
entered into possession of their father's property, she shared with them,
taking the same share as a child. Then she was free to marry again.303 It
seems that in any case, the children of a concubine were full children and
with the same standing as the children of the first wife. The father might
dower his daughter for a concubine; she then had no claim to share with her
brothers and sisters at his death.304 But, if her father had given her no
marriage-portion, her brothers must give her one at the division of his
property.305

The case was different with the maid—a slave who by her mistress's
consent bore children to her master. She was still a slave and if she rivalled
d her mistress, or was impertinent to her, she could be put back again among
e the slaves; perhaps even branded. But, if she had borne children, she was
r not to be sold as a slave. At the death of her master she was free. Her
children by him were free in any case. If her master were so minded, he
might make them full sons by verbal acknowledgment. It was enough to
say, “my sons.” But that he had done so probably had to [pg 136] be proved
by a witness. A family unacknowledged by the father would on his death
have only a mother. In such a family the mother was the obvious ruler. We

must be on our guard against mistaking her position, or that of the
concubine above, for examples of matriarchy. If she was pledged for debt,
she could not be sold, she must be bought back.

That a slave usually was married to a slave-girl with his master's consent
and even by his direction is quite the rule. Masters even went so far as to
buy a slave-girl to be wife to a slave. There is no reason to think that the
master did not respect the slave's matrimonial rights. But the slave's wife
was not always owned by the slave's master. Sometimes she was owned by
a different master, or was free. There was no especial disgrace attaching to
becoming the wife of a slave. A free woman might not only marry a slave,
but bring with her a marriage-portion, as if she had married in her own
rank. The man had no ancestral property, he was “a son of no one.” Hence
when he died all the property to be divided consisted of what the married
couple had acquired together, and the wife's marriage-portion. To the latter
she had full and unquestioned right. The master was his slave's heir. So the
property which the pair had acquired during their married life was divided
into two equal portions. The master took one half, the wife the other for
herself and her children. The children were all free. When both father and
mother were slaves, so were the children. There was no property then for
the slave-children to inherit.306

Some further evidence from the contracts is worth noting here. Documents
relating to marriage are not very common and may have owed their
m presence in the archives to some peculiarity in their form. Some are perhaps
rather a [pg 137] memorandum that the proper formalities have been
complied with. Thus307 we read that “A has taken to wife B, the daughter of
C, from C and D his wife, and has paid ten shekels as terḫatu to C, her
father.” The rest is lost. If it only laid down the penalties for infidelity on
either side, this was quite normal.

Whenever the mother alone appears, as giving her daughter in marriage, we
may suspect that the father was dead, or the mother divorced. When the
mother is a votary, we know that such a person was not entitled to have a
daughter at all, and hence we are not surprised that the terḫatu offered for
the girl is small, five shekels308 or even one shekel.309 So the penalty laid

upon the man for divorcing such a wife is only ten shekels.310 On the other
hand if she was unfaithful she was to be drowned.311

Very singular are the cases in which a votary marries. We know from the
Code that this sometimes took place; but the votary seems to have been
expected, though married, to keep her vow of virginity. In one case we read
that a woman first devotes her daughter, ullilši, then marries her, and
declares at the same time that she is vowed, ellit, and that no one has any
claim on her.312

In some cases a sister had the power to give her sister in marriage, with the
declaration that no one has any claim on her.313 We may imagine the sisters
f orphans, without brothers. The name of their father is, however, given; and
his sons and daughters are mentioned. It seems to be closely parallel to the
case of the marriage of a king's daughter314 where a sister also gives a sister
in marriage. Here Elmeshu, daughter of the king Ammiditana, is given in
marriage by Zirtum, also daughter of king Ammiditana, on the order of her
brother, Shumum-libshi. The bridegroom [pg 138] was Ibku-Anunitum, son
of Shamash-limir and Taram-shullim, his wife. The parents paid for their
son only four shekels as terḫatu, which Shumum-libshi and Zirtum
received. If the bridegroom repudiated his bride, he had to pay half a mina.
It is not clear what penalty the bride had to pay if she repudiated her
husband. This is dated in the reign of Ammiditana; but in which year of his
reign does not appear, as the traces of the year-name do not agree with any
in the Chronicle. It must then have fallen somewhere between the seventh
and the twenty-second years. Hence the father of the princess was alive at
the time. Why had he no hand in the marriage? The history of the reign is
not very well known. Perhaps he was away from home. His son and
successor, Ammizaduga, whom we may imagine to have been the eldest
son, does not appear in the case. Perhaps he also was away. But it is
remarkable that the king never does directly take part in any contract. That
is probably due to his sacred character. The young princess was not treated
with overmuch consideration, judging by the smallness of her dowry.

We have a very singular case in the marriage of two sisters to one man. This
has already been translated and commented upon by Meissner,315 Pinches,316
and Sayce.317 It is, however, too important to omit here. There are two

tablets concerned with it.318 The first is the contract between the husband
and his wives. We may render it thus:

Ardi-Shamash took to wife Taram-Saggil and Iltâni, daughters of Sin-abushu.
If Taram-Saggil and Iltâni say to Ardi-Shamash, their husband, “You are not
my husband,” one shall throw them down from the AN-ZAG-GAR-KI; and if
Ardi-Shamash shall say to Taram-Saggil and Iltâni his wives, “You are not
my wives,” he shall leave house and furniture. Further, Iltâni shall obey the
orders of Taram-Saggil, shall carry her chair to the temple of her god. The
[pg 139] provisions of Taram-Saggil shall Iltâni prepare, her well-being
she shall care for, her seal she shall not appropriate (?).

Then follow ten witnesses, but no date.

The second document seems to be drawn up rather from the point of view
of the sisters. We may render it thus:

Iltâni, the sister of Taram-Saggil, Ardi-Shamash, son of Shamash-ennam,
took to wife, from Uttatum, their father. Iltâni shall prepare the provisions of
her sister, shall care for her well-being, shall carry her chair to the temple of
Marduk. The children which she has borne, or shall bear, shall be their
children. [If Taram-Saggil] shall say to Iltâni, her sister, “you are not my
sister” [the penalty is lost]. [If Iltâni shall say to Taram-Saggil her sister],
“You are not my sister,” one shall brand her, and sell her. If Ardi-Shamash
shall say to his wife, “You are not my wife,” he shall pay one mina of silver;
and if they say to Ardi-Shamash their husband, “You are not our husband,”
one shall tie them up and throw them into the river.

Here there are eleven witnesses, but again no date.

Meissner deduces from the mention of children that Taram-Saggil was
already married. The exact relation between the sisters is not clear. In one
case they seem to be daughters of Uttatum, in the other of Sin-abushu. Or it
may be that Iltâni alone was daughter of Sin-abushu. If so, perhaps Uttatum
had adopted her. Sayce clearly thinks so. But they might be daughters of the

same mother by different fathers, one of whom is mentioned in one case,
the other in the other. Or they might really be children of Sin-abushu, if
their mother afterwards married Uttatum, who was thus their step-father. It
is clear that Iltâni was to wait on her sister, and, if she repudiated her, was
to be treated as a slave. This is exactly parallel to the status of the slave-
maid, whom a wife or votary in the Code319 provided for her husband.
Perhaps Taram-Saggil had become a chronic invalid. A comparison of the
two [pg 140] texts is interesting in other respects. The penalties differ
curiously. If Ardi-Shamash repudiates his wives, in one case, he loses house
and furniture; in the other case, he pays one mina. Was one the penalty for
repudiating Taram-Saggil, the other for repudiating Iltâni? But if they
repudiate him, the penalties are different in the two documents, unless
indeed the AN-ZAG-GAR-KI be an ideogram for the “steep place” from
which they were to be thrown into the water.

Marriages are not infrequent which impose conditions upon the husband
and wife with relation to outside parties. Thus a mother gives her daughter
in marriage to a man, on condition that she shall continue to support her
mother as long as she lives. In this case, if the husband put away his wife,
he was to pay one mina of silver; while, if she hated her husband, she was
to be thrown from a pillar, dimtu.320 This pillar may be the real meaning of
the AN-ZAG-GAR-KI, which looks very like an attempt to express
zigguratu, a tower, in an ideographic way. A very similar case is where a
lady takes a girl to be wife to her son but stipulates that the wife shall treat
her as mistress. If she shall say to her mother-in-law, “Thou art not my
mistress,” she shall be branded and sold. As long as the mother lives, they
two together shall support her.321 One may suspect that such maternal
power, as is here shown over the children, arises from their having been
adopted by their mother in order to provide for her in her old age. This was
often done. The children may have been slaves before adoption. In the
second case, the mother leaves her son all she has, or may acquire.

[pg 141]

XI. Divorce And Desertion

Divorce is regulated by the Code. The Sumerian laws seem to regard the
marriage-tie as dissoluble on the part of the man by an act of simple
repudiation, accompanied by a solatium, fixed at half a mina. The wife,
however, was punished by death for repudiating her husband.322 The Code
limits the facility of divorce for the man and renders it possible for the
woman to obtain.

Divorce of either a wife or concubine involved her being given a
maintenance. The divorced wife had the custody of her children, if any.
a They were not disinherited by the divorce. The divorced woman retained
the marriage-portion which she had brought to the home. She had a share
with her children in the divorced husband's property at his death. If he
married again, the children of both marriages shared equally. She was also
free to marry again, but apparently not until her children had come into
their share of the late husband's property, therefore not during his life.323

Divorce was permitted on the ground of childlessness. The husband gave
back to his wife all her marriage-portion. Also he had to give the bride-price
which he had paid to her parents during his courtship, and which they had
returned to him, as a rule, on marriage.324 If this bride-price had not been
given, then he paid her a fixed sum of money; [pg 142] one mina, if he was
a patrician, a third, if he was only a plebeian.325 A slave does not seem to
have had the liberty of divorce.

The wife might take a dislike to her husband and set her face to leave him
and deny him conjugal rights. This was probably equivalent to desertion.
Then a judicial inquiry was required. If his ill treatment or neglect was
e made clear and she was blameless, a divorce was granted. She took her
marriage-portion and went back to her family. But as this was of her own
seeking, she received no alimony.326 It is assumed that it was an unhappy
marriage from the first and that there were no children.

If it were proved that she was a bad wife, she was treated as an adulteress
and drowned.327 On the other hand, even if she were a bad wife, the husband
might repudiate her simply without paying any price for divorce. In this
case there was no suspicion of her infidelity. Or the husband might degrade
her to the position of a slave.328 There is no mention in these cases of a
return to her father's house.

Chronic illness on the part of a wife was not a ground for divorce. The
husband had to maintain her. He might, however, take a second wife.329 If
she did not care to remain in his house in such conditions, she could leave
him, take her marriage-portion and return to her family.330

We have already seen that the Code regulates the questions arising out of
divorce.331 The examples at this period are but few. In one case a man put
away his wife and she received her price of divorce. It is expressly stated
e that she may marry another man and her former husband will not
complain.332 This document is, however, little more than an agreement to
abide by the terms of the divorce.

[pg 143]
In another case a marriage-contract names the penalty a man shall pay for
divorcing his wife.333 In all these cases the word for divorce, ezêbu, is
literally “to put away.” But a man divorced his wife by the simple process
of saying, “You are not my wife.” He then paid her a fine, returned her
marriage-portion and so on, as laid down in the Code.334 It was far harder
for a woman to secure a divorce from her husband. She could do so,
however, but only as the result of a lawsuit.335 As a rule, the marriage-
contracts mention death as her punishment, if she repudiates her husband.
The death by drowning is usually named. This was in accordance with Law
V. of the Sumerian Code.

We may regard repudiation of husband and wife, one by the other, and
desertion as leading to divorce; and therefore these may be appropriately
considered next.

Desertion of a wife by her husband might be involuntary. The Code deals
with the case of a man captured by the enemy. If the wife were left at home
well provided for, she was bound to be true to her absent husband. If she

entered another man's house, she was condemned to death as an
adulteress.336 But if she was not provided for, she might enter another man's
house without blame.337 There she might bear children. But, if so, she yet
had to go back to her original husband on his return. The children she had
borne in his absence were to be counted to their real father.338 That the law
provides for such cases points to the existence of frequent wars, in which
fortune was not always on the side of Babylonia.

But the husband might desert his wife voluntarily. Then, if she was left
unprovided for, the wife might enter another man's house. The errant
husband, when he returned, could not reclaim his wife.339

[pg 144]
We have a legal decision in a case340 where a man had deserted his wife for
twenty years and “left her to her fate, did not love her.” During this time a
daughter, whether real or adoptive we are not told, took care of her mother.
To her the mother left property, among other things, a slave. The mother
being dead, the truant husband returned and claimed the slave from the
daughter. He was nonsuited.

Among the provocations which gave the wife cause for divorce was the
“going out” of the husband, probably a euphemism for adultery on his part.
Belittling his wife was another ground for her complaint. What this means
is not quite clear, but we may regard it as persistent neglect.

[pg 145]

XII. Rights Of Widows

The Code makes clear what was the position of the widow. She had a right
to stay on in her husband's house until she died,341 but was not compelled to
do so.342 If she remained, she was the head of the family. To her the young
sons looked to furnish them with means to court a wife, and the daughters
e for a marriage-portion. She acted in these matters with the consent and
n assistance of her grown-up children. But she might elect to leave the home
and remarry.

As long as she remained in her husband's home she enjoyed to the full
whatever she had brought there as a marriage-portion, whatever her
f husband had settled upon her, and also received a share from her husband's
goods at his death. The widow's share was the same as a child's. But she had
no power to alienate any of these possessions. The Code expressly declares
that they were her children's after her.343 The children had no power to turn
her out. If they desired her to leave, the matter came before the law-courts,
and her private wishes were consulted. If she wished to remain, she might
do so, and the judge bound over the children to allow her to do so.344

A very clear example of the permanence of the Code regulations on this
subject meets us in the fifth year of Cambyses.345 Ummu-tâbat, daughter of
Nabû-bêl-usur, wife [pg 146] of Shamash-uballiṭ, son of Bêl-ebarra, a
Shamash priest, who was dead, whose sons were Shamash-eṭir, Nidittum,
and Ardi-Ḥar, swore to Bêl-uballiṭ, priest of Sippara, saying, “I will not
remarry, I will live with my sons, I will bring up my sons to manhood, until
they are numbered with the people.” On the day that Ummu-ṭâbat remarries,
according to her bond, the property [of her late husband] which is in the
possession of Bêl-uballiṭ, the priest of Sippara, [she shall forfeit]. The tablet
is defective here, but on the edge of the tablet we see that the care of her
sons was given her. To remarry is expressed here by the words, “going into
the bît zikari.”

A widow could remarry at her discretion. She no longer had to be given in
marriage. She was free to marry the man of her choice.346 She might take
with her her marriage-portion to her new home, but she had to leave behind
a any settlement which her former husband had given her, or any share of his
goods that had come to her at his death. Her family were not called upon to
find any fresh marriage-portion for her. But she was not completely
mistress of even her marriage-settlement. If she had children of the former
marriage, they and any children of her second marriage shared her
marriage-portion equally. Only she had the enjoyment of it for life.347 If
there were no children of the second marriage, those of the first took all she
left.348

We have assumed that when her husband died her children were old enough
to care for themselves. If they were not, she had no power to enter upon a
second marriage and desert her first family. She was not free to marry at all
t without consent of the law-court.349 But there is no evidence that this could
be withheld, if proper conditions were observed. The first husband's
property was inventoried and consent for the second marriage being
granted, she and her [pg 147] new husband were bound by deed to preserve
the whole estate of the late husband for his children. With that proviso, the
newly married pair entered into full use of the deceased's property and were
bound to educate the children until grown up. They had no inducement to
neglect them, as in any case none of the deceased's property could ever be
theirs. If the children died, it would all revert to the family of the deceased.
The newly married pair had no further interest in it than the enjoyment of it
until the children could manage for themselves. They could not alienate any
of it. The sale of even a utensil was not possible.350

[pg 148]

XIII. Obligations And Rights Of Children

It is customary to say that the father had absolute power over his children,
but it is better to state only what is known with certainty regarding the
extent of his power. The father could treat his child, or even his wife,
e equally with a slave, as a chattel to be pledged for his debts.351 We may
therefore conclude that he could sell his child. An actual example cannot be
cited from early times, but they are very common later.
e
The son was not capable of entering into an independent contract with an
outside person.352 We may assume that this means simply while yet living in
his father's house. The father had rights over what his son earned. A man
could also hire out his child and take the wages.353

The father had the right to prefer one son above the rest. He could endow
him with house, field, and garden. But this must be done in his lifetime and
r by written deed. This gift did not in any way affect the son's claim to inherit
equally with his brethren on the father's death, when he took a full share
over and above what he had by gift.354

The father had full power to dispose of his daughters in marriage. But he
was expected to furnish them with a marriage-portion. This was not
l obligatory, being probably a matter of negotiation with the parents of the
s bridegroom. In later times the obligation evidently became irksome and [pg
149] oppressive, and Law E was passed to relieve the strain. A father was
bound to do his best to fulfil his promise to dower his daughter, but no
more. A father could not hinder his daughter from becoming a votary.355 If
he approved her choice, he might give her a portion, as if for marriage,356
but he was not compelled to do so. A father could give his daughter to be a
concubine.357

The father's consent was also needed to his son's marriage.358 He had to
provide the youth with a bride-price, and secure a wife for him.359

It is not easy to determine when children ceased to be under the paternal
power. Betrothed daughters remained in their father's house; so did married
f sons sometimes. Whether the birth of a child, making the young man
himself a father, freed him as head of a family, or whether it was entering a
house of his own, we cannot yet say.

The Sumerian laws are very severe upon a child's repudiation of a father.
That degraded him to the status of a slave. He might also be branded.
Obviously he was disinherited. The repudiation is expressed in the words,
f “You are not my father,” but it may be intended to cover all unfilial
conduct. The Code is more explicit. If a son struck his father, his hands
were cut off.360

The Sumerian laws preserved the father's rights to disinherit the son by a
simple repudiation, saying, “You are not my son.” The son then had to leave
house and enclosure. The Code limits this power. It insists on legal process
and good reason alleged. Also it was not allowed for a first offence on the
son's part.361

The mother was in much the same position of authority as the father. A son
who repudiated his mother was branded and expelled from house and city.
He was not, [pg 150] however, sold as a slave. The Sumerian laws also
reserved to the mother the right to repudiate her son, and he must quit house
and property. The Code gives no such power to mothers. Indeed, we find
examples of a son disputing with a mother.362 Mothers took up the father's
place toward the children on the death of the father as regards marriage-
portions, bride-price, and other family affairs. But they usually acted in
concert with the elder children.

The repudiation of adoptive parents was a very grievous sin, especially on
the part of those who were children of parents who were forbidden to have
children. Something worse than illegitimacy was their lot. The penalties of
having the eye torn out, or the tongue cut out,363 show the abhorrence felt
for their ingratitude.

[pg 151]

XIV. The Education And Early Life Of Children

Much has been made of the knowledge of writing shown by the
Babylonians and Assyrians. The ability to draw up deeds and write letters
seems at first sight to have been widely diffused. In the times of the First
Dynasty of Babylon almost every tablet seems to have a fresh tupšar, or
scribe. Many show the handiwork of women scribes.364 But most of the
f persons concerned in these documents were of the priestly rank. There is no
evidence that the shepherds or workpeople could write. In the Assyrian
times the scribe was a professional man. We find aba or tupšar used as a
title. So, too, in later Babylonian times. The witnesses to a document can
only be said to sign their names in so far as that they impressed their seals.
This was done, at any rate, in early times. In the Assyrian period the only
parties who sealed were the owners of the property transferred to a new
owner. The whole of a tablet shows the same handwriting throughout.
Anyone who reads carefully through the facsimile copies in Cuneiform
Texts can readily see this. Different scribes, especially in early times, wrote
differently, but this was still the case in Assyrian days. Yet no change of
hand can be noted anywhere in one document, save where, as in the forecast
tablets, a date or note was added by a different person, often in Assyrian
script, to a text written in Babylonian. The only safe [pg 152] statement to
make is that from the earliest times a very large number of persons existed,
at any rate in the larger towns, who could write and draw up documents.

The use of Sumerian terms and phrases in the body of a document written
in Semitic Babylonian might be ascribed to a mere tradition. But they were
no meaningless formulæ. The many variations, including the substitution of
d completely different though synonymous words, show that these Sumerian
phrases were sufficiently understood to be intelligently used. In later times
e they either disappear altogether, or are used with little variation. They had
become stereotyped and were conventional signs, doubtless read as Semitic,
though written as Sumerian. Our own retention of Latin words is a close
parallel. The First Dynasty of Babylon was bilingual at any rate in its legal

documents, though the letters are all pure Semitic. The earlier documents
show few signs of Semitic origin, though its influence can be traced as far
back as we can go.

The discovery at Sippara of a school dating from the First Dynasty of
Babylon is very fully worked out by Professor Scheil in Une Saison de
fouilles à Sippara, pp. 30-54. Professor Hilprecht gives further details in
Explorations in Bible Lands, pp. 522-28 and passim.

The methods of learning to write and the lessons in Sumerian are well
described by these authors, and illustrated by numerous extant examples of
practice-tablets. The subjects were very numerous and included arithmetic,
mensuration, history, geography, and literature. As Dr. Pinches has shown
by his edition of some of these practice-tablets,365 these contain very
valuable fragments of otherwise lost or imperfectly known texts.

Slaves were often bound as apprentices to learn a trade or handicraft. A man
might adopt a child to teach him his [pg 153] trade, and his duty to him was
sufficiently discharged by doing so.

We do not yet know in any authoritative way, when or with what
ceremonies children were named. In the case of slaves we have a boy, still
f at the breast,366 or a girl of three months, not named.367 On the other hand, a
girl still at the breast is named. Hence Meissner concludes, that at the end of
one year, at latest, the child was given a name.368 But the usage with respect
to slaves is hardly a rule, and, as appears from the above, they were not
consistently named.

A child seems often to have been put out to nurse. From the phrase-book we
learn that a father might “give a child to a wet-nurse to be suckled, and give
f the wet-nurse food and drink, oil for anointing, and clothing for three
years.”369 That this was not only done with adopted children is clear from
the Code;370 where we find a severe penalty laid on a wet-nurse, who
substitutes another child for the one intrusted to her, without the parents'
consent.

It will hardly do to interpret the phrase-book371 as meaning that all children
were made to learn writing. But that this was commonly done is evident

from the number, both of men and women, who could act as scribes.372

f

d
d [pg 154]

XV. Adoption

Adoption primarily means a process by which parents could admit to the
privileges of sonship children born of other parents. There were many
reasons which might impel them to such a course. If they were childless, a
natural desire for an heir might operate. But under the Babylonian law a
r man might take a second wife, or a maid, if his wife were childless, to bear
him children. A more operative cause was that children were a source of
profit to their parents while they remained with them. But it seems that men
married early. Hence this alone does not seem sufficient to account for the
great frequency of adoption. Besides, in that case, what induced a parent to
part with his child for adoption? It seems that the real cause most often was
that the adopting parents had lost by marriage all their own children and
were left with no child to look after them. They then adopted a child whose
parents would be glad to see him provided for, to look after them until they
died, leaving him the property they had left after portioning their own
children.

The Code admits all kinds of adoption, but regulates the custom. A man
might adopt an illegitimate son, or the child of a votary or palace-warder,
who had no right to children, or the child of living parents. In the latter case
t alone was the parents' consent necessary. We have examples of cases of
adoption of relatives, of entirely unrelated [pg 155] persons, of a slave
even.373 We learn from the series ana ittišu374 that a man might take a young
child, put it out to nurse, provide the nurse with food, oil for anointing, and
clothing, for a space of three years; and then have it taught a trade or
profession, such as that of scribe.375

Adoption was effected by a deed, drawn up and sealed by the adoptive
parents, duly sworn to and witnessed. Such contracts definitely state the
relationship, which was in all respects the same as that of a son born in
f matrimony. But it laid down the obligations of the son, while it stipulated
what was the inheritance to which he might expect to succeed. It brought

responsibilities to both parties and fixed them. The son was bound to do that
which a son would naturally have done, explicitly, to maintain his parents
while they lived. The parents were bound, not only to leave him property,
but to treat him as a son. But, as a rule, all was matter of contract and
carefully set down. If such a contract was not drawn up, although the
adoptive parents had brought him up, the child must return to his father's
house.376 Only, for an artisan, it was sufficient to have taught the child his
trade.377

So far as our examples go, some color might be given to the suggestion that
adoption was always merely for the convenience of old people who wanted
to be taken care of. But we know that children were adopted on other
grounds. That they were children and not always grown-up men and women
is clear from the above. This we may regard as adoption pure and simple.
Other cases are a legal method of making provision for old age, or for other
purposes for which an heir as legal representative was desirable. In the case
of no legal heir, the property went back to the next of kin.

[pg 156]

That such a process did take place in Babylonia is made clear by the
Code.378 But few examples are known where a father takes into his family
an additional child. The case, in which the son is not only adopted by
d parents who have a family living, but is ranked as their eldest son, deserves
reproducing in full.379

Ubar-Shamash, son of Sin-idinnam, from Sin-idinnam, his father, and
Bititum, his mother, have Beltum-abi and Taram-ulmash taken to sonship,
and let him be the son of Beltum-abi and Taram-ulmash. Ubar-Shamash shall
be their eldest son. The day that Beltum-abi, his father, and Taram-ulmash,
his mother, say to Ubar-Shamash, their son, “You are not our son,” he shall
leave house and furniture. The day that Ubar-Shamash shall say to Beltum-
abi, his father, or Taram-ulmash, his mother, “You are not my father or my
mother,” one shall brand him, put fetters upon him, and sell him.

Both parents of the adopted son were living. That the son is to be reckoned
eldest implies that the adopting parents had other children. This is made
clear in one case where the adoptive parents are expressly said to have five
children.380 In another case where a child is adopted a certain person is
expressly said to be his brother.381

The existing members of the family had a real interest in the proceeding.
For, as inheriting with them, the addition of another son could not but affect
f their prospects. We may wonder what influenced them to consent. That they
did consent is clear from the often-occurring covenant by which they bound
themselves not to object. One explanation may be that they had grown up
e and left home and were anxious for the welfare of their parents, but could
not arrange to look after them themselves. Hence for their parents' sake they
were willing to forego their share, or submit to a stranger taking precedence
of them, or in some cases to give up all claim to the property in their
parents' [pg 157] possession in return for being relieved of the responsibility
of looking after them. Of course, when the adopted son was only taken in as
one, even the eldest, among several, he would only have a share at the
parents' death. But it even seems that the children might of their own
motion adopt a brother to be son to their parents.382

The clause which implies disinheritance in case the parents repudiate the
son, or he repudiates them, could only be enforced by a law-court.383 But it
was nevertheless most regularly inserted in the contract. In one case the
a document merely consists of it,384 leaving us to infer that an adopted son
was concerned. But this is not absolutely certain. The son might have been
rebellious to his mother, who was therefore minded to cut him off, and this
may be the result of her bringing her son before the judge. The judge was
bound to try and conciliate the parties.385 Hence, not infrequently the son
was bound over not to repeat the offence on pain of disinheritance, while
the mother retained her right to disinherit. There was no mention of his
being sold for a slave, or branded, as was usual when a son was adopted and
then repudiated his parents.

According to the contracts entered into by the parties, parents could
repudiate adopted sons. This was contrary to the law by which the consent
of the judge was needed for disinheritance. It seems to be an attempt to

contract without the support of the law. The son was then to take a son's
share and go away.386

The word aplûtu, abstract of aplu, “son,” and therefore literally “sonship,”
being also used to denote the relation of a daughter to a parent, came to
f denote the “share” which a son or daughter received. If a man adopted a
son, he granted him an aplûtu, or “sonship,” and this carried with it a
material property. But the father, while still living, [pg 158] might grant the
son his aplûtu and stipulate for maintenance during the rest of his life. Such
a grant begins with aplûtu ša B, where B is the son. But it by no means
follows that B is an adopted son. The question is only decided for us when
the parentage of B is given. If he is said to be the “son of C,” then we know
that A giving him “sonship” must mean that A adopted him. But if B is
merely indicated as the son of A, we cannot tell whether he was born to A,
or only adopted by A.

So when the property given to B is in his power to dispose of later as he
may choose, this privilege is expressed by the words, “he may give his
sonship to whom he chooses.” The choice is sometimes expressed as “that
which is good to his heart,” or “in his eyes,” or “whom he loves.” A
e modified choice is often mentioned, as when it is said that a votary may
leave her “sonship” after her to whom she likes “among her brothers.”

We have a large number of documents which make reference to the aplûtu
of a certain person, which we can render here by “heritage.” These are
especially common on the part of votaries. As we have seen, they were not
h supposed to have children of their own, but possessed the right to nominate
their heir within limits. In return for exercising this right in favor of a
certain person, they usually stipulated that such person shall maintain them
as long as they live and otherwise care for them. Even outside actual deeds
of heritage, we find references to property derived from votaries subject to
certain duties. Such dispositions of property are closely related to a will or
testament, but anticipate the death of the testator. They are really
settlements for the future, which exactly answers to the title given them by
the Babylonian scribes, ridit warkati.

The following example makes these details clear:387

[pg 159]

The heritage of Eli-eriṣa, votary of Shamash, daughter of Shamash-ilu.
Belisunu, votary of Shamash, daughter of Nakarum, is the caretaker of her
future life. One-third GAN of unreclaimed land in Karnamkarum, next the
field of Issurîa, one SAR house in Ḥalḫalla, next the house of Nakarum, one-
third SAR four GIN in Gagim, one maid Shala-beltum, price ten shekels of
silver, all this for the future in its entirety, what Eli-eriṣa, votary of Shamash,
daughter of Shamash-ilu, has or shall acquire, she gives to Belisunu, votary
of Shamash, daughter of Nakarum. Every year Belisunu shall give to Eli-
eriṣa three GUR of corn, ten minas of bronze, and twelve ḲA of oil.

The aplûtu thus given was in many cases an alienation of property on which
some relative had claims. Even where their consent was not necessary it
was desirable that they should not involve the heir in legal processes.
t Hence, such relatives are called up to covenant that they will raise no
objection to the heir's peaceable succession.388

The obligation to support the adoptive parent is emphasized. The amount of
sustenance varies much. Another list of yearly allowances reads one shekel
f of silver, woollen yarn, six ḲA of oil, four išinni Shamašh, ten ḲA of fat,
one side, two GUR of corn. Many others could be instanced, but they make
no great addition to our knowledge.

The obligation might be service; as when a lady adopts a maid to serve her
for life and inherit a certain house.389 In another case a lady adopts a son to
bring up her daughter and give her to a husband. “If he vexes his adoptive
mother, she will cut him off. He shall not have claim on any of the goods of
his adoptive mother, but shall inherit her field and garden.”390 Evidently the
mother intended her personal effects to be her daughter's and to form her
marriage-portion. The obligation did not always last long. Thus we find that
Lautum, who was adopted by a votary and was herself a votary, two years
later was in a position to adopt as her daughter another votary.391 She
handed on [pg 160] the same property, indicating that her adoptive mother
was dead.

The adoption of a child by a lady of fortune was evidently a good
settlement for the child, and usually the real parents raised no objection. We
even find the father of a girl adopted by a lady, making an addition to her
heritage in the form of a gift to the adopting mother on her effecting the
deed of adoption. He gave them two male and two female slaves. Here also
the girl covenanted to support the adoptive mother.392

Occasionally the adopted child did not carry out his duties. This was good
ground for disinheriting him. But disinheritance was not to be inflicted
without the sanction of the judges.393 Hence we find that when a lady had
r adopted a daughter who failed to give her food and drink, the judges
f summoned them to the great temple of Shamash in Sippara, there cut off the
daughter from her heritage, took away the tablet of adoption granted her,
and destroyed it.394

A curious case is where A, the daughter of B and C, endows D to take care
of B and C. As long as D lives A covenants to allow her so much. When she
f dies A will herself perform the duties.395 Here A evidently expected her
parents would not live long, but also D must have been aged, or infirm, as A
contemplates the chance of her parents outliving D. This is not a case of
adoption, but is so similar in purpose to those above as to deserve a place
here.

Occasionally, however, the adopting parent reserved the usufruct of the
property for life only, fixing by deed the rightful heir.396 This was, in effect,
a will or testament, since the inheritance did not take effect until after the
death of the testator.

[pg 161]

XVI. Rights Of Inheritance

The division of property among the children invariably followed the death
of the father. We have a very large number of contracts bearing on this
custom. The contract sets forth the particulars of the division and includes a
f sworn declaration on the part of the recipients to make no further claim.
There were certain reservations to be made in the case of minors, for whom
a portion had to be set aside to provide for their making the proper gifts to
the parents of their brides on marriage.

The Code deals at length with the laws of inheritance, which are best
treated under the head of marriage. The actual examples occurring in the
s documents of the period serve to illustrate the practical working of these
laws, but hardly add to our knowledge. They are usually occupied with the
e division of property among brothers. Sometimes we have some light on the
reservations made in favor of other members of the family. Thus two
brothers divide the property of their “father's house” and of their sister, a
votary. The sister did not take her property, but the brothers were trustees
for her enjoyment of it during her life, when it reverted to them in full.397
The document merely states the amount of one brother's share and the
other's agreement to be content with the division. In another case, where
four brothers share the property of their [pg 162] “father's house,” no details
of their shares are given, but only their agreement to abide by the division
made.398 In another case the eldest brother allots to each of two younger
brothers a share and takes a woman slave and her children as his portion.
He is said to do this of his “own power,” ina emur ḳamanišu, and to have
given them this of his “own graciousness,” ina tûbâtišu. The brothers swear
to make no further claim on the “grant,” maršîtu, of their father. Either the
property to which they were legally entitled had already been allotted them,
or possibly they had no legal claim on any. The eldest brother is a high
official, a pa-pa, and perhaps had succeeded his father in office. The father's
property would then be the endowment of his office, a grant from the king,
and as such inalienable from the office to which the eldest son had

succeeded. The three slaves may have thus been all the private property of
the father which was available for division. But the context seems to
suggest that what the brothers received was a concession from the eldest
brother on which they had no claim. He may in consideration of his
succeeding to his father's appointment have made this concession to his
brothers as a consolation.399 In another case a mother gives certain sums to
her three sons. She had still left two sons and two daughters, and the first
three agree to make no claim on all that she and these four children have or
shall acquire.400 It is noteworthy that one of the three receives ten shekels as
the terḫatu of the wife he shall marry. He was evidently not of marriageable
age, or, at any rate, still unmarried. In such a case the Code directed that on
partition of the father's property, a special sum should be laid aside for this
necessary present to the bride's father.401 So we find two brothers giving a
sister a share consisting of one-third SAR of a house, next her brother's, one
maid, a bed and a [pg 163] chair, with the promise that on the day that she
marries and enters her husband's house she shall receive further two-thirds
GAN of land and slaves.402 The list of property is often given, especially
where brothers give shares to their sisters. Sometimes the relationship is
less close. Thus a man shares with two sons of his father's brother, i.e., with
two cousins, ten SAR of unreclaimed land, taking three and a half SAR as
his share.403 Sometimes the property included the mother's marriage-
portion. Thus three brothers divide their property and two of them, as her
sons, share their mother's marriage-portion:404

One SAR of built land and granary, next the house of Ubarrîa and next that of
Bushum-Sin, two exits to the street, the property of Urra-nâṣir, which he
y divided with Sin-ikisham and Ibni-Shamash. From mouth (?) to gold the
share is complete. Brother shall not dispute with brother. By Shamash,
Malkat, Marduk, and Sin-mubaliṭ they swore. Nine witnesses. Thirteenth
405
year of Sin-mubaliṭ.

The property which fell to Urra-nâṣir was a house occupying one SAR of
land. The text means not that the three men, Urra-nâṣir, Sin-ikisham, and
Ibni-Shamash, divided the house among them, but that at the division this
house was the share of the first named. What the two, Sin-ikisham and Ibni-
Shamash, had as their share we are not here told. But the three agreed not to

call in question the division of property, which probably came to them from
their father or mother. Fortunately we know in this case what the others got.
Thus we find:

One SAR of built land, (and) granary, next the house of Ibni-Shamash and
next the street, its exit to the street, the property of Sin-ikisham, which he
divided with Ibni-Shamash and Urra-nâṣir. From mouth (?) to gold the share
is complete. Brother shall not dispute with brother. By Shamash, Malkat, and
406
Sin-mubaliṭ they swore. Nine witnesses. Thirteenth year of Sin-mubaliṭ.

[pg 164]
And again:

One SAR of built land, (and) granary, next the house of Sin-ikisham and next
the house of Ishtar-Ummasha, two exits to the street, the property of Ibni-
Shamash, which he divided with Sin-ikisham and Urra-nâṣir. From mouth (?)
to gold the share [is complete]. Brother shall not dispute with brother. By
Shamash, Malkat, Marduk, and Sin-mubaliṭ they swore. Nine witnesses.
407
Thirteenth year of Sin-mubaliṭ.

Thus we see that each brother, if they were brothers, obtained exactly the
same share, one SAR of land on which a house was built. Two of them, Sin-
ikisham and Ibni-Shamash, were next door to each other. Ibni-Shamash had
the street on the other side of him, in fact, occupied a corner house. The
third brother, Urra-nâṣir, had a house in another part of the town. We
therefore must understand the word “divided” in the sense “obtained on
division.” In the second and third case the word rendered share is literally
“all.” But the first text shows that “all is complete” means “the share is
complete.” The meaning of the expression, “from mouth (?) to gold,” is still
obscure. It is not certain that bi-e really means “mouth.” But as Meissner
has shown,408 it exchanges with the ideogram for “mouth.” He therefore
suggests that the whole phrase means “from the first verbal discussion of
the division to its consummation by payment the partition of the property is
now at an end.” That seems probable enough, but we may yet find a
different explanation. If this be correct, it is of interest to note that while

silver seems to have been the usual money, this phrase seems to assume that
gold would be used in payment. A curious parallel is the fact that while in
later times we always find the order gold and silver, in Sumerian texts it is
silver and gold. We must not press this too far, but it really looks as if in
early [pg 165] times silver was more valued, or at any rate, less in use than
gold.

It will be noted that the second text omits Marduk from the oath, while the
others name him. The third text omits gamru, “is complete.” The nine
witnesses and the date are the same for all three. In the first and last the
names of the witnesses only are given, but in the second the name of the
father is added to several of them.

In the case of testamentary documents, using the phrase in a loose way to
cover gifts embodied in a deed, we usually find a list of property donated.
t These lists give rise to insuperable difficulties to the translator. The
difficulties are not so much due to the imperfections of our knowledge of
Babylonian methods of writing as to the practical impossibility of finding
exact terms in one language for the terms relating to domestic furniture in
n another. Even in the case of languages so well known to us as French and
German are, we are obliged to transfer their words unaltered into our own
tongue. The most skilled translator must leave a French or German menu
untranslated. We know for instance that the signs, GIŠ-GU-ZA were used to
denote the Babylonian kussû. When a god or king sat upon a kussû we may
be satisfied with the rendering “throne,” but when we find a lady leaving
her daughter six kussê we feel that “throne” is rather too grand. But whether
we elect to call them chairs, stools, or seats, we are guilty of some false
suggestion. A careful examination of the sculptured and pictured
monuments may give us a clearer idea of what seats were used. The reader
may consult Perrot and Chipiez, or the dictionaries of the Bible, under the
articles: chairs, couches, et cetera, for illustrations. Unless we can find a
picture with a named article upon it we are still left a wide margin of
conjecture. The picture of Sennacherib receiving the tribute and submission
of [pg 166] Lachish gives the contemporary representation of a kussû
nimedu, but we cannot argue that every kussû was of the same pattern.

We may decline to attempt a solution and merely give the original word, we
may make a purely arbitrary rendering, or we may accompany the original
word with an approximate indication of what is known of its nature. In
neither case do we translate, for that is clearly impossible. But the reader
needs a word of caution against the translations which show no signs of
hesitancy. They are not indicative of greater knowledge, but of less candor.
Further, to scholars a reminder is needed that even the syllabaries and
bilingual texts do not give exact information. Thus alongside GIŠ-GU-ZA
we find a number of other ideograms, all of which are in certain
connections rendered kussû, adequately enough no doubt, but that they all
denoted exactly the same article of furniture is far from likely. A closer
approximation to an exact rendering may come with the knowledge of a
large number of different contexts, each of which may shade off something
of the rough meaning. One of the great difficulties of the translator is that
the same word often occurs again and again, but always in exactly the same
context. This is especially the case in the legal documents, filled as they are
with stock phrases.

According to the Sumerian laws disinheritance appears to have been simply
the result of repudiation of a child by a parent, who has said to him, “You
are not my son.” The penalty for a child's repudiation of parents is to be
e reduced to the condition of a slave. There may also be a reference to
renunciation on the part of an adopted child, but there are no legal
documents to clear up the point.409

The Code is much clearer. Here the father is minded to cut off his son. But
the disinheritance must be done in [pg 167] legal form. The father must say
e to a judge, “I renounce my son.” The judge must then inquire into the
f grounds of this determination. A grave fault must be alleged. What this was
we are not told. But rebellious conduct, idleness, and failure to provide for
parents are probable. A parent had the right to his son's work. An adoptive
parent had a right by the deed of adoption to maintenance. If the fault could
be established as a first offence, the judge was bound to try and reconcile
the father. If it was repeated, disinheritance took place legally. It was done
by a deed duly drawn up. The Sumerian laws show that a mother had the
same power as the father. Whether this was only exercised when there was
no father, or whether a wife could act in this way independently of her

husband in disinheriting children, does not appear. But possibly she had
power in this respect only over her own property.410

It has been suggested that disinheritance sometimes took place as a legal
form and with consent of a child, in order to admit of his adoption into
another family or to free the parents from responsibility for the business
engagements of the son.

An adoptive parent, who had brought up a child and afterwards had children
of his own, could not entirely disinherit his adopted child. He was bound to
e allow him one-third of a child's share. But he could not alienate to him real
d estate.411

[pg 168]

XVII. Slavery

In modern thought slavery concerns personal rights. But it was not thus
regarded by the Babylonians, for the slave was an inferior domestic, and,
e like the son in his father's house, minor capitis. That he was actually a
chattel is clear from his being sold, pledged, or deposited. He was property
and as such a money equivalent. He might be made use of to discharge a
debt, according to his value. Hence, while some account of slavery belongs
with the discussion of the family, it is also a part of the section dealing with
property, since the slave was a piece of property.

But the slave had a great amount of freedom, and was in no respect worse
off than a child or even a wife. He could acquire property, marry a free
a woman, engage in trade, and act as principal in contract with a free man.
Only, his property, at his death, fell to his master. He was bound to do
service without pay, though he had the right to food and drink. He could not
leave his master's service at his own will, but he might acquire enough
property to buy his freedom. He was tied to one spot, not being allowed to
leave the city, but might be sent anywhere at command.

His status was, however, a complex of seeming inconsistencies. Yet it was
so well understood that we rarely get any hints as to the exact details. It is
only by collecting a vast mass of statements as to what actually occurred
e [pg 169] that we can deduce some idea of the actual facts. Professor Oppert
in his tract, La Condition des Esclaves à Babylone, Comptes Rendues, 1888,
pp. 11 ff.; and Dr. B. Meissner, in his dissertation, De Servitute Babylonico-
Assyriaca, have gathered together the chief facts to be gleaned from the
scattered hints in the contracts. Professor Kohler and Dr. Peiser discussed
the question thoroughly in their Aus Babylonische Rechtsleben. Many
articles discussing the contracts, and most of the histories touch upon the
subject. We shall come back to it later under the head of Sales of Slaves. It
is very difficult to disentangle facts from the mass of scattered hints, often
consisting of no more than a word or two in a long document.

The institution of slavery dates back to the earliest times. We cannot in any
way attempt to date its rise.
y
Already in the stele of Manistusu we find a slave-girl used as part of the
price of land and worth thirteen shekels;412 while nine other slaves, male
and female, are reckoned for one-third of a mina apiece. This remained a
fair average price for a slave in Babylonia down to the time of the Persian
conquest. For the variations, see later under Sales of Slaves.413 The Code
shows that the slave was not free to contract except by power of attorney,414
and that it was penal to seduce him from his master's service,415 or to harbor
him when fugitive.416 It fixes a reward for his recapture,417 makes it penal to
retain a recaptured slave,418 and deals with his re-escape.419 It shows that he
was subject to the “levy.”420 It also determines the position of a slave-
woman who bears children to her master,421 or of a slave who marries a free
woman.422 In each case the children are free. It fixes the fees to be paid by
the slave's master for his cure,423 deals [pg 170] with injuries done to a
slave,424 damages being paid to his master;425 enacts that if captured and
sold abroad he must be freed, if re-patriated,426 and a native of Babylonia,
otherwise he returned to his master.

By far the greatest number of references to the slave condition occur in
documents relating to the sale of slaves. These may be summarized here.
f One peculiarity always marked the sale of a slave, it was not so irrevocable
as that of a house or field. For a slave might not be all he seemed. He might
be diseased, or subject to fits, he might have vices of disposition, especially
a tendency to run away. A female slave might be defective in what
constituted her chief attraction. Hence there was usually a stipulation that if
the buyer had a legitimate cause of complaint he could return his purchase
and have his money back. In fact, an undisclosed defect would invalidate
the sale. These defects might be physical, inherent, contingent, or legal.

There seems to have been a dreaded disease called the bennu. Professor
Jensen427 has shown how largely it bulks in the literature, and what dire
effects are ascribed to it. But it was not the only severe disease from which
men suffered then. It is associated with several others as bad. Hence in legal
t documents we may take it as a typical example of a serious disease, which
a would so detract from the value of a slave that the purchaser would not

e keep him. It is evident that it was something that the purchaser could not
detect at sight. Perhaps it was a disease which took some time to show
a itself. It is mentioned in the Code and in the sales of slaves of the First
Dynasty of Babylon. It also occurs in Assyrian deeds of sale, down to the
end of the seventh century b.c. The Code and the contemporary contracts
allow one month within which a plea could be raised that the slave had the
bennu. The purchaser could [pg 171] then return him and have his money
back. In the Assyrian deeds one hundred days is allowed.

In the Assyrian deeds ṣibtu is also allowed a hundred days. This is often
associated with bennu in the mythological texts as equally dreaded. It
affected the hands or the mouth. We may render it “seizure,” and think of
some form of “paralysis.”

The objections which come under the head of legal defects are summed up
in the Code as a bagru, or “complaint.” In the contracts and Code this could
be pleaded at any time. So in Assyrian times a sartu, “a vice,” could be the
ground for repudiation at any time. This might arise from the disposition of
the slave. The sale might also be invalidated by a claim on him for service
to the state; by a lien held by a creditor; by a claim to free citizenship. But
we are not yet in a position to state definitely what was the exact nature of
these claims. Doubtless the recovery of further codes will fix them finally.

In later Babylonian times Law B specially provides for the return of the
slave at any time, if a claim be made on him.

In Assyrian times sales of slaves are very frequent, and we learn much more
about the status of the slave. The slave was certainly a social inferior, but
probably had more freedom than any other who ever bore the name. He
certainly had his own property and could contract like a free man. A young
slave lived in his master's house up to a certain age, when his master found
a wife for him. This was usually a slave-girl. The female slaves remained in
the house as domestic servants to old age, unless they were married to a
slave. Married slaves lived in their own houses for the most part. Many
such men seem to have taken up out-door work, gardening, agricultural
labor, or the like, on their master's estates. Others engaged in business on
their own [pg 172] account. But from all the master had a certain income.

This was, within a little, the average interest on the money-value of a slave.
And that interest was usually twenty-five per cent. per annum in Assyria.

Theoretically a master owned his slave's property. What this ownership
amounted to is hard to say. But the slave was rarely separated from it. His
a family at any rate was sacred. When sold, he was sold with his family. This,
of course, does not exclude the sale of a young man at a time when he
would naturally leave his father's home. Young women were taken into
domestic service, and after a time sold. But there was none of that tearing of
s children from parents, which so shocked people in the modern examples. It
is probable that a slave could not marry without his master's consent. He
certainly could not live where he liked. But he was free to acquire fair
wealth, and his property was so far his own that he could buy his own
freedom with it.

In Assyria there was a large body of serfs, glebae adscripti. They could be
sold with the land. But they were free to work as they chose. Usually they
cultivated a plot of their master's, but often had lands and stock of their
own. They were not free to move, and probably paid a rent, one or two
thirds of their produce. But they were mostly on the metayer system, and
could claim seed, implements, stock, and other necessary supplies from
their master. This class evidently possessed privileges highly esteemed, for
their ranks were recruited from all classes of artisans in the towns, cooks,
brewers, gardeners, washermen, and even scribes. Some of these were
probably free men, others certainly had been slaves.

The three classes, domestic slaves, married slaves, and serfs, were
continually exchanging their condition. Not a few free men, whether from
debt, judicial sentence, or choice, were added to these classes. For these
f men, if dependent, [pg 173] were cared for and provided with the
necessaries of life. They were, if domestic, clothed, housed, and fed; if they
married and lived out, they were given a house, and either were provided
with land that brought them a living, or engaged in business.

The army and corvée, or levy for forced labor, were chiefly obtained from
the slaves, and above all from the serfs. A head of a family, or mother, was
not liable. But young men and women had to serve a certain number of
d

terms of service, seemingly six.428 Hence it was of importance to the buyer
of a slave to receive a guarantee that this claim had been satisfied.

We have many examples of slaves who were skilled artisans. They had been
taught a handicraft. Later we shall come across cases of apprenticeship of
slaves to learn a craft. But all the artisans were not slaves. Indeed, some of
the craftsmen, as goldsmiths, silversmiths, carpenters, were wealthy
persons.

As a rule, though the slave is named, his father is not. But, just as in
mediæval times, a serf's father is named. The serf's holding seems to have
e been hereditary. But we have too few examples to be sure of our ground
here. The slave's father was not concerned in the sale, and that may be the
sole reason why he is not named. Fathers sometimes sold their children to
be slaves, then they are named. Such sales are not so unnatural as they
appear. It was a sure provision for life for a child to sell him as slave to a
family in good position.

In the later Babylonian times, the almost total disappearance of the serf has
been noted as very remarkable. But this may be entirely due to the nature of
r our documents. The temples owned a great deal of land and their slaves
were in the condition of serfs.
e
[pg 174]

In later Babylonian times we have a very large number of examples of slave
sales. So far as the formula of a deed of sale is concerned, there is nothing
to distinguish from a sale of the ordinary type, thus marking the slave as a
chattel.

But there are several clauses, which directly illustrate the possession of
slaves, their position and liabilities. One clause, frequent when slaves were
either pledged or sold, was a guarantee on the part of the owner against a
d number of contingencies. These are not easy to understand.
h
First we have the amêlu siḫû. Siḫu means rebellion or civil war.
Sennacherib was slain in such an uprising.429 It may be that then the slave
would be impressed for defence of law and order. Or it may be that amêlu

siḫû is the rebel, or mob, who might carry off the slave. Or the contingency
contemplated may be that the slave should turn rebel and refuse to do his
master's bidding. The fact that a ship was also guaranteed against amêlu
siḫû,430 renders this less likely. A ship could not turn rebel. It is not unlikely
that slaves often joined in the rebellions.

That a slave would escape by flight was always a danger. The slave had
great freedom and many opportunities of getting away. The only security
was that wherever he went he was likely to be recognized as a slave and
anyone might recapture him. However, the captor had a right to a reward
and so the owner would have to pay to get him back, besides losing his
services for a time. Hence a slave who had a fancy for running away was
likely to be troublesome and costly. That might lead to his being sold. But
the purchaser protected himself by a guarantee on the seller's part that the
slave would not run away. Then if the slave fled and was brought back, the
captor gave a receipt for the sum paid him, and the owner reclaimed it from
the seller.

[pg 175]

The captor might retain the slave until he was paid.431 In other cases the
seller had to recover the slave for the buyer. In Assyrian times the seller
guaranteed also against death. Here it has been argued that the guarantee
meant only that the slave had not fled or was not dead at the time of sale.
This is not likely in the case of death. Surely no man could buy a slave who
was dead. He would not pay, if the slave was not delivered. But he might
bargain for recompense, if the slave died within a short time after purchase,
as the seller might have had reason to know that he was ill.

A guarantee was also given against the pakirânu. This is literally “the
claimant.” What claim he had is not stated. When the slave was pledged,
this might be a creditor to whom he had previously been pledged. But it
covers all claims on the slave.432

Another indemnity is the arad šarrûtu, or in the case of female slaves, the
amat šarrûtu. This was the status of an arad šarri, or amat šarri, king's man
or maid. The king, or state, had a right to the services of certain slaves. How
long this was for, how it was discharged, and how a private person could

n give a guarantee against it, we do not exactly know. It may have been
c limited to slaves taken in war; it probably consisted in forced service; it
may have been for a limited period, so that the guarantee amounted to an
assurance that it was over. But it is possible that it would be compounded
for, or a substitute provided. At any rate the seller held the buyer
indemnified against this claim.433

There was also a guarantee against mârbanûtu, the status of a mâr banû, or
“son of an ancestor.” The difficulty which this raised was that, if a man was
a scion of a noble family, he might be redeemed by it. The same result
would follow from his being adopted. Hence some consider [pg 176] mâr
n banû to mean “adopted son.” But it does not always mean that. We have no
good example of a slave being redeemed on this ground. But we know that
they sometimes laid claim to be free men. This would of course involve a
loss and at any rate a trouble to the owner. But we have not yet very full
information on the point.

Finally there is mentioned a claim called šušanûtu. This occurs in Persian
times only434 and may be the status of a šušanu, i.e., a Susian, or one of the
conquering race. Such it may have been illegal to buy or hold in slavery.
But in Assyrian times an official in the service of the royal house is called
šušanu. We do not yet know what his duties were, but it may be that this
official was one who could be called up for service at any time and
therefore was undesirable as a slave.

The abuttu which the Code435 contemplates a mistress putting on an insolent
maid and so reducing her to slavery, or which the phrase-books contemplate
a master laying upon a slave, or which an adoptive parent may set on a
rebellious adopted son before selling him into servitude,436 has usually been
taken to be a fetter. But in the case of a man, who being sold as a slave, had
escaped and was claimed by the levy-master, we find the latter saying, ellita
abuttaka gullubat, “thy abuttu is clearly branded,” or tattooed. Hence it
may only be a mark.

There is frequent mention in early times of a mark upon slaves. The Code437
talks of marking a slave, but in a way that is difficult to understand. The
r verb usually rendered “brand” has been shown by Professor P. Jensen438 to
f include incised marks. Hence the penalty which was once rendered “shear

his front hair” is thought to mean “brand his forehead.” The Code fixes a
severe penalty for the putting of an indelible mark on a slave without his
owner's consent. [pg 177] This could hardly be enforced for merely giving
the slave a bald forehead, like the Hebrew peôt, or like a “tonsure.” The
mark borne on the forehead by Cain, or by the “sealed” in the Apocalypse,
is far more to the point as a parallel. The slaves also wore little clay tablets
with the name of their owner inscribed upon them. There are a number of
these preserved in the Louvre. On one now in the British Museum we have
this inscription: “Of the woman Ḥipâ, who is in the hands of Sin-êresh.
Sebat, eleventh year of Merodach-baladan, King of Babylon.”439 How these
were attached to the slave is not very clear. But they must have been
anything but an indelible mark. In the later Babylonian times we have440 a
slave marked by a sign on his ears and a white mark in his eye. Both may
denote natural marks.441 A more definite example is a slave “whose right
hand has written upon it the name of Ina-Esagil-lilbur”;442 and another “on
whose left hand was written the name of Meskitu.”443 These were the names
of the owners, not of the slaves themselves. This renders it probable that the
branding and the like was always an incised mark, a species of tattoo, which
of course was indelible. That the same person who tattooed men should
brand animals, or even shear them, is not an insuperable objection. But
there is no reason to suppose that the brander ever was a sheep-shearer.

In respect to the names of slaves we may regard them with some interest as
helping to determine the sources from which slaves were recruited. Some
bear good Babylonian names, and perhaps when the father's name is also
f Babylonian we may conclude that they had been born free, but were either
sold into slavery by the head of the family, or, having once been adopted,
had been repudiated and reduced to slavery again, or had been sold for debt.
We have examples [pg 178] of all such cases. A father and mother sold their
son;444 a mother who had adopted two girls repudiated them again;445 a
brother gave a younger brother as a pledge.446

When the slave's name is not Babylonian or Assyrian, a foreign nationality
is nearly certain. These names are very valuable when they can be assigned
to their nationalities, as confirming the historical claims of the kings to
conquest. Sometimes they are actual gentile names, as Miṣirai, “Egyptian,”
Tubalai, “man from Tubal.” But many may have been directly purchased

abroad and sold to Babylonians. A great many foreign slaves doubtless
received native names. Thus an Egyptian woman was called Nanâ-ittîa.447
Some of the names of slaves are true Babylonian, but of a rare and odd
form, which has caused some to imagine them to be foreign. But this is not
necessary. Servants are often renamed after the families to which they
belong, and finally become known by names which were never theirs.
Masters seem sometimes to have given their own names to slaves. Their
names are often contracted,448 and some even appear to have had two.449

The slaves were not only captives taken in war, but were bought abroad,
and not a few were reduced to that condition from being freeborn citizens.
Slavery awaited the rebellious child or the contentious wife. But it was not
f allowed by the Code for a man to sell his maid outright, who had borne him
children. And if he sold his wife or child to pay a debt, the buyer could not
keep them beyond a certain time. But in all periods parents sold their
children, and there does not seem to be any clause demanding any future
release.

The slave had private property which was secured to him. He paid a sort of
rent for it. This was an annual [pg 179] fixed sum called his mandattu, the
same word as for the tribute of a prince to his overlord. In the case of a
female slave this was twelve shekels per annum. Further, he paid a
d percentage on his profits.450 The slave might hold another slave as pledge,
lend money, and enter into business relations with another slave even of the
same house. He might borrow money of another slave. Hence he was very
free to do business. But when he entered into business relations with
another master's slave, or a free man, he sometimes met with a difficulty.
He seemingly could not enforce his own rights against a free man. At any
rate, we find that in such cases his master assumed the liability and pleaded
for him. In fact, the master had to acknowledge his undertakings, though he
did not guarantee them. Subject to this protection from his master, the slave
was free to engage in commerce. He lent to free men, entered into
partnership, and owned a scribe.

Here is an example illustrating one of the above points.451 S had taken a
loan of L. His master, A, became aware of it and guaranteed its repayment.
He then put S into L's hands as his pledge to pay it off. Now, A died, and his

d son, B, sells S to C, as part of his own property. But L still holds possession
a of S. C demands S from L. L says “Not until my money is paid off. If C will
do this he may have S. But until he can prove that it has been done he
cannot have S.” The proof probably lay in B's hands, if he had preserved it
from his father A's records. Delay is granted for C to produce the proof that
S has worked off the debt. It is clear that the evidence of S was not admitted
on this point.

That in the case of some slaves their value to their master consisted in their
mandattu is clear from the fact when a master sold a slave and did not at
once hand him over, the [pg 180] seller had to pay a proportional amount of
this fee to the buyer.452 Of course, in transferring a slave to another owner,
the seller could not separate him from his property. That was his own. A
slave who had acquired a fair amount of wealth, or was earning well in
trade, would produce a higher income to his master and sell for more. What
was sold then, was an interest, the master's, in his slave's work. Hence
prices varied very much. We are not always able to see what was the reason
of the high price, but it was evident then to those who made the bargain. An
average price in the later Babylonian era seems to have been twenty
shekels, the interest on which at the usual twenty per cent. would be four
shekels. This, then, was the annual value of a slave above his keep. If the
keep amounted to about eight shekels per annum, that gives the value of a
slave's work as twelve shekels yearly. This is what an unskilled slave was
worth to his master. If, then, a man married a slave-girl, he ought to pay her
master about twelve shekels a year for his loss of her services. Of course,
the master retained his right over her, but it seems to have been a tacit
understanding that he could not sell her away from her husband. So really
what he sold was, after all, only a right to income from her husband of
twelve shekels a year. The children were also his born slaves, if the father
was his slave. We do not know how matters would be arranged if the man
was slave to one master, the wife to another. Probably this was provided
against by the master giving his slave a wife from his own maids, or buying
a slave-girl as wife for him.

It occasionally happens that we can trace the history of a particular slave for
some time. Thus, Bariki-ilu was pledged for twenty-eight shekels to
Aḫinûri, in the thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadrezzar.453 In the next year we
f

e find [pg 181] him in the possession of Piru, his wife Gagâ, and a cousin
Zirîa. What they gave for him does not appear. But they now sold him for
twenty-three shekels to Nabû-zêr-ukîn. He must have fled from his new
master, for four years later, the same three people pledged him.454 But he
seems to have been unsatisfactory as a pledge. For next, we find that Gagâ's
daughter (Piru having probably died), being about to be married to Iddin-
aplu, this slave was set down as part of her marriage-portion. She gave him
over to her husband and his son. In their possession he remained awhile, but
on the death of his mistress, was handed over to the great banker, Itti-
Marduk-balâṭu. These events, extending from the thirty-fifth year of
Nebuchadrezzar to the seventh year of Nabonidus, were all put in evidence
when Bariki-ilu tried later to prove that he was a free man. He pretended to
be the adopted son of Bêl-rimâni. He had to confess that he had twice run
away from his master and had been many days in hiding. Then he was
afraid and pretended to have been an adopted son. This, if proved, would
have freed him. But he confessed that it was a pretence, and had to return to
his servitude. The case was decided in the tenth year of Nabonidus.

It seems clear that when a slave ran away to his old owners, they did not
always deliver him up again to the man who bought him of them. They
y probably had to return the purchase-money. The buyer probably would not
t accept him again.

One feature which the later Babylonian contracts show us for the first time,
but which probably was always in force, is the apprenticing of slaves to a
trade. Instances of this are fairly numerous. The person to whom the slave
was apprenticed was usually a slave himself. The teacher was bound to
teach the trade thoroughly. The owner of the [pg 182] slave gave him up to
the teacher for a fixed term of years, differing for different trades. He had to
furnish a daily allowance of food and a regular supply of clothing. At the
end of the term, the slave might remain with his teacher on payment of a
fixed mandattu or income to the owner. Penalties were fixed for neglecting
to teach him properly. The trades named are weaving, five years' term;455
baking, a year and a quarter;456 stone-cutting, four years;457 fulling, six
years;458 besides others not yet recognized.

The teacher had no fee, but only the apprentice's work for his trouble. The
owner was therefore bound to allow the apprentice to remain a fair time.
d
A question of considerable interest which needs to be worked out is the
relative number of slaves in the population. In early times the impression
one gets is that they were few. Even in the time of the First Dynasty of
Babylon, the evidence at the disposal of Dr. Meissner in 1892 did not allow
s him to exceed four as the number in the possession of one man at a time.
e But since then further evidence is available. Thus we read of twelve slaves
at once, seven males and five females, given by a father to his daughter, at
Sippara.459 In Assyrian times the number in an average household rarely
exceeds one or two, but we have as many as thirty mentioned at one time.460
So in later times there are generally only one or two in a household, but the
number is occasionally much more.

As to the value of a slave, we have in very early times an average set down
as twenty shekels, with examples as low as thirteen shekels. In the time of
a the Second Dynasty prices varied from as low as four and a half shekels for
a maid, or ten shekels for a man, up to eighty-four shekels.461 The Code
estimates the average value of a slave as twenty [pg 183] shekels.462 In
Assyrian times the price of a single male slave varies from twenty to one
hundred and thirty shekels, but the usual price is thirty shekels. A female
slave could be had for as little as two and a half shekels, but might cost as
much as ninety shekels. A common price was thirty shekels. In later
Babylonian times also, prices vary widely, but the commonest price and
usual pledge-value was twenty shekels.

[pg 184]

XVIII. Land Tenure In Babylonia

The idea of real as opposed to personal property is common in Babylonian
law; for we notice that in the Code, while certain persons may inherit from
the goods of their parents, they may not inherit land, garden, or house.463 He
then had no share in his father's house; he was not one of the family. The
d distinction is important, for, as we shall see later, the word “house” had a
wider signification than mere bricks and mortar.464 It was the ancestral
estate. Over it the family had rights. It went back in default of heirs to the
family of the last owner. We are therefore confronted with private
ownership of land, but also with a sort of entail.

The amount of land might be increased by purchase, but there is a strong
presumption that it thus became family property and did not remain at the
disposal of the buyer. For if so, in the case above the law should have stated
that the parent could not donate land that was family property, but might do
so with what he had bought. This does not exclude the possibility of sale.
Only the family had apparently the right of pre-emption.465

In looking back upon the primitive state of the country, its natural features
must be taken into account as helping to shape the course of development.
In such a low-lying country as the land between the Euphrates and the
f Tigris, [pg 185] floods naturally occur every year. Every spot of land that
stood above the level of the annual floods was thereby marked out for a
r residence. Throughout the literature of Babylonia the hill or the mountain is
a refuge and a place protected by the gods. But when the floods were gone,
man's great need for his land was water. Hence irrigation was synonymous
with cultivation. The unclaimed land grew rank with grass and natural food
for cattle, but dried up to dust in the summer. Hence the control of the
flood, its diversion into desired channels, regulation, storage, and all the
processes implied by canals and irrigation were forced upon the inhabitants
of Babylonia by stern necessity. The only alternative was to migrate with
flocks and herds to higher lands when the floods came.

Settled society was ultimately founded upon the cultivation of a plain.
Every eminence might become a hamlet occupied by the abodes of men,
whose fields were water meadows. The meadows which grew their corn lay
around the village and below its level; and beyond those which were needed
to grow crops lay the pastures. But for security the cattle and sheep must
come back, before the floods came, to the village, there to be folded and
fed, as it seems, upon straw and also grain. The land of the village extended
itself in time, as the population grew and needed more corn. More and more
of the unreclaimed land beyond the cornfields was brought into cultivation
and the flocks went farther afield for pasture. This continued until the
pastures forming the outlying ring had met the pastures of another village.

Such is an ideal sketch of the growth of land tenure. But in historical times
this simplicity had vanished. Land was owned, not merely held. It does not
appear that pasture was owned, even as late as the First Dynasty of
Babylon. It seems that the flocks were confided to shepherds, [pg 186] who
were bound to bring them back from the pastures and expected to account
for all they took out and for a reasonable increase in the flock from
breeding. The pasture was common land; at any rate, to the sheep-owners of
the same village. No one claims to buy and sell pasture land, only cultivated
land, fields, gardens, and plantations, ultimately irrigated land. But
unreclaimed land, that is, such as only required cultivation to make it fields
and gardens, is often sold, or let, to be reclaimed. Was this a trespass on the
pasture held in common? If so, it was not resented as such. We do not know
yet how a man acquired a title to such unreclaimed land. Perhaps to have
brought it into cultivation sufficed originally to establish title.

A settled hamlet soon had its temple. Some think that the god was ideally
landlord of all the village land and that every title represented simply the
rental of the land from the nominal owner. We do indeed find the temples as
owners of vast estates and, like monastic institutions in the Middle Ages,
letting lands and houses. To the temples poor men went for temporary
d accommodation for sowing, for wages at harvest-time, and for ransom from
e the enemy. These they had a right by custom to receive without paying
interest. Undoubtedly the temples became the first centres of progressive
civilization. The patêsi, as chief-priest of the god, was the regent of the
community. In process of time, as villages combined and grew into towns

and districts, the patêsi, in virtue of his town's supremacy, became the king,
who, as regent of the state and representative of the gods, owned all. We
know that, in later times, the king in Babylon was the adoptive son of Bel-
Merodach.466

In historical times no such conditions prevail. Doubtless the tribal
ownership had become theoretically transferred to the god, or to the town.
That the town had a [pg 187] theoretical personality of its own is clear
enough from the oaths sworn to confirm a sale. Men swore by the gods, the
n king, and also by Sippara, or Kar Sippara. But there is no indication that
points to the god, or the town, or the king as having any power to intervene
to prevent a sale, or to claim payment for consent. It is clear that the land
was sold subject to its dues, and they were many. But the private ownership,
subject to such reservation, was absolute. The one danger to a purchaser
was that the family of the seller should claim a right of redemption and
annul the sale. Against this the seller undertook to indemnify him.

Exact statements as to the rights possessed by the family to reclaim land
sold by a member of the family are not to be found, but they are to be
inferred with certainty from a few notices which we have. Thus,467 a man
claimed a certain plot of land as ancestral domain which two others had
sold. There are several such cases among the legal decisions of the First
Dynasty of Babylon. In most of the Assyrian deeds of sale we have a long
list of representatives of the seller, who are explicitly bound not to interfere
and attempt to upset the sale.468 Their right existed or they would not be
called upon to enter into a contract nor to insist upon it.

From the point of view of the ancient Babylonian, as from that of the
modern lawyer, there was a great similarity about all classes of real
property. The deeds of sale or conveyances, as well as the leases, treated
f them with much the same formula. It was the land which was the main
consideration. It was as land, built upon indeed, but essentially as land, that
the house was sold. The house is rarely described by what to modern views
would be its most important features, the number of stories, rooms,
conveniences, and the like. Instead its area was stated. This is remarkable,
as we do not buy houses by the area. We [pg 188] need not suppose that the
building actually covered all the land sold. In fact, we often see that it had a

garden. But it was bîtu epšu, a “built-on plot” of land, according to the
Babylonian conveyancer. Perhaps there was in this usage a recollection of
how fast the Babylonian house of sun-dried brick sank down to a mound of
clay, perhaps, too, a far-off echo of the nomad's scorn for the town-dweller,
in both cases a recognition that the land was the one thing permanent, the
one thing that could not “run away.”

The plot of land was the bîtu, Hebrew beth, represented by the Sumerian Ê.
When it had the additional advantage of a house upon it, it was bîtu epšu, a
“built-on plot.” Gradually the edifice, in towns at least, absorbed the whole
n significance, and in common parlance bîtu meant a “house,” but in legal
phraseology it always retained its inclusive meaning of the plot of land.
l Even as late as the Assyrian Empire it retained some shade of a still earlier
meaning, that of a plot, parcel, or share, just what it meant when the first
settlers divided the land among them. Thus one might use bîtu of a “lot” of
slaves, or of a lot of land including its slaves and cattle. That bîtu is to be
referred to a root banû, “to make,” may still be true, though banû cannot
have come to mean “build” when bîtu was formed from it. If bîtu was
originally the “house,” perhaps only a tent-house, then it could mean all that
constituted the house, the man's house in a wider sense, as in tribe names,
like Bît Adini or the phrase, “House of Israel.” But bîtu, when used of a
house, does not carry with it the implication of bricks and mortar, only of a
fixed site occupied for dwelling. The edifice was implied by the addition
epšu, marking the site “built upon.” So a house was “landed property”; land
was of various sorts, one of which is “built on land.” To be accurate one
must also specify the kind of building.

[pg 189]
The field was called eḳlu (compare Acel-dama, “the field of blood”),
denoted by the Sumerian A-ŠAG-GA. The term does not denote open waste
land, but a cultivated plot. Indeed, it is probable that its Sumerian name
implies “irrigation.” In any case it was fenced, if only by a raised ridge; it
was cultivated and watched over; the birds were scared away, robbers and
stray animals driven off. So much at least is expressed in as many words in
the undertakings of tenants to treat a field properly. The field was also bîtu
as land, usually “bîtu, so much eḳlu.”

The garden was reckoned as land, but here a fuller specification was
needed. For a plot of land, a garden, kirû was not exact enough. It was usual
to designate further of what sort it was, whether vegetable garden, orchard,
or palm-grove. The scribe would even add “planted with such and such a
crop.” The term might include vineyards. In many cases the actual number
of bushes, or fruit-trees, or vine-stocks, would be named. But it was always
primarily land, and as such bîtu, with the qualifications enumerated.

For land measures there were two systems in use, one purely areal, the other
with a reference to the average yield. In the former case the scale of
f measures was discovered and formulated by Dr. G. Reisner, in the
Sitzungsberichte Berliner Akademie, 1897, p. 417 f., and is completely
known. In this scale 1 GAN = 1,800 SAR, 1 SAR = 60 GIN, 1 GIN = 180
ŠE. We do not know how these words GAN, SAR, GIN, ŠE were read; they
may be ideograms or Sumerian words. There was also a very large measure
of area, 3,600 GAN, perhaps called a karu. Mr. Thureau-Dangin has further
shown that the SAR was the square of the measure GAR-DU, which seems
at one time to have measured 12 U. The U is often taken to be a cubit, but
seems at this time to have been nine hundred and ninety millimetres, which
is sometimes called “a double cubit.” On these suppositions [pg 190] the
SAR would be a square, each side measuring about twenty-two yards, about
one-tenth of an acre, or four ares on the metrical system. But it is certain
that both in early times and during the First Dynasty of Babylon the GAR
was only 12 U, and the U, if a cubit, would not be much over eighteen
inches. This would make the SAR a square of about eighteen feet on each
side. The fact that a SAR was a fairly common size for a house seems rather
against the smaller area. What is yet wanted is some cuneiform statement of
the size or area of something which can be exactly identified and measured.
With further exploration this is almost sure to be found.469

The other system applied to land the names of measures of capacity used
for measuring crops. We read of so many GUR and ḲA of land, where 1
GUR = 300 ḲA, as shown by Dr. Reisner. We may guess that a GUR of land
was so called because it took a GUR of corn to sow it, or because it yielded
n a GUR of corn as an average harvest. These are mere guesses and we must
remain in ignorance until further evidence connects a GUR of land on one
side with its length and breadth, or some other relation between the GUR

and the GAN can be deduced. Then we shall want to know the size of the
GUR of corn, of which at present we have no knowledge. But already in
Susa a broken pot has been found with its original contents marked upon it.
When others are found, from which an approximate estimate of contents
can be made, and an inscription read giving the capacity, we shall be able to
make a definite statement. At present the data are insufficient and what the
metrologists write is only ingenious speculation.

A piece of land had, so to speak, an individuality of its own. Once marked
out, and that probably from time immemorial, it was rarely divided. It
seems probable that [pg 191] corn-land at any rate was divided into long,
d narrow strips. But the plots became gradually of all sizes and shapes, as the
f many plans of estates show. The lengths of the sides are usually given on
f such plans, and much labor has been expended with small result on
reconciling the given dimensions with the area ascribed to the plot. But it is
certain that these were often recorded merely for purposes of identification.
The area of the field was well known, and its average crop also, without any
need of resort to calculations.

These plots often bear their owner's name, and that long after he had passed
away. The boundary-stones of the field were sacred. Not a few were
inscribed with some sort of history of the plot. Especially was this the case
when the land was granted to fresh owners, by sale, or charter. No
inconsiderable portion of what we know of history is derived from inscribed
boundary-stones. They are the oldest monuments and rarely deeply buried.
Hence they are easy to find. They have even been brought to London, as
ship's ballast, in times before they could be read. They would be invaluable,
if found in situ, for a modern survey of the country and a reconstruction of
its ancient history. As a rule they are splendidly preserved.

In ancient days great importance was attached to their preservation. The
kings taxed their powers of cursing in order to terrify men from removing
their neighbor's landmark. The dangers to the stone contemplated were its
ef removal to another place, its being thrown into the water, or into the fire, its
being built into a wall,470 being buried in the dust, placed where it cannot be
seen, put in a house of darkness,471 erased and overwritten with other
records.472 Akin to the crime of encroaching upon old landmarks was that of

building upon or otherwise encroaching on the highway. To do this might
subject the builder to the danger of being [pg 192] hanged, as a warning on
a gallows erected above his own house.473

That the land was sold subject to certain territorial obligations, we can glean
from many hints. One of the most important is that, when a favorite, or
s well-deserving official, had acquired a large estate, the king by charter
granted him an immunity from these obligations. These charters were often
inscribed on large blocks of stone or water-worn pebbles of great size, and
seem to have been set up as boundary-stones. Some were reproduced from
tablets written on clay.474 They are very numerous and in some periods of
the history are the only monuments that have reached us. A glance through
any history of Babylonia will show the reader how much depends on them.
But here our only concern is with the light they throw on land tenure and its
conditions. One of the points which at once becomes clear is that, although
the king was representative of the god and titular head of all the tribes, he
could not appropriate land just where he chose. Manistusu, King of Kish,
when he was seeking to acquire a fine estate to present to his son, Mesilim,
had to buy land at what seems to have been an average price. He paid for
the land in corn at three and one-third GUR of corn per GAN, the GUR
being worth one shekel of silver. This was the price. But, as was usual later
in private purchases, a present to the former owner was given. The list of
these presents is most interesting,—silver and copper vessels and rich
vestments being the chief items. Of great importance is the reference to the
leading men of each hamlet as sellers. The king's own land was a definite
area, so definite as to be cited as a boundary.475

A celebrated passage in Sargon's cylinder476 says, “according to the
interpretation of my name, Sharru-kînu, righteous [pg 193] king, which
bade me observe right and justice, repel the impious, not oppress the weak;
f as the great gods had bidden me, I gave money for the pieces of land, of
each city; according to written contracts, in silver and bronze, to their
f owners, in order to do no injustice; and to those who would not take
money,477 a field for a field, where they preferred, I gave.” That this was no
idle boast is proved from the tablet which records how Sargon, in the year
b.c. 713, having taken possession of some lands in Maganuba to form part
of his new city of Dûr-Sargon, found that he was displacing an old

endowment given by Adadi-nirâri to the god Ashur. It was held by a family
descended from the original recipients. Sargon increased their holding and
charged it with an increased monthly offering to the temple.478 He gave
“field for field,” but also added largely to the endowments. He acted much
the same in Babylonia, where the Suti had encroached upon the lands of the
people. He drove out the invaders, restored the lands, but laid them under
obligations, kidinûtu, making them render a monthly due to the temples, as
before.

On the other hand, we find that the kings granted large grants of land to
temples and private persons. From what source these grants were made
does not appear. Probably from his own personal property. The property so
presented was free of imposts. But we may not assume that the king was
always the poorer. The beneficiary may have bought the land and presented
it to the king, to be received back free of imposts in perpetuity.

Thus, Nazimaruttash479 presents a large estate to Merodach, and another to
Kashakti-Shugab, his servant. Kurigalzu480 granted an estate to Eṭir-Marduk
for his conduct in a war against Assyria, and Bitiliashu confirmed it. A
coppersmith [pg 194] who fled from the land of Ḥanigalbat made a fine
specimen of his work for Bitiliashu, and the king rewarded him with a grant
of land.481 Adadi-shum-uṣur made another grant of land to an unknown
servant of his.482 Melishiḫu made a grant of land to his son, Merodach-
baladan I.,483 and granted it exemption from all imposts. Another grant he
made to a servant of his.484 So when Shamû and Shamûa, his son, two
priests of Eria in Elam, fled from their own king and took refuge with
Nebuchadrezzar I., he espoused their cause, plundered Elam, brought back
their god, Eria, to Babylon, and they having taken the hands of Bêl, the king
granted them an estate in Babylonia and freed it from imposts.485 Nabû-
aplu-iddina granted an estate to a namesake of his, which, however, seems
to have been claimed as ancestral property.486 Melishiḫu granted lands to
Ḥasardu, a servant of his.487 Merodach-baladan I. granted lands to Marduk-
zâkir-shumi.488 Marduk-nâdin-aḫi granted Adadi-zêr-iḳisha, for his services
against Assyria, lands in the district of Bît-Ada, which seem to have been
ancestral domains of one Ada.489 Some fragments of clay copies of similar
grants by Adadi-nirari,490 Tiglath-pileser III.,491 Ashurbânipal,492 and Ashur-
eṭil-ilâni493 are preserved in the British Museum's Collections from

Nineveh. They all appear to record grants to favorite officials, who had
deserved well of the king.

The king also appears as not only confirming grants made by predecessors,
but as restoring ancestral property, or temple endowments, which had come
into other hands, on suit of the legal descendants of the original owners.
f Thus, certain land which had come into the possession of Târim-ana-ilishu
and Ur-bêlit-muballiṭat-mîtûti, was claimed by [pg 195] Marduk-kudur-uṣur
in the reigns of Adadi-shum-iddina and Adadi-nâdin-aḫi, and finally granted
him in perpetuity by Melishiḫu.494 The land which Gulkishar, King of the
Sea Land, gave to a goddess had remained in her possession 696 years,
until, in the time of Nebuchadrezzar I., the Governor of Bît Sin-mâgir had
secularized it. Bêl-nâdin-apli restored it.495

A rather different grant was made by Nebuchadrezzar I. to Ritti-Marduk for
his services against Elam. This faithful vassal had been governor of a
district on the borders of Elam, but the privileges of his country had been
l much curtailed by a neighboring King of Namar. They were now restored
and apparently augmented. They were, that the King of Namar had no right
of entry, could not levy taxes on horses, oxen, or sheep, nor take dues from
gardens and date-plantations; could not make bridges nor open roads. The
Babylonians, or men of Nippur, who came to live there were not to be
impressed for the Babylonian army. Further, the towns of the district were
freed from dues to the Babylonian governors.496 Marduk-nâdin-aḫi in his
first year remitted some obligations on an unknown estate.497

Of another kind are the monuments recording the actual endowments of
temples by certain kings. A very fine example is the stone enclosed in a clay
coffer referring to the endowments of the temple of Shamash at Sippara. It
records the restorations made by Simmash-shiḫu, É-ulmash-shâ-kin-shum,
Nabû-aplu-iddina, and Nabopolassar at wide intervals. There are, however,
no lands concerned.498

A very archaic tablet in the E. A. Hoffman Collection, the General
Theological Seminary, New York City, published in the Journal of the
American Oriental Society,499 which seems to be older than the celebrated
Blau monuments and which Professor G. A. Barton would date about [pg
196] 5500 b.c., deals directly with a presentation of land to a temple. In it

the area of the land is given in GAN and the sides in figures only, probably
denoting the lengths in U. Being written in very archaic, semi-picture
writing, and some of the signs not yet being identified with certainty, it will
not do to build much upon it. All the sides but one appear to be thirty-six
thousand and fifty, that one being thirty-six thousand, while the full area is
three thousand and five GAN. This gives the GAR as roughly = fifteen U.

Land was let under a variety of systems of tenure. The metayer system was
one of the most common and persistent. The use of this term is justified by
the similarity of actual cases to what is known to prevail in Italy, under this
name. It is a co-operative system. The landlord not only allows his land to
be cultivated for a consideration, but finds the means to meet expenses. He
provides bullocks, tools, seed, and many other things, according to the
usage of the locality.

In the Code of Ḥammurabi we have proof of the existence of the system. A
man finds500 his tenant tools, oxen, and harness, but hires him to reside on
the field and do the work. Actual examples are rare among the
e contemporary contracts. But Amat-Shamash, a votary, let out,

“Six oxen, among them two cows; an irrigator, Amêl-Adadi; two tenders of
an ox-watering machine, his nephews; three watering-machines for oxen; a
female servant who tended the machines; half a GAN of land for corn-
growing; to Gimillu and Ilushu-banî. They shall make the yield of the field
according to the average (?). They shall cause the corn to grow and measure
it out to Amat-Shamash, daughter of Marduk-mushallim. In the time of
harvest they shall measure out the corn to Amat-Shamash.”

In spite of several obscurities due to uncertain readings, which render the
translation doubtful in places, this must be regarded as a good example of
the kind.501

[pg 197]

There are fewer data from the Assyrian period, but the frequent loans, ana
pûḫi, without any interest, at seed-time or harvest, may be due to this

relation between landlord and tenant.502
e The best example is to be found in the time of Cyrus,503 where a certain
Shulâ proposes to take the fields of Shamash, in the district of Birili, in the
e county of Sippara. It was sixty GUR of corn-land. The temple was to find
him twelve oxen, eight laborers (literally irrigators), three iron ploughs, four
harrows (or hoes), and five measures of seed-corn, which also included
food for the laborers and fodder for the oxen. At the end of the year he was
to hand over three hundred GUR of corn as the temple share.

Another good example from the time of Artaxerxes I.504 relates to the
assignment of two trained irrigation-oxen and seven GUR of corn for seed
by a member of the Murashû firm to three brothers, who undertake to pay
seventy-five GUR of corn per annum for three years. It does not appear that
they hired the land as well. Here the hirer returns more than ten times his
loan as yearly rent.

The usual method of hiring land was on shares. The Code contemplates that
this would be for a proportion fixed by contract, either one-half or one-third
of the produce going to the owner, in the case of a field or irrigated meadow
f and two-thirds in the case of a garden.505 The difference was due to the fact
that in the former case the owner furnished the land only, possibly with its
water-supply; in the latter case he also furnished the plants. In the
contemporary contracts we have but few cases where the crop is shared. In
these cases the owner and tenant share equally.506 The tenant was also to
erect a manaḫtu, or “dwelling.” It was needful that he should reside on the
[pg 198] property to take care of the crop. This was stipulated for and the
clause added that he should hand over the dwelling to the landlord. For such
dwellings compare the “cottage in the wilderness” of Isaiah 1. 8.

The tenant, of course, was bound to cultivate the land. The duties which fell
to his share were “to plough, harrow, weed, irrigate, drive off birds,”507 but
f these duties are but rarely stipulated. The Code protects the tenant,
however,508 from any unfair compulsion in the matter, so long as the
landlord gets his fair rent.

Fields were also let at a fixed rent, usually payable in kind. The contracts of
the First Dynasty of Babylon give a large number of examples of this sort.

The kinds of field are distinguished as AB-SIN, or šerû, and KI-DAN. The
average rent for the former was eight GUR of corn per GAN; of the latter,
eighteen GUR per GAN. The former class may include land with corn
standing upon it, or simply corn-land; the latter land as yet unbroken, or
fallow. The latter class seems to have been much more fertile.

This rent later became more fixed because the average yield per area was
set down in the lease and the yield in corn was estimated in money
according to the ordinary value of corn. Thus the rent is stated to be so
much money.

Land was often let to reclaim, or plant. The Code lays down as law what
was evidently a common practice. In the case of waste land given to be
reclaimed the tenant was rent free for three whole years. In the fourth year
he paid a fixed rent in corn, ten GUR per GAN.509 Land let to be turned into
a garden was rent free for four years. In the fifth year the tenant shared the
produce equally with the landlord.510

[pg 199]
Contracts illustrating this form of lease are quite common in the time of the
First Dynasty of Babylon.

Freedom from various obligations might be granted by royal charter. In fact,
it is from these charters that we know of the existence of the obligations for
the most part. The land so freed was called zakû. Land sold is often said to
be zakû, and we may suppose it was so because it had once been freed by
charter. But this is not quite certain. The charter was granted to a person and
his heirs. Doubtless, as long as they held it, it would be free, but it is not
clear that they could sell it as freed forever. But we only know that some
land was free. On whom then fell the obligations? So far as they were due
to the king, they may have been abolished, but such obligations as repairs of
the canal banks must surely have been taken up by others. If not, the
granting of charters must have been a fruitful source of trouble and distress
to the land.

The obligations were of various kinds. Some were directly extensions of the
duty of a tenant to exercise proper care of the estate. A very prominent duty
was the care of the canals. To see that they were kept in proper order was

the mark of good government. To allow them to fall into disrepair was
probably the result of weak government, or the exhaustion due to defeat in
s war. But it very soon led to the impoverishment of the country. The Code
e contemplates the care of the canal banks, or dikes, as the duty of the land-
owner adjoining.511 It holds him responsible for any damage done to the
r neighbors' crops by his neglect to close a breach, or leaving the feed-pipe
running beyond the time needed to water his field. But the canal was also
liable to silt up or become choked with water-weeds, and the care of
dredging it out was that of the district governor. He might carry out this
duty by summoning the riparian [pg 200] owners to clean out the bed of the
canal,512 or by a levy for the purpose. Soldiers, or at any rate, forced labor,
might be used.513 Later, in the time of Nebuchadrezzar I., we find men,
hired for the purpose, called ḳallê nâri, or canal laborers.514

[pg 201]

XIX. The Army, Corvée, And Other Claims For
Personal Service

There was always a militia, Landwehr, or territorial levy of troops. Each
district had to furnish its quota. These are called ṣâbê, or ummanâte. We
have no direct statements about them, but a great multitude of references.
They were called out by the king, adki ummanâtîa, “I called out my
troops,” is a stock phrase. The calling out was the dikûtu. Not easily to be
distinguished from this was the šisîtu of the nâgiru. That officer seems to
have been an incarnate War Office. It is not clear whether he always acted
solely for military purposes. The “levy” seems to have been equally made
for public works. The men were “the king's men,” whether they fought or
built. The obligation to serve seems to have chiefly affected the slaves and
the poorer men, the muškênu. In the Code of Ḥammurabi515 it was
punishable with death to harbor a defaulter from this “levy.”

Claims might also be made for work on the fields. This was called ḫubšu
and we know little about it more than that Sargon II. charged his immediate
predecessors on the throne with having outraged the privileges of the
citizens of the old capital Asshur, by putting them to work on the fields.

The obligation to provide a soldier for the state was tied [pg 202] to a
definite plot, or at any rate, to all estates of a certain size. The ilku, or
obligation of the land, was transferred with it. In Assyrian times, the
military unit was the bowman and his accompanying pikeman and shield-
bearer. The land which was responsible for furnishing a “bow,” ḳaštu, in
this fashion, was itself called a “bow” of land.516

Some cities claimed for their citizens a right of exemption from “the levy.”
In Sargon's time, we find that cities like Asshur had been subjected by
Shalmaneser IV. to this service, and Sargon restored their rights. He freed
n them from dikûtu mâti, šisîtu nagiri, and miksu kâri.517 The city had not

known the ilku dupsikku. Later, we find an officer, Tâb-ṣil-ešarra,518
complaining that, when he was desirous of doing some repairs to the
queen's palace in Asshur, of which city he was šaknu, Sargon's freeing of
the city had rendered the ilku of the city unavailable to him.519

In the so-called “Tablet of warnings to kings against injustice,”520 the cities
of Borsippa, Nippur, and Babylon are freed from dupsikku and šisîtu nâgiri.
This was drawn up in the time of Ashurbânipal, but whether it was original
with him is not clear. At any rate, later, under Cambyses and Darius, these
cities were again subject to the “levy.”

This obligation to perform forced labor, or serve in the army, fell on the
agricultural population primarily. Indeed, it seems that the men who
discharged it might be called upon to do field labor, and it was an
aggravation of the insults put upon the old capital Asshur, that its citizens
were set to do field labor.521 On all country estates, there were a number of
serfs, glebae adscripti, sold with the estate, but not away from it. These, as
the Ḥarran census shows, often had land of their own. But they were bound
to till the soil for the owner. They included the irrišu, or [pg 203]

irrigator, the husbandman in charge of date-plantations, gardens, or
vineyards. From these were drawn the men who served in the army as
t “king's men,” and on public works. They seem to have been liable to five or
l six terms of service, season's work probably, or campaigns, and then were
free. At any rate, the heads of families seem to be free. The daughters as
well as sons were subject to service, probably to repair to the great weaving
houses in the towns. We read of these weaving establishments from early
times. M. Thureau-Dangin has called attention to their occurrence in the
Telloh tablets of the Second Dynasty of Ur.522

The amounts of wool assigned to different cities to work up are the subject
of many tablets.523 In the great cities, the temples or the palaces were the
home of this industry; but quantities of stuff were served out under bond to
private establishments to be worked up and returned or paid for. The work
on these industries constituted the amat šarrûti, or obligation to serve as
“king's handmaid.” It lay also upon slaves. It is doubtful whether the
obligation included domestic service. From the second Babylonian Empire

we have a host of tablets relating to these weaving accounts. They will be
found fully discussed by Dr. Zehnpfund in his Weberrechnungen.524

The married slave, even in the city, usually lived in his own house. His
children were born to slavery, but were usually not separated in early life
from their parents. They entered their master's service, and might be sold
e when grown up. They might learn a trade and so earn a living, paying a
fixed sum to their master. They might become agricultural laborers, and so
attain a fixity of tenure as serfs. But on all these subject classes, slaves,
whether [pg 204] domestic or living out, serfs, and artisans, there lay the
obligation to do forced work for the king. After a certain number of terms of
service, they were exempt.

The obligations to public institutions which existed in Babylonia in later
times have not yet been made the subject of a thorough study. Kohler and
Peiser have noted several of the more important indications, and to them we
owe what has been done up to the present.

The most noteworthy obligation was what they call the ḳablu. This has the
same sign as so commonly used in the phrase, ḳablu u taḫâzu, for “war and
a fighting.” But it is also the ideogram for šisîtu, the call of the nâgiru to war
n or the corvée. There is no doubt that it indicates the levy for war. The rikis
ḳabli was the money due from certain persons to furnish a soldier for the
f war. Thus we have seventy shekels paid to a certain man, in the fifth year of
Darius, to go to the city Shiladu.525 Again, a certain Bêl-iddin had to find
twenty-five shekels to pay a substitute to go for him to the presence of the
king.526 Another man paid the wages of a soldier for two years.527 This was
an æs militare. In another case we find the rikis ḳabli for a horseman for a
certain troop, for three years. It consisted of an ass worth fifty shekels,
thirty-six shekels for its keep, twelve coats, twelve breastplates (?), twelve
mušapallatum, twelve leather mîṭu, twenty-four shoes, thirty ḲA of oil,
sixty ḲA of bdellium sixty ḲA of some aromatic, all as equipment, ṣiditum,
to go to the camp (?). This may be described as æs equestre.528 So529 the
burgomaster of Babylon paid rikis ḳabli for three years for a certain soldier,
receiving the amount from single citizens. How this arose, what dues it was
a composition for, and whether it antedates Persian times, are details not yet
clear.

Besides the personal obligation to contribute “work,” dullu, a liability for
contributions in kind, ilku, dues from [pg 205] the land, existed. We are in
y the dark as yet as to the exact form these took. In the Code, the ilku, or duty
r from an estate held as the benefice of an office, was the fulfilment of the
functions of the office.530 The word does not seem to denote contributions.
But the word literally is what “comes” of any holding, income, or what is
“taken” from it. In a charter of Melišhiḫu,531 we have a long list of powers
which could be exercised by the king's officials over land. They are levies
or forced contributions of wood, crops, straw, corn, wagons, harness, asses
or men, rights to abstract water from canals, to drink from the water, to
pasture herbage, or set on the royal flocks or herds, to pasture sheep, to
construct roads or bridges. These are referred to as either a dullu or ilku.
The governor is named as likely to demand right of pasture for his flocks
and herds or work for roads and bridges. But we are left without
information as to the proportion these levies bore to the property. All we
can conclude is that the king had a right to impress such things or such
labor. Few, if any, other documents are so full and explicit as to the dues
exacted from the land, but all these dues are mentioned again, one or two
together, in almost all the charters.

This is one of the most important dues from land. It was paid to the temple.
Some are inclined to see it in the niširtu, from which many charters exempt
land; but others consider this merely a word for “diminution,” or levy in
general. There is no means of deciding yet as to the time at which the tithe
first became a fixed institution.

There seems to be no trace in Assyrian times of any payment of a tithe. The
tithe rab ešrite, which has been rendered “tithe collector,” is more likely to
be a commander of ten, a decurion.532

[pg 206]

The evidence for the existence of tithe in the later Babylonian period is very
full. All seem to have paid it, from the king downward. Nabonidus paid, on
his accession, to the temple at Sippara, five minas of gold. It was a very
large sum, but may have been a sort of succession duty rather than an
income-tax.533 It is curious that we also find Belshazzar named as paying
tithe, due from his sister, and that when the Persian army was already in

possession of Sippara.534 This shows that the Persians were friendly
invaders and respected the rights of private property and of the temples.
Belshazzar also paid tithe, through his major-domo, to Bêl, Nabû, Nêrgal,
and Bêlit of Erech.535

It was paid for a group of persons by one of their company, or perhaps we
might say that certain persons collected tithe from their district and paid it
d in. Thus we have a document recording the payment by one man of the tithe
due from a number of shepherds, cultivators, and gardeners, in the city of
Maḫâz-Shamshi.536 In the time of Artaxerxes I., Hilprecht has shown that in
some cases “the bow” of land also paid tithe.537

Tithe was usually paid in kind, on all natural products, corn, oil, sesame,
dates, flour or meal, oxen, sheep, asses, and the like, but also was liquidated
n by a money payment. The tablets relating to it are very numerous, but in
nearly every case amount to no more than a receipt for its payment.

Tithe became property apparently and was negotiable. So at least appears
from Nebuchadrezzar 270. We thus have property in income from land.

The various dues, miksu, seem to have been a sort of octroi duty. They were
levied at the quay, miksu kâri, at the ferry, miksu nibiri. They are only
mentioned in the [pg 207] charters, granting exemptions from them, to
certain estates or their owners. Closely related to these were the mikkasu,
which seem to be some sort of due or tax levied upon all naturalia, and
even upon the dues which were paid into the temples. We have frequent
mention of them in later times, in the temple accounts.

[pg 208]

XX. The Functions And Organization Of The Temple

The temple exerted an overwhelming financial influence in smaller towns.
Only in certain large cities was it rivalled by a few great firms. Its financial
t status was that of the chief, if not the only, great capitalist. Its political
influence was also great. This was largely enlisted on the side of peace at
e home and stability in business.

The importance of the temple was partially the result of the large dues paid
to it. These consisted primarily of a ginû, or fixed customary daily payment,
and a sattukku, or fixed monthly payment. How these arose is still obscure.
n They were paid in all sorts of natural products, paid in kind, measured by
e the temple surveyor on the field. Doubtless, these were due from temple
lands, and grew out of the endowments given to the temple. These often
consisted of land, held in perpetuity by a family, charged with a payment to
the temple. The land could not be let or sold by the temple, nor by the
family. Such land was usually freed from all other state dues. The
endowment was thus at the expense of the state. An enormous number of
the tablets which have reached us from the later Babylonian times concern
the payment of these dues. They mostly consisted of corn and sesame, or
other offerings, and the tablets are receipts for them. In Assyrian times the
ginû also included flesh of animals and birds. In some few cases we have
long lists of these daily dues, accompanied by precious [pg 209] gifts in
addition. The gifts were perishable, but were accompanied by a note
specifying them, and the good wishes or purpose of the donor.538 These
notes were preserved as mementos of the donor's good-will.

Temples, however, also possessed lands which they could let. They also
held houses which they might let.539 In fact, the temples could hold any sort
of property, but apparently could not alienate any. Some lands the temple
officials administered themselves, having their own work-people. We have
f mention of these lands from the earliest times (e.g., the very early tablet
d referred to above),540 right down through the Sumerian period. We have

almost endless temple accounts, many of which relate to the fields of the
temple, giving their dimensions and situation, with the names of the tenants,
or serfs, and the rents or crops expected of them. Then, in the First Dynasty
of Babylon, we find the lands, gardens, courts, et cetera, of the gods named.
We no longer have the temple accounts, but the private business
transactions of the citizens, whose neighbors are often the gods themselves,
as direct land-owners. In Assyrian times the mention of temple lands is very
common. In later Babylonian times there is abundant evidence of the same
custom. Dr. Peiser devotes a considerable portion of the introduction to his
Babylonische Verträge to this subject. How the temple became possessed of
these lands we do not know. We do know of large gifts of land by kings,
rich land-owners and the like, but we do not know whether originally the
temple started with land. When a king speaks of building a temple to a god,
we may understand that he really rebuilt it, or erected a new temple on the
site. Before kings, the patêsis did the same. But did a patêsi precede a
temple or vice versâ? and did the first founder, or the town, grant the first
temple lands?

[pg 210]

The temples had further a variable revenue from private sources. There
were many gifts and presents given voluntarily, often as thank-offerings.
The temple accounts give extensive lists of these from the earliest times to
the latest. They were of all sorts, most often food or money. But they were
often accompanied by some permanent record, a tablet, vase, stone or metal
vessel, inscribed with a votive inscription. These form our only materials
for history in long spaces of time.

Sacrifices were, of course, largely consumed by the offerers and those
invited to share the feast. But the temple took its share. The share was a
f fixed or customary right to certain parts. For one example, the temple of
e Shamash at Sippara had its fixed share of the sacrifice, taking “the loins, the
e hide, the rump, the tendons, half the abdominal viscera and half the thoracic
viscera, two legs, and a pot of broth.” The usage was not the same at all
temples. In the temple of Ashur and Bêlit at Nineveh we have a different
list.541 For the parallels with Mosaic ritual, and the Marseilles sacrificial

tablet, see Dr. J. Jeremias, Die Cultus Tafel von Sippar. The list was drawn
up by Nabû-aplu-iddin, King of Babylon b.c. 884-860.542

This was of course a variable source of income, depending upon the
popularity of the cult and the population of the district. It was also
perishable and could not be stored. It is certain that in some cases this
r source of income was so large that the temple sold its share for cash.543 This
must be carefully distinguished from the ginû and sattukku mentioned on
page 208, which were constant and regular supplies.

The temple was also a commercial institution of high efficiency. Their
accumulations of all sorts of raw products [pg 211] were enormous. The
temple let out or advanced all kinds of raw material, usually on easy terms.
To the poor, as a charity, advances were made in times of scarcity or
personal want, to their tenants as part of the metayer system of tenure, to
slaves who lived outside its precincts, and to contractors who took the
material on purely commercial terms. The return was expected in kind, to
the full amount of advance, or with stipulated interest. Also in some cases,
especially wool and other clothing stuffs, in made-up material. Definite
fabrics, mostly garments and rugs or hangings, were expected back. Some
quantity was needed for garments and vestments for temple officials, some
for the gods. But a great deal was used for trade. We have references to
temple treasuries and storehouses from the earliest times to the latest.

The temples did a certain amount of banking business. By this we mean that
they held money on deposit against the call of the depositor. Whether they
charged for safekeeping or remunerated themselves by investing the bulk of
their capital, reserving a balance to meet calls, does not yet appear. But the
f relatively large proportion of loans, where the god is said to be owner of the
money, points to investment as the source of a considerable income. Here a
careful distinction must be made between the loans without interest, or with
interest only charged in default of payment to time, and those where interest
is charged at once. The latter are banking business, the former were
probably only the landlord's bounden duty to his tenant by the custom of his
tenure. The temples also bought and sold for profit.

The greater officials, of course, appear often at court. The king was
accompanied by a staff of priestly personages. They frequently appear in

the inscriptions and on the monuments. His court reproduced that of the
gods above. The [pg 212] officials in one answered, man for man and office
for office, with those above.

The king, by his religion, could do nothing without religious sanction. The
support of the priestly party was essential. In the more unsettled times they
were to a great extent king-makers. To estrange the priests was a dangerous
policy always. Besides their immense wealth they had the sanctions of
religion on their side. To all men certain things were right, and the priests
e then had what right there was on their side. A king was under obligation to
come to Babylon to take the hands of Bêl-Merodach each New Year's Day.
If he did not, he not only offended the priests, but also committed a wrong
in the eyes of his people.

But the kings were often inclined to rely upon conjurers, soothsayers,
magicians, and the like. It would be a fatal mistake to confuse these with
the priests. The best kings were those who set their face against magic and
supported the more rational local or national worships. Sargon II.,
e Esarhaddon, Nebuchadrezzar II., are examples of the latter, while
Ashurbânipal is a great example of the magic-ridden kings. Ḥammurabi
apparently strove to put down magic. The eternal struggle between the
l “science” (falsely so-called) of magic and divination on the one hand and
the higher claims of religious duty on the other, is the key to much that is
misunderstood in the politics of the time. It would be too much to say that
the priestly party were always on the side of morality, or that they were not
often allied with the soothsayers, but it is certain that what ethical progress
there was, was due to them. In religious texts alone have we aspiration after
higher ideals. Who can fancy a wizard troubled about ethics?

The priest proper, šangû, was a person of the highest rank. He appears very
little on the whole. His chief [pg 213] function was to act as mediator
between god and man, as over the sacrifice offered.

He had public duties outside his priestly office. He inspected canals.544 He
often acted as a judge.

There was a college of priests attached to some temples, over which was a
šangû maḫḫu or “high-priest.”

The general idea that mašmašu, “charmer”; kalû, “restrainer”; (?) maḫḫû,
“soothsayer”; surru; lagaru; šâ'ilu, “inquirer”; mušêlu, “necromancer”;
âšipu, “sorcerer”; all properly “magicians,” are subdivisions of the general
term šangû, is yet to be proved. Except when, in rare cases, the same man
was both, the scribes carefully distinguish them. The idea seems to arise
from the same modern confusion of thought which starts by calling an
unknown official first a eunuch, then a priest. We do not yet fully know the
functions or methods of these officials. They remain to be studied.545

The ḳêpu, or “warden,” was over the temple servants. He let the temple
lands. He inspected the temple slaves and work-people.546

The šatammu was over the revenues. This name is clearly connected with
the šutummu or storehouse.

Certain officials, as surveyors or measurers, scribes, et cetera, may have
been of priestly rank and held these offices as well. But as a rule, a man
appears with an official title, without our being able to see whether he was a
priest or not.

The temple kept its artificers, who had board and wages. It had its serfs, or
land laborers, not actual slaves, but [pg 214] free except for their duty to the
temple. They lived on the produce of their holdings, subject to a fixed, or
produce-rent.

There were temple slaves, who performed the menial offices without wages,
but were clothed and fed.

Within these classes doubtless came some of those who appear as
slaughterers, water-carriers, doorkeepers, bakers, weavers, and the like. A
temple also had its shepherds, cultivators, irrigators, gardeners, et cetera;
but it is far from easy to determine the exact degree of dependence in each
case.

The temple even had its own doctor.547

In all these cases we may compare the monastic institutions of the Middle
Ages. We are not as a rule able to see whether they were “lay brothers,” or

had become “clerics,” as well as “clerks.” But there is no sign of celibacy.
Even the priests were married.

e Attached to the temple were votaries.548 In not a few cases the above offices
might also be held by women, even such an office as surveyor might be
held by a woman. There were many female “clerks.” All the temple staff
were maintained by the temple, boarded, fed, and clothed, at the temple
expense. But private persons might undertake to keep a definite temple
official, perhaps were bound to do so, by the terms of some endowment.549

The right to serve in certain offices was hereditary in some families. As
these multiplied, the office was held in turn by members of the family for a
short time, so that it may well be that an individual priest only exercised his
functions for a very limited part of the year.

Great families took their clan name from their office; for example, the Gula
priests in later Babylonian times, or as the mandidu, “measurer,” or
f “surveyor,” attached to a temple, became a clan name.

[pg 215]

Hence arose property in temple incomes. That these were considerable we
know from the lists of temple accounts. These form the bulk of the earliest
documents. From them we learn that each day certain officials received
certain allowances, mostly food and drink. From later documents we learn
n that men apparently not connected with the temple had become lay
impropriators of the temple allowances originally intended only for temple
officers.

The right to receive these was a valuable and negotiable asset. Thus we read
of a right to five days per year in the temple of Nannar, sixteen days per
year in the temple of Bêlit, and eight days in the shrine of Gula as being the
namḫar of Sin-imgurâni and Sin-uzili.550 This was confirmed to them by a
legal decision in the time of Rîm-Sin. We read also of a right to act as
šatammu, for six days per month, in the temple of Shamash.551 In later times
the mandidûtu, or surveyorship, to the temple of Anu, Ib, and Bêlit-êkalli,
exercised in the temple, storehouse, and field, was sold, shared, and
pledged.552 Another such right was given on condition that it was not sold

for money, granted to another, pledged, nor diminished in any way, and
should pass to the possessor's daughter on his death.553 The porter's post at
Bâb Salimu was given as a pledge. Shares in these incomes were regularly
traded in, sold, and pledged.

The position of a priest, or other official, carried with it an endowment. On
this point the Code is very explicit for the cases of the ridû ṣâbê and the
bâ'iru, officials charged with the collection of local quotas for the army and
public works. They were recruiting sergeants, press-gang officers, and post-
office officials. The office was endowed by royal grant. They were liable to
be called on in the discharge of their duties to make lengthy journeys and be
absent from home for a length of time, even years. In their absence, [pg
216] their duties could be delegated to a son, if old enough, otherwise a
substitute was put in. They could claim reinstatement within a certain time.
But their endowment was inalienable from the office and could not be
treated as private property.

Quite similarly the great state officials in Assyria had endowments which
were not personal, but went with the office. Thus we learn from the Ḥarran
e census that certain lands paid rent or crops to certain offices.

t In later times the rights to income are very prominent, perhaps solely in
virtue of the class of documents which has reached us. Occasionally we are
able to learn exactly what they were. For example, the surveyor for the
temple of Anu had a right to two GUR of corn, two GUR of dates, fifty ḲA
of wheat, six ḲA of sesame, on every eighteen ḲA of land. When the corn
and dates were harvested, on one GUR, six ḲA were levied.

It is not clear that a temple had any direct duties to the state. Peiser thinks
that they collected dues for the state. Certainly they had attached to them
the king's storehouses. Certain amounts were paid in for certain state
officials. In the Code of Ḥammurabi we see that a temple might be called
upon to ransom a member of the town who had been taken captive.

In certain circumstances the king's officials might borrow of the temples.554
Thus Nikkal-iddina borrowed of the temple of Bêlit of Akkad a vessel of
silver, weight fifteen minas, when the Elamites invaded the land.
f

Some kings laid hands on the treasures of the temple for their own use.
Doubtless this was done under bond to repay. The cases in which we read of
such practices are always represented as a wrong. When Shamash-shûm-
ukîn sent the bribes to the King of Elam, Ummanigash, he spoiled [pg 217]
the treasuries of Merodach at Babylon, of Nabû at Borsippa, and of Nêrgal
at Cutha, and this was reckoned one of his evil deeds, which led to his
downfall. But if he had been successful and had repaid his forced loans,
doubtless it would have been excused, and his memory would have been
blessed.

Much confusion is introduced by the fact that we do not know when a
temple official acts in his own private capacity and when on behalf of the
temple. The deeds, which do not expressly state that the money or property
a belongs to the god, or the temple, may often be only concerned with private
transactions, but were preserved in the temple archives on account of the
official position of the parties. But there are plenty of cases, where no doubt
exists, to justify us in regarding the temple as acting in all the capacities of
a private individual, or a firm of traders.

[pg 218]

XXI. Donations And Bequests

Alienation of property might be complete or partial. Of complete alienation
we may instance donation, sale, exchange, dedication, testament. The latter
was rarely complete in Babylonia. Examples of partial alienation are loan,
y lease, pledge, deposit.

We may note as a common mark of all these transactions the care taken to
fix and define ownership. The transfer is “from” A to B. In early times the
property is usually first stated to belong to A. Then he is often said in
e Assyrian times to be the bêlu of it, its full and legitimate owner. The new
f owner had to be satisfied that A was competent to part with it. This is often
made clearer by saying, in later times, that no one else has any claim upon
it. Hence arise guarantees against defeasor, redemptor, et cetera. This
subject of guarantees is most interesting, though often obscure. The
investigation of the varied rights which were likely to interfere with
freedom of transfer is most important.

In certain cases we shall find a sort of hypothecation of property, as when it
is assigned as security, but not given up. The possession is not free, but it is
not alienated. We have also a donatio retento usufructu, which only gives a
f reversion of the property. Here also certain rights may be reserved against
the ultimate possessor.

Another interesting point is that property may be credited to a man, and set
off against other liabilities, so that he [pg 219] may never actually be in
possession, but only nominally passing it on to others, and even, eventually,
it may come back to the first owner, who may never part with it at all.

Undoubtedly men were at liberty in daily life to make presents one to
another. But the rights of the family were so strong that for the most part all
the property of the parents was jealously regarded as tied to the children, or
e other legal heirs. When a man died, his property was divided according to a

rigid law of inheritance. When a woman left her father's house to be
married, the father gave her the share of his goods which fell to her, without
waiting until his death to divide his substance. In this case she had nothing
further at his death. But the property was not her husband's, though he and
she shared its use; it was entailed to her children. If she had none, it went
back to her father's house: to her brothers, if she had any, or to her father's
other heirs. Unless a man legally adopted his natural sons, they did not
inherit. Hence neither man nor woman was wholly free to give. But, hedged
about with consents and reservations, donations took place.

We have a great variety of types of donation, not always easy to classify,
and often obscure, in some details. The common characteristics are that
deeds of gift were duly executed, sealed, and witnessed; and that the
consents of the parties, whose expectations were thus diminished, or
restricted, had to be obtained.

A daughter might be portioned off for marriage and this involved a gift,
which might be treated as a donation, but rather comes under the head of
marriage-portion, in the chapter on marriage. Precisely the same portioning
a took place when the daughter either became a votary or was dedicated to
the service of a god. Such gifts may be included here. They usually contain
a list of property: sharing houses, land, slaves, jewels, money, clothes,
a household furniture, [pg 220] even pots of honey or jars of wine. As a rule,
in our present state of knowledge, nothing that could pretend to be an
accurate translation can be given of the items of such a gift, only a general
idea of the nature of the whole. Such a gift, however, evidently set the lady
up in an establishment of her own, with all she could require for
maintenance and comfort for the rest of her life.

Here these donations split up into separate classes. The recipient might have
only a life interest in her gift, or it might be hers outright. The latter case
a could not be presumed. The heirs of her parents, “her father's house,” would
e maintain their claim at her death, unless they had specially contracted to
a waive it. Then the clause was inserted that she might “give her sonship to
whomever she pleased,” ašar eliša tâbum aplûtsa inadin.555 By “sonship” is
meant “heirship.” Such cases do not seem common and are probably to be
explained as due to the fact that as a votary she had no legitimate heir. It is

important to note that there is no hint that, if she died without heirs, the
temple would inherit.

A modified freedom is allowed by a father who gives his daughter house,
land, sheep, slaves, and the like, but limits her power of gift to her brothers.
e But among them she may “give it to him who loves and serves her.”556 It is
r assumed that one of her brothers will care for her and manage her estate and
a be rewarded by the reversion of it. As a rule, it is only a life interest which
the recipient has.

A different sort of gift is where the donor reserves to himself a use of the
property as long as he lives, or stipulates for a life allowance from it. These
are usually accompanied by formal adoption. The recipient is one who has
not already a claim to inherit, but undertakes the care or maintenance of the
donor. Such gifts are best classed under [pg 221] adoption, even where the
fact of adoption is not stated. When a parent makes an arrangement of this
kind with a son or daughter, these were possibly adopted by a previous act.
At any rate, it seems likely that such a child was either unmarried or again
free to wait upon the donor. But whatever the actual state of relationships,
we find a mother giving property to a daughter, reserving the use of it as
long as she lives.557 Similarly a brother undertakes to give one shekel per
annum to his brother. Here the grounds of the undertaking are not stated,
but a contract to do this is duly sealed and witnessed.558 Further,
maintenance is stipulated for, though the relationship is not stated, nor
grounds given. This may not be based upon a gift, but follow the order of
some judge, for other reasons.559

The husband might settle upon his wife a fixed amount of property. This
was frequently done and was called the nudunnu. It might include a house,
two maids, clothes, jewelry, and household furniture.560 Here the sons are
expressly said to have no claim, she may give it to whoever serves her and
“as her heart desires.” Probably she was a second wife without children,
and is thus secured a life of comfort and the faithful service of her step-
sons. As a rule these gifts are best considered under the head of marriage,
but they were also free gifts on the donor's part. The wife in any case had
her right to inherit with her step-sons, if her husband made no such
settlement.

The consent of the legal heirs of the donor to such alienation of their
reversionary rights was needed. Thus in one case, when a man gives his
f daughter a house, his son appears as the first witness.561 A father and his son
e give their daughter and sister a house, which she is free to give to her son,
f “whom she loves.”562 Had the house merely come to [pg 222] her as her
share in the usual way, it must have been shared by her sons. If she had
none, then her brother would be the next heir. That she can leave it as she
will must be a matter of legal instrument. The brother must consent to the
exception to the rule.

In Assyrian times, donation is rarely represented within the group of
documents which have reached us. Here is one case:563

The household which Bêl-nâ'id gave to his daughter, Baltêa-abate. A house in
Nineveh, before the great gate of the temple of Shamash. (Then come the
servants, a šaḳu or head man, a washerman, a šaknu, and others, male and
female, in all eleven souls.) Dated the fourteenth of Adar, in the Eponymy of
Marduk-shar-uṣur. Nine witnesses.

This may be donation, or adoption, or even a marriage-portion.

At all times, a difficulty arises from the phraseology of the deeds of gift.
When we are told that “A has given B such and such things,” we do not
know the ground of the gift. “To give for money,” nadânu ana kaspi, is the
usual expression for “to sell.” In the older documents šarâḳu, “to present,”
often occurs, but has in most cases the derived technical sense “to dower,”
or “give a marriage-portion.” Hence, we are not able to judge whether what
appears as “gift” may not really be “a sale,” or some payment meant to
complete the portioning off of a daughter, on marriage or taking vows.

There are, however, a large number of deeds of gift which have reached us
from the Second Babylonian Empire. The characteristic formula may be
e taken to be ina ḫûd libbišu iknukma pâni ušadgil, “in the joy of his heart
(i.e., of his own free will, implying that no consideration was taken per
contra) he has sealed and placed at the disposal [pg 223] of.” As a rule, we
may suspect these to be “gifts” to which the recipient had a right. Thus,

mother to son,564 brother to sister,565 man to wife and daughter,566 mother to
daughter,567 are not free from suspicion. But when a man gives maintenance
to wife and son,568 brother gives dower to sister,569 father-in-law gives son-
in-law arrears of his daughter's dower,570 and wherever there is a hint that
the “gift” was a nudunnû, or a šeriḳtu, we may regard the case as not
properly “donation,” but “dower.”

The following example shows the limitations on free gift that still remained
in later times.571 Zêrûtu had married and had a son, Shâpik-zêri. Then he
had an intrigue with Nasikâtum, daughter of the Sealand scribe, who bore
him a son, Balâṭu. He gave Balâṭu a house, but did not adopt him. After
Zêrûtu died, Shâpik-zêri demanded the house as his father's heir. The judges
gave it to him and also the deed of gift.

The dedication of land to a temple or of a child to the service of a god may
be considered as examples of free gift; but they are of a nature deserving
separate consideration. We have already noticed some cases of such
donations by the kings. We know from the Code that a father might dedicate
a child as a votary,572 and he might portion that child; but this did not bring
a free gift to the temple, for the family had the reversion of the votary's
property.

As a further example of dedication by a private owner, we may take the
following:573

As temple of the god Lugalla (the king) and his consort Shullat, Nûr-ilishu,
e son of Bêl-nada, has dedicated to his god one SAR of improved land, for his
t life (salvation), has devoted it to his god. Pî-sha-Shamash shall be the priest
a of the temple. Nûr-ilishu shall lay no claim to the priesthood. The curse of
Shamash and of Sumulâ-ilu be on him who disputes the settlement. Seven
witnesses.

[pg 224]
This is total alienation. The donor is not making an indirect provision for
himself, but waives all claims to be the chief priest of the temple.

Here is an example of a dedication of children:574

Tablet of Ishtar-ummi and Aḫatâni, daughters of Innabatum. Innabatum,
daughter of Bur-Sin, has dedicated them to Shamash. As long as Innabatum
lives, Ishtar-ummi and Aḫatâni shall support her, and after Innabatum, their
mother [is dead], no one among her sons, their brothers, shall have any claim
on them for anything whatever. They have sworn by Shamash, Malkat,
Marduk, and Apil-Sin. Fifteen witnesses (of whom the first two are probably
the brothers, the rest females, probably all votaries of Shamash and members
of the convent.)

In another case, a mother dedicates her son to Shamash,575 with the
stipulation that the son shall support her as long as she lives.

In Assyrian times we have an example576 of a dedication of a son to Ninip,
by his mother, with consent of her brothers and their sons. A father also
e dedicates his son to Ninip577 for the well-being of Ashurbânipal, King of
Assyria. This is interesting as showing that the dedicator acquired merit,
which he could transfer to another. Both tablets are defective. In another
case, Aḫi-dalli, the lady governor of one quarter of Nineveh, purchases a
large estate and presents it to some god “for the health of the king.”578
Votive tablets giving the presentation of various articles to some god are
common enough at all periods.

Testamentary devolution of property was not the rule in Assyria or
Babylonia, where the law of inheritance was so firmly fixed that it would be
naturally illegal. As a rule, children did not inherit under their fathers' will,
r but by right. However, the Code allows a father to give his married [pg 225]
or vowed daughter power to leave her property as she will,579 and it is
probable that he had the same power over at least some of his property. The
very frequent cases of adoption, where the adopted child becomes heir, on
condition of supporting the parent as long as he lives, and the cases of gift
retento usufructu, are a sort of testamentary disposition of property.

This developed with time into something very like testament. But we
always have to bear in mind that conditions may have been understood

which are not actually expressed.

Some examples from later Babylonian times will serve to illustrate how
near these transactions came to testament. A very interesting case is where a
son, probably childless, if not unmarried, and perhaps not in good health,
gives his father his property. The document is very involved, but the chief
points are these: A married B and they had a daughter C, who married D.
The son of C and D is the testator. He leaves to his father D all the property
which he inherited from A and B, which they had left to their daughter's
son. It consisted of a house, fields, and slaves. He leaves it to his father
“forever,” only he is to retain the enjoyment of it as long as he lives. He
therefore expects his father to survive him.580

Here is another interesting example:581

The division which A made with his sons B and C. The benefice of dagger-
bearer (official slaughterer) in the Ishḫara temple he assigns to B. The
benefice of the shrine of Papsukal in the temple of Bêlit-shami-erṣiti, situated
on the bank of the canal, and the sown corn-field on the Dubanîtu canal he
gave to his younger son C. All his property out in business he assigned to his
mother and his two sisters. Certain dates in the possession of two of his
debtors he gave to his two sisters. A fugitive slave, not yet recovered, to his
mother and sisters. The house, which by a former deed he had [pg 226]
given to his mother and sisters, shall be theirs according to the former deed.
As long as his mother lives, she shall enjoy the property formerly assigned
her. The benefice of the dagger-bearership in the temple of Ishḫara, which he
had formerly assigned to his mother, she has freely intrusted to his son B. As
long as she lives, B and C shall live in the house with her. The income of his
mother his sons shall enjoy with her. She shall give marriage-portions to his
sisters, her daughters, from her own marriage-portion.

This is very like a last will and testament. The man clearly expected to die
shortly. He had married and had two sons, but seems to have lost his wife.
He had evidently brought his mother and sisters to live with him. He
provides for his sons, his mother, and sisters. Evidently his mother is the

guardian of the boys. She is expected to leave the boys all the property that
was his and to dower the sisters from her own fortune.

[pg 227]

XXII. Sales

Alienation of property in perpetuity was a matter for serious consideration,
where all property was as much that of the family as of the individual. A
change of ownership, particularly in the case of land or house, also directly
concerned the neighbors. Hence the deeds of sale are imposing documents.
Whether the object sold was a piece of land, a house, or a slave, the same
general treatment was accorded to it.

There were the same formalities as in all deeds. First the purchaser
approached the vendor and there was an interchange of ideas, often through
l a third party, prolonged over a considerable space of time. When etiquette
had been satisfied and all the preliminary haggling was over, the parties
agreed upon a scribe, who was made acquainted with the terms of the sale,
already verbally agreed upon, and he set down in the imperishable clay the
legal instrument which should bind the parties to their contract forever.

Undoubtedly both parties took a copy, and it seems clear that a third was
deposited in the temple archives as a sort of registration of title. It seems
probable that each party sealed the copy held by the other, but this surmise
awaits confirmation. As a rule, the same seal seems to have been used for
all copies, and the witnesses in early times also affixed their seals. A more
exhaustive study must be made before this can be regarded as certain. Even
where duplicates [pg 228] exist in our museums, it has been usual to
publish only one.

As a rule, the scribe followed a very definite plan. First he made clear the
identity of the property. This was the specification. In the case of land,
neighbors were set down, boundaries given, in some cases the size of the
f plot. In each sale the specification is very important. The personal identity
of the parties was usually sufficiently fixed by appending to their names
those of their fathers. In many cases, the office or rank held by a party is
added. Occasionally the name of the grandfather, or clan-father is added.

When either party was a stranger, his nationality, or city, or tribe, is given.
e As a rule, the same information is attached to the names of witnesses. These
notes of personal identity are very valuable, for they furnish means for
reconstructing long genealogies, and they throw much light on the
intercourse of varied peoples. Babylonia seems always to have had a very
mixed population.

Having made it impossible for any mistake to arise as to the property sold
or the parties concerned, the scribe proceeded to guard against errors
f regarding the nature of the transaction. The house or other property “was
sold,” “the money paid,” “in full,” and so on. Then he sought to make it
r clear that there could be no withdrawal from the bargain, nor after-claims
raised. There was danger that the family might put in a claim to the
property. An illustration of this is a suit brought to reclaim a house sold,
which was the claimant's reversion—an actual redemption of ancestral
property. From such perils the buyer was protected by heavy penalties on
the seller, who in fact engaged to indemnify him.

These and many other complicated questions must have long been the
subject of consideration in Babylonian legal circles. As a consequence, the
l scribe usually drew up the [pg 229] deed, in set terms, with a formula
consecrated by long use, every turn of which was important.

The following is a good example of the way a scribe drew up a deed of
sale:582

Tappum, son of Iarbi-ilu, “has bought two GAN of field, in the Isle, next to
the field of Ḥasri-kuttim, and the field of Sin-abushu, son of Ubar-Ishtar,
from Salatum, daughter of Apilia, the GI-A-GI (?) and has paid its full price
f in silver. The business is completed, the contract is valid, his heart is content.
In future, man with man, neither shall take exception. By the name of
Shamash, Marduk, Sin-mubaliṭ and the city of Sippara, they swore.”

Then follows a list of about twenty witnesses, the names of whose fathers
are also given. Usually the date is added. Here, however, it is either omitted
or has been lost.

In this particular case the words within quotation marks are written in
Sumerian. The variations are slight as a rule, but enough to show that the
y scribe understood what he wrote and could make correct changes when
e needful. The use of such a large amount of Sumerian in these deeds, along
with Semitic names and specifications, has often been compared to the
retention of Latin words in the body of legal documents in European
countries, almost to the present day. It will be noted that this portion
constitutes the formal body of the document, and might well have been kept
ready written, blanks being left to fill in the names and specifications. It is
not, however, easy to find proof that this was done in early times.

Somewhat later, in the time of the First Dynasty, a number of these
Sumerian words and expressions are replaced by their Semitic equivalent.
Indeed, some deeds are Semitic only. We can by comparison make a fairly
complete study of Sumerian legal terms. To some extent this was already
n done by the scribes who drew up the series of [pg 230] phrase-books called
ana ittišu. But many new forms occur in these deeds.

To translate all the contract-tablets would be useless, for all the deeds of
sale are exactly alike, except the names of parties, witness, or neighbors,
and the specification of the property. The repetitions were necessary, for
each deed required an exact statement. But it is sufficient, having once
e noted the style of document, to call attention to the peculiarities of the
e specifications.
f
Very interesting are the references to earnest money, or the gift presented to
close the bargain. As early as the time of Manistusu583 we find not only a
price paid, but also a present given to the seller as a good-will offering.
r These are of a most varied and valuable nature.584 As already pointed out by
Meissner,585 in the purchase of a slave for four and a half shekels, a little
present of fifteen ŠE, or one-twelfth of a shekel, was thus added. Likewise
when another slave and her baby were sold we find that in addition to the
price of eighty-four shekels, one shekel is thrown in as a present.586 I do not
recall the occurrence of this custom in Assyrian times, but in the later
Babylonian documents it is common. There it is often referred to as the
atru, or “over-plus.” Thus we find that in the sale of a house in the time of
Nebuchadrezzar III.,587 besides the “full agreed price,” šîmu gamrûtu, of

half a mina of silver, the buyer gave one shekel of silver, kî atri, “as an
addition,” and “a dress for the lady of the house.” The whole payment thus
made of thirty-one shekels was called the šibirtu. So in the time of Darius
(?) we find that, in addition to the full price of three minas, five shekels of
silver, the buyer adds, kî atri, six shekels of silver and a dress for the lady of
the house, making three minas, eleven shekels of silver as the šibirtum,588
[pg 231] or simply to a price of two minas of bright silver he adds two
shekels, kî pî atar, making a šibirtu of two minas, two shekels of bright
silver.589

Equally interesting are the sums charged as fees to the scribe. This was paid
to him expressly for obtaining the seller's seal or nail-mark as a conclusion
of the contract.590 Thus at the end of a deed of sale of a single male slave,
executed by three owners by affixing three impressions of the same seal,
and drawn up by one scribe, we read “Seven shekels of silver for their
seal.” The price was about one hundred and forty shekels. Thus the scribe
received a fee of five per cent. on the sale price.591 The ratio was not
constant. It might be as low as two per cent. Thus in the case of a sale of a
slave by two owners, who made four nail-marks in lieu of seals, we read
“one mina of bronze for their nail-marks.” There was but one scribe, and
the price was fifty minas of bronze.592 Hence we cannot think that this fee
was paid for the scribe's seal, as some have done. The seal, or nail-mark,
was not “the authenticating subscription by the notary,” but by the seller.

In Assyrian times the deed of sale was a much longer document. The same
general form is observed, but the document starts with a heading giving the
information that the seller had sealed the document, or, in the absence of a
f seal, had impressed his nail-mark. No one but the seller ever seals or
impresses his nail-mark. The seller is usually described as the bêlu, or
“legitimate” owner of the property made over. Then first after the seal, or in
a space left for it, comes the specification of the property. Next it is stated
that the buyer has made a bargain and taken the property for so much. But
the bulk of the document is devoted to a contract that the seller, his
representatives, heirs, and assigns, [pg 232] shall never rescind the sale, or
bring any suit to recover possession, under specified and heavy penalties.
The wording of these passages recalls most strikingly the imprecations of
the kings in their charters upon those who, in after times, should dare to

render their gifts inoperative. This grand style is one of the many
indications that for the Assyrian period most of the deeds we have were
drawn up on behalf of the king's household.

It is usually stated that the purchase is complete, the full price paid and
delivery of possession made. But in some cases this was a mere
conventional statement, and both payment and delivery were delayed. There
was to be no return of the goods, no turning back from the bargain; the
pleading of a suit of nullity of sale is expressly barred. It is of interest to
g notice who were regarded as competent, or likely to take action to recover
the property. Sons, grandsons, brothers, brothers' sons, are all named. The
enumeration clearly included females of the same nearness of kinship.
e Sisters are actually named. All these relatives are included in the term “his
people.” In some cases the šaknu, or governor of the district, is named,
especially where slaves are sold, or the estate involved the transfer of serfs.
The šaknu clearly had rights over lands and slaves within his district. The
transfer of property might act injuriously to his rights. It was usual to
stipulate that he had no such rights. How they had been annulled we do not
know. Perhaps by some previous charter conferring exemption. The ḫazânu
also appears to have had the right to intervene. The country seems to have
been split up into districts which were called on to furnish fifty units, each
consisting of an archer and a spearman or shield-bearer. Hence, the rab
ḫanšâ, or “captain of fifty,” was really in command of a hundred men.
Whether this obligation lay on a group of a hundred families or not, it is
clear that the transfer of [pg 233] ownership of land might lead to
embarrassment of the official. Hence, the rab ḫanšâ was likely to intervene
also. There was service on public works also concerned in the matter.
Whatever official was bêl ilki, or had right to “the levy,” might intervene.
The chief of a certain district was called a rab kiṣir; he was also commander
of a section of the army, and he had the right to intervene. Other officials as
the šâpiru, ḳurbu, are named, but in all cases the nature of the claim must
have been similar. The object of the buyer was to stipulate that the seller
should hold him exempt from such claims. How this could be done does not
appear.

The oath to observe the contract made between the parties still appears, but
is not common. As before, these oaths are of interest, for the light which

they throw upon local cults. The gods were invoked as being the avengers
of wrong. The decision of the king was also still regarded as a source of
vengeance, since he was bound to see right done.
e
f The penalties most commonly invoked were payments to the treasury of a
temple. These were in the nature of forfeits. The sum set down in the deed
rarely bears any exact relation to the value of the property, but is merely a
e large amount. Usually, a sum in both silver and gold is stated, but no
relation between the relative worths of the metals can be deduced. The
a forfeit might take the form of presenting two or more white horses to the
god. In a few cases, the penalty consisted in the devotion of a child, usually
the eldest son or daughter, to a god. The verb used for “devoting” a child
literally means to “burn.” This seems to point to an earlier sacrifice of
children by fire. But variants show that it was now used in a more general
sense of dedication. The “cedar wood of Ishtar” is named as the spot where
a daughter was to be dedicated. Further, [pg 234] other objects might be
dedicated as a forfeit. A great bow of bronze to Ninip of Kalḫu is named.

A deterrent penalty was to return the price “tenfold” to the seller. Once or
twice the penalty is “twelvefold.” A further penalty was to pay a talent of
lead to the governor of the city or state. Very curious is the penalty of being
required to eat a mina of some food, possibly a magical compound, and
drink an agannu pot of some drink. That this drink was taken from a bowl
inscribed with magical formulæ seems to be the best way of reading the
signs. The penalty was, therefore, an ordeal. Then, if the contention was
right, the plaintiff would be immune; if he was merely litigious, perhaps he
would be sick or even die.

Finally, it is often laid down that, if either party (especially the seller) shall
attempt to bring a suit about the property, the judge shall not hear him, or if
f he insists, he shall lose the action. Throughout it is clear that the buyer tries
to make the seller contract to waive all rights to recover his property, but he
holds to certain rights of his own. Thus, in the sale of slaves, a clause is
frequently inserted which claims a hundred days within which to set up a
claim to repudiate the purchase, on the ground that the slave is afflicted
with certain diseases, the ṣibtu and bennu, the character of which is not
exactly known. Also he bargains that a blemish may be at any time an

excuse for annulling the bargain. These really amount to demanding a
guarantee from the seller that the slave was free from disease or other
undisclosed weakness.593

The later Babylonian tablets do not illustrate much that is of great interest.
They often record the initial verbal discussion. Thus we find that when A
bought of B, some phrase like the following is recorded: A said thus to B:
“Give me thy property and I will give thee so much silver.” [pg 235] Then
e we read that “B listened to him and gave A his property and A gave him so
f much silver.” It is a curious little touch of verisimilitude.

Sales usually were for the full price, or the agreed price, paid down at once.
This is expressly stated. But in the later Babylonian times we have some
examples of deferred payment, which may also have been common during
earlier periods. Thus, a man sold a slave for fifty shekels and received
twenty-five shekels as advance price. The rest was to be paid later.594 The
payment was probably made soon. Thus we find a lady selling four female
slaves to a certain man and taking a bond of him to pay four shekels, the
balance of the price, on the second of Kislev, a week later.595 The interval
might be two days only;596 but sometimes a much longer period of grace
was allowed—as much as two months and seven days—although the
purchase was taken away at once.597

It is occasionally stipulated that if the purchase-money is not paid by a
certain date, the object purchased shall be returned. Thus S, having sold B
f some slaves, took a bond of him that, if B did not pay in a week, he would
return them.598
e
A long retention of the thing purchased—especially when it was profitable
—without payment, was of course a loss to the seller. Hence, we find the
seller of a slave taking a bond of the buyer that, if he did not pay on the date
fixed, he should return the slave and his mandattu, or the income which a
slave paid to his master.599

A distinct case of fraud occurs600 in the sale of a slave belonging to A by his
brother B without A's knowledge. To make the matter worse, B had the
contract drawn up in A's name. This was doubtless represented to be a case
of agency, but there is no conclusive evidence.

[pg 236]

One of the earliest inscriptions, the stele of Manistusu, records the purchase
of large estates to form a possession for his son Mesalim, afterwards King
of Kish. The whole inscription is splendidly published in photogravure in
f the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, Tome II., pp. 1-52. It is divided
into a number of sections each recording a separate purchase. One example
t will suffice as characteristic of all:601
y

A field of seventy-three GAN, its price being two hundred and forty-three and
seven-fifteenths GUR of corn, at the rate of one shekel of silver a GUR of
corn; price in silver, four minas, three shekels, and one “little mina,” the price
of the field, and half a mina, six shekels and a fraction of silver, as a present
to close the bargain; one garment for A, son of B, in presence of C, priest of
Zamama (god of Kish); one garment for D, son of E. Total, two garments
present for the field. Total, two men serfs of the field and food and money for
the sons of C, priest of Zamama.

Here are many noteworthy pieces of information. The price of corn is fixed
with relation to silver. It remained the same down to late Babylonian times.
A present was given in addition to the price, as in many sales even to the
latest times. The serfs go with the land. Certain food and money allowances
are reserved to the priest C and his descendants. This was probably a
territorial charge. Many other points of interest are furnished by the other
sections. Thus, among the presents given are numerous vessels of gold,
silver, and copper. The garments are of various kinds. The men who receive
presents do not appear to be merely the sellers, but also elders of the city or
district. This indicates a tribal or district right of control over the alienation
of land. The boundaries of the estates are often given and are of great
interest for topography. A number of persons are named as witnesses to the
separate sales. In one [pg 237] way or another some five hundred persons
and about forty places are named. Over forty titles or names of professions
are given. Among them we note many familiar in later times, the abrakku,
nagiru, patêsi, Šakkanak, as well as a king. We see already judges,
merchants, scribes, irrigators, boatmen, carpenters, singers, shepherds,
seers, branders, as well as slaves. We read of sheep, asses, goats, oxen. And

all this from one inscription. It is a fine example of the kind of information
this class of documents may afford. Not least in importance is the fact that
many Semitic, as well as Sumerian, names and words occur.

In the case of landed property the deeds of sale usually specify its position.
In the case of fields and gardens four neighbors are often specified. Their
f plots of land then completely enclosed the plot concerned. What rights of
access to such a plot existed does not appear, but where the boundaries were
low mounds or ridges, it may be assumed that the tops of these were
common to all for access and carriage. In towns, more usually three
neighbors are named, the fourth side is often said to be on the street.
Sometimes four neighbors are given for a house, but then an exit, mûṣû, is
specified, which doubtless means a right of way through, or past, another
house to the street. When more than four neighbors are named, it is
probably the case that on one side the plot was conterminous, at least partly,
with two of them. Very commonly only two neighbors are given, one each
side. We may then presume that there were streets or lanes both front and
back. If we could press the term bîtu to mean “house,” we might conclude
from many cases that the old Babylonian cities contained streets of houses,
which were one conterminous block of buildings. But they seem in very
many cases to have had some open ground, and often gardens were
attached.

These boundaries are of great interest both from the [pg 238] point of view
of population and geography. Were we able to consult all the documents
which were once stored in the archives of one great temple, we might map
e out a city and assign each plot to its owner; and then extend our map and
the names of owners to the fields and plantations which lay around the city.
For outside the city walls the ugaru or town-land extended to a considerable
distance from the city walls. We may even soon be able to determine what
was the approximate extent of this margin about the city, a belt of land often
called a ḳablu or “girdle.”

Usually the plots are said to be in a city whose name is given. Thus we
conclude the close proximity of Laḫî, Ishkun-Ishtar, Malgia, Ḥalḫalla, to
f Sippara. Indeed, they were probably conterminous with it. Often the plot is
s stated to be in some quarter, or ward of the city. For the most part the names

of these wards, as for example Gagim, Karim, are difficult to understand.
Why or how they obtained these names we cannot tell. It is noteworthy that
one ward was called Amurru, “the Amorite land.” Much has been made of
this by Professors Hommel and Sayce, but we are still far from clear ideas
on the point. With respect to other indications of locality, it must be noted
that they are usually at the end of the first line at the right-hand top corner
of the tablet, and have suffered defacement more often than any other detail,
so that they are often illegible.

From many considerations it appears that most of these plots were
rectangular, but it is curious to note that many plans of houses and fields
exist which show that this was not always the case. Perhaps it was the
t irregularity of the outline which made plans necessary and they may be an
indirect witness to the rarity of such a feature.

[pg 239]

As a rule the private houses seem to have been small and to have had a few
small rooms. The palaces, or mansions of the great, had much more
f extensive conveniences. One reads of several specially defined rooms, but
their names do not as a rule tell us much of their use. Wash-houses, shops,
stables, granaries, and vacant plots, as well as gardens and orchards, are
often attached. Apparently one had to leave the house to enter these. The
houses were built of brick and their roofs were supported by strong beams.
In many plans, while the doorways for internal communication are carefully
marked, there seems to be no access from the street. Perhaps this is a
peculiarity of the architect's ideas of a plan, the door to the street being
understood. At any rate, doors, bolts, posts, and a lintel are frequently
named. These were often put in by the tenant and, like the beams, taken
away by him. A door might be pledged alone. But it is possible that some
houses had no door proper, being entered by steps leading to the roof. This
may be the explanation of the oft-mentioned mûṣû or right of way out,
either between, through, or over, other house property. When a house had
other houses touching it on each of four sides, something of the kind was
necessary.

Probably the house did not usually have an upper story; but, perhaps, as a
remarkable exception, an “upper house” is occasionally mentioned. There is