Immediately attached to the person of the Assyrian monarch was the Rab-saki, "the chief of the princes," or vizier. He is called the Rab-shakeh in the Old Testament, by the side of whom stood the Rab-saris, the Assyrian Rab-sa-risi, or "chief of the heads" of departments. They were both civil officers. The army was under the command of the Tartannu, or "Commander-in-Chief," the Biblical Tartan, who, in the absence of the King, led the troops to battle and conducted a campaign. When Shalmaneser II., for example, became too old to take the field himself, his armies were led by the Tartan Daian-Assur, and under the second Assyrian empire the Tartan appears frequently, sometimes in command of a portion of the forces, while the King is employing the rest elsewhere, sometimes in place of the King, who prefers to remain at home. In earlier days there had been two Tartans, one of whom stood on the right hand side of the King and the other on his left. In order of precedence both of them were regarded as of higher rank than the Rab-shakeh.

The army was divided into companies of a thousand, a hundred, fifty, and ten, and we hear of captains of fifty and captains of ten. Under Tiglath-pileser III. and his successors it became an irresistible engine of attack. No pains were spared to make it as effective as possible; its discipline was raised to the highest pitch of perfection, and its arms and accoutrements constantly underwent improvements. As long as a supply of men lasted, no enemy could stand against it, and the great military empire of Nineveh was safe.

It contained cavalry as well as foot-soldiers. The cavalry had grown out of a corps of chariot-drivers, which was retained, though shrunken in size and importance, long after the more serviceable horsemen had taken its place. The chariot held a driver and a warrior. When the latter was the King he was accompanied by one or two armed attendants. They all rode standing and carried bows and spears. The chariot itself ran upon two wheels, a pair of horses being harnessed to its pole. Another horse was often attached to it in case of accidents.

The chariots were of little good when the fighting had to be done in a mountainous country. In the level parts of Western Asia, where good roads had existed for untold centuries, they were a powerful arm of offence, but the Assyrians were constantly called upon to attack the tribes of the Kurdish and Armenian mountains who harassed their positions, and in such trackless districts the chariots were an incumbrance and not a help. Trees had to be cut down and rocks removed in order to make roads along which they might pass. The Assyrian engineers indeed were skilled in the construction of roads of the kind, and the inscriptions not infrequently boast of their success in carrying them through the most inaccessible regions, but the necessity for making them suitable for the passage of chariots was a serious drawback, and we hear at times how the wheels of the cars had to be taken off and the chariots conveyed on the backs of mules or horses. It was not wonderful, therefore, that the Assyrian kings, who were practical military men, soon saw the advantage of imitating the custom of the northern and eastern mountaineers, who used the horse for riding purposes rather than for drawing a chariot. The chariot continued to be employed in the Assyrian army, but rather as a luxury than as an effective instrument of war.

At first the cavalry were little more than mounted horsemen. Their only weapons were the bow and arrow, and they rode without saddles and with bare legs. At a later period part of the cavalry was armed with spears, saddles were introduced, and the groom who had run by the side of the horse disappeared. At the same time, under Tiglath-pileser III., the rider's legs were protected by leathern drawers over which high boots were drawn, laced in front. This was an importation from the north, and it is possible that many of the horsemen were brought from the same quarter. Sennacherib still further improved the dress by adding to it a closely fitting coat of mail.

The infantry outnumbered the cavalry by about ten to one, and were divided into heavy-armed and light-armed. Their usual dress, at all events, up to the foundation of the second Assyrian empire, consisted of a peaked helmet and a tunic which descended half-way down the thighs, and was fastened round the waist by a girdle. From the reign of Sargon onward they were divided into two bodies, one of archers, the other of spearmen, the archers being partly light-armed and partly heavy-armed. The heavy-armed were again divided into two classes, one of them wearing sandals and a coat-of-mail over the tunic, while the other was dressed in a long, fringed robe reaching to the feet, over which a cuirass was worn. They also carried a short sword, and had sandals of the same shape as those used by the other class. Each had an attendant waiting upon him with a long, rectangular shield of wicker-work, covered with leather. The light-armed archers were encumbered with but little clothing, consisting only of a kilt and a fillet round the head. The spearmen, on the contrary, were protected by a crested helmet and circular shield, though their legs and face were usually bare.

Changes were introduced by Sennacherib, who abolished the inconveniently long robe of the second class of heavy-armed archers, and gave them leather greaves and boots. The first class, on the other hand, are now generally represented without sandals, and with an embroidered turban with lappets on the head. Sennacherib also established a corps of slingers, who were clad in helmet and breastplate, leather drawers, and short boots, as well as a company of pioneers, armed with double-headed axes, and clothed with conical helmets, greaves, and boots. These pioneers were especially needed for engineering the way through the pathless defiles and rugged ground over which the extension of the empire more and more required the Assyrian army to make its way.

The heads of the spears and arrows were of metal, usually of bronze, more rarely of iron. The helmets also were of bronze or iron, a leather cap being worn underneath them, and the coats-of-mail were formed of bronze scales sewn to a leather shirt. Many of the shields, moreover, were of metal, though wicker-work covered with leather seems to have been preferred. Battering-rams and other engines for attacking a city were carried on the march.

Baggage wagons were also carried, as well as standards and tents. The tents of the officers were divided into two partitions, one of which was used as a dining-room, while the royal tent was accompanied by a kitchen. Tables, chairs, couches, and various utensils formed part of its furniture. One of these chairs was a sort of palanquin in the shape of an arm-chair with a footstool, which was borne on the shoulders of attendants.

The Assyrian army was originally recruited from the native peasantry, who returned to their fields at the end of a campaign with the spoil that had been taken from the enemy. Under the second Assyrian empire, however, it became a standing army, a part of which was composed of mercenaries, while another part consisted of troops drafted from the conquered populations. Certain of the soldiers were selected to serve as the body-guard of the King; they had a commander of their own and doubtless possessed special privileges. The army was recruited by conscription, the obligation to serve in it being part of the burdens which had to be borne by the peasantry. They could be relieved of it by the special favor of the government just as they could be relieved of the necessity of paying taxes.

The Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors was modelled on that of the Assyrians. We can gather from the receipts for the provisions and accoutrements furnished to it how the army of Tiglath-pileser or Sennacherib must have been fed and paid. Thus in the first year of Nabonidos, 75 qas of flour and 63 qas (nearly 100 quarts) of beer were provided for the troops in the camp near Sippara, and in the second year of the same King 54 qas of beer were sent on the 29th of Nisan for "the soldiers who had marched from Babylon." Similarly in the tenth year of the same reign we have a receipt for the despatch of 116 qas of food on the 14th of Iyyar for "the troops which had marched [to Sippara] from Babylon," as well as for 18 qas of "provisions" provided each day for the same purpose from the 15th to the 18th of the same month. In the first year of Nabonidos 3 gur of sesame had been ordered for the archers during the first two months of the year, and as in his thirteenth year 5 gur of wheat were provided for fifteen soldiers, we may calculate that rather more than two and one-half bushels were allotted to each man. It may be added that at the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's reign we find a contractor guaranteeing "the excellence of the beer" that had been furnished for the "army that had entered Babylon," though it is possible that here artisans rather than soldiers are meant.

A register of the soldiers was kept, but it would seem that those who were in charge of it sometimes forgot to strike off the names of those who were dead or discharged, and pocketed their pay. At any rate, the following official document has come down to us:—"(The names) of the deserters and dead soldiers which have been overlooked in the paymaster's account, the 8th day of Nisan, the eighth year of Cyrus, king of Babylon and of the world: Samas-akhi-iddin, son of Samas-ana-bitisu, deserted; Muse-zib-Samas, son of the Usian, ditto; Itti-Samas-eneya junior, of the family of Samas-kin-abli, ditto; Itti-Samas-baladhu, son of Samas-erba ditto; Taddannu, son of Rimut, ditto; Samas-yuballidh, his brother, ditto; Kalb, son of Samas-kin-abli, son of the painter(?), ditto; in all seven deserters. Libludh, son of Samas-edher, dead; Nebo-tukt-tirri, ditto; Samas-mupakhkhiranni, ditto; Samas-akhi-erba, son of Samas-ana-bitisu, ditto; in all four dead. Altogether eleven soldiers who have deserted or are dead."

If Babylonia copied Assyria in military arrangements, the converse was the case as regards a fleet. "The cry of the Chaldeans," according to the Old Testament, was "in their ships," and in the earliest age of Babylonian history, Eridu, which then stood on the sea-coast, was already a sea-port. But Assyria was too far distant from the sea for its inhabitants to become sailors, and the rapid current of the Tigris made even river navigation difficult. In fact, the rafts on which the heavy monuments were transported, and which could float only down stream, or the small, round boats, resembling the kufas that are still in use, were almost the only means employed for crossing the water. When the Assyrian army had to pass a river, either pontoons were thrown across it, or the soldiers swam across the streams with the help of inflated skins. The kufa was made of rushes daubed with bitumen, and sometimes covered with a skin.

So little accustomed were the Assyrians to navigation that, when Sennacherib determined to pursue the followers of Merodach-baladan across the Persian Gulf to the coast of Elam, he was obliged to have recourse to the Phoenician boat-builders and sailors. Two fleets were built for him by Phoenician and Syrian workmen, one at Tel-Barsip, near Carchemish, on the Euphrates, the other at Nineveh on the Tigris; these he manned with Syrian, Sidonian, and Ionian sailors, and after pouring out a libation to Ea, the god of the sea, set sail from the mouth of the Euphrates. It was probably for the support of this fleet that the 20 talents (10,800) annually levied on the district of Assur were intended. The Phoenician ships employed by the Assyrians were biremes, with two tiers of oars.

Of the Babylonian fleet we know but little. It does not seem to have taken part in the defence of the country at the time of the invasion of Cyrus. But the sailors who manned it were furnished with food, like the soldiers of the army, from the royal storehouse or granary. Thus in the sixteenth year of Nabonidos we have a memorandum to the effect that 210 qas of dates were sent from the storehouse in the month Tammuz "for the maintenance of the sailors." The King also kept a state-barge on the Euphrates, like the dahabias of Egypt. In the twenty-fourth year of Darius, for instance, a new barge was made for the monarch, two contractors undertaking to work upon it from the beginning of Iyyar, or April, to the end of Tisri, or September, and to use in its construction a particular kind of wood.

While we hear but little about the fleet, cargo and ferry-boats are frequently mentioned in letters and contracts. Reference has already been made to the shekel and a quarter paid by the agent of Belshazzar for the hire of a boat which conveyed three oxen and twenty-four sheep to the temple of the Sun-god at Sippara, in order that they might be sacrificed at the festival of the new year. Sixty qas of dates were at the same time given to the boatmen. In the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 3 shekels were paid for the hire of a grain-boat, and in the thirty-sixth year of the same King 4 shekels were given for the hire of another boat for the transport of wool.

Some documents translated by Mr. Pinches throw light on the building and cost of the ships. One of them is as follows: "A ship of six by the cubit beam, twenty by the cubit the seat of its waters, which Nebo-baladan, the son of Labasi, the son of Nur-Papsukal, has sold to Sirikki, the son of Iddin, the son of Egibi, for four manehs, ten shekels of silver, in one-shekel pieces, which are not standard, and are in the shape of a bird's tail (?). Nebo-baladan takes the responsibility for the management (?) of the ship. Nebo-baladan has received the money, four manehs ten shekels of white (silver), the price of his ship, from the hands of Sirikki." The contract, which was signed by six witnesses, one of whom was "the King's captain," was dated at Babylon in the twenty-sixth year of Darius. Another contract relates to one of the boats of the pontoon-bridge which ran across the Euphrates and connected the two parts of Babylon together: "[Two] manehs ten shekels of white (silver), coined in one-shekel pieces, not standard, from Musezib, the son of Pisaram, to Sisku, the son of Iddin, the son of Egibi. Musezibtum and Narum, his female slaves—the wrist of Musezibtum is tattooed with the name of Iddin, the father of Sisku, and the wrist of Narum is tattooed with the name of Sisku—are the security of Musezib. There is no hire paid for the slaves or interest on the money. Another possessor shall not have power over them until Musezib receives the money, two manehs ten shekels of white silver, in one-shekel pieces. Sisku, the son of Iddin, takes the responsibility for the non-escape of Musezibtum and Narum. The day when Musezibtum and Narum go elsewhere Sisku shall pay Musezib half a measure of grain a day by way of hire. The money, which is for a ship for the bridge, has been given to Sisku." This contract is also dated in the twenty-sixth year of Darius.

A letter written in the time of Khammurabi, or Amraphel, throws some light on the profits that were made by conveying passengers. There were ships which conveyed foreign merchants to Babylon if they were furnished with passports allowing them to travel and trade in the dominions of the Babylonian King. They took their goods and commodities along with them; on one occasion, we are told, the boat in which some of them travelled had been used for the conveyance of 10 talents of lead. It must, therefore, have been of considerable size and draught.

That the army and navy should have been recruited from abroad was in accordance with that spirit of liberality toward the foreigner which had distinguished the Babylonians from an early period. It was partly due to the mixed character of the race, partly to the early foundation of an empire which embraced the greater portion of Western Asia, partly, and more especially, to the commercial instincts of the people. We find among them none of that jealous exclusiveness which characterized most of the nations of antiquity. They were ready to receive into their midst both the foreigner and his gods. Among Assyrian and Babylonian officials we meet with many who bear foreign names, and among the gods whose statues found a place in the national temples of Assyria were Khaldis of Armenia, and the divinities of the Bedwin. The policy of deporting a conquered nation was dictated by the same readiness to admit the stranger to the rights and privileges of a home-born native. The restrictions placed upon Babylonian and Assyrian citizenship seem to have been but slight.

When Abraham was born at Ur of the Chaldees, Babylonia was governed by a dynasty of South Arabian origin whose names had to be translated into the Babylonian language. Throughout the country there were colonies of "Amorites," from Syria and Canaan, doubtless established there for the purposes of trade, who enjoyed the same rights as the native Babylonians. They could hold and bequeath land and other property, could buy and sell freely, could act as witnesses in a case where natives alone were concerned, and could claim the full protection of Babylonian law.

One of these colonies, known as "the district of the Amorites," was just outside the walls of Sippara. In the reign of Ammi-zadok, the fourth successor of Khammurabi, a dispute arose about the title to some land included within it, and the matter was tried before the four royal judges. The following record of the judgment was drawn up by the clerk of the court: "Twenty acres by thirteen of land in the district of the Amorites which was purchased by Ibni-Hadad, the merchant. Arad-Sin, the son of Edirum, has pleaded as follows before the judges: The building land, along with the house of my father, he did not buy; Ibku-Anunit and Dhab-Istar, the sons of Samas-nazir, sold (it) for money to Ibni-Hadad, the merchant. Iddatum and Mazitum, the sons of Ibni-Hadad the merchant, appeared before the judges; they lifted up (their hands) and swore that it had been put up for sale; it had been bought by Edirum and Sin-nadni-s who handed it over to Samas-nazir and Ibku-Anunit, selling it to them for money. The estate, consisting of twenty-two acres of land enclosed by thirty other acres, as well as eleven trees [and] a house, in the district of the Amorites, bounded at the upper end by the estate of ——, and at the lower end by the river Bukai (?), is contracted in width, and is of the aforesaid nature. Judgment has been given for Arad-Sin, the son of Edirum, as follows: At the entrance to Sippara the property is situated (?), and after being put up for sale was bought by Samas-nazir and Ibku-Anunit, to whom it was handed over; power of redemption is allowed (?) to Arad-Sin; the estate is there, let him take it. Before Uruki-mansum the judge, Sin-ismeani the judge, Ibku-Anunit the judge, and Ibku-ilisu the judge. The 6th day of the month Tammuz, the year when Ammi-zadok the king constructed the very great aqueduct (?) for the mountain and its fountain (?) for the house of Life."

If we may argue from the names, Arad-Sin, who brought the action, was of Babylonian descent; and in this case native Babylonians as well as foreigners could hold land in the district in which the Amorites had settled. At any rate, in the eyes of the law, the native and the foreign settler must have been upon an equal footing; they were tried before the same judges, and the law which applied to the one applied equally to the other. It is clear, moreover, that the foreigner had as much right as the native to buy, sell, or bequeath the soil of Babylonia.

Whether or not this right was restricted to particular districts, we do not know. In Syria, in later days, "streets," or rows of shops in a city, could be assigned to the members of another nationality by special treaty, as we learn from I Kings xx. 34, and at the end of the Egyptian eighteenth dynasty we hear of a quarter at Memphis being given to a colony of Hittite merchants, but such special assignments of land may not have been the custom in ancient Chaldea. The Amorites of Canaan may have been allowed to settle wherever they liked, and the origin of the title "district of the Amorites" may have simply been due to the tendency of foreign settlers to establish themselves in the same locality. The fact that Arad-Sin seems to have been a Babylonian, and that his action was brought before Babylonian judges, is in favor of the view that such was the case.

Moreover, as Mr. Pinches has pointed out, Amorites could rise to the highest offices of state. Not only could they serve as witnesses to a deed, to which all the other parties were native Babylonians, they could also hold civil and military appointments. On the one hand we find the son of Abi-ramu, or Abram, who is described as "the father of the Amorite," acting as a witness to a contract dated in the reign of the grandfather of Khammurabi, or Amraphel; on the other hand, "an Amorite" has the same title of "servant" of the King as the royal judge Ibku-Anunit, and among the Assyrians of the second empire, who were slavish imitators of Babylonian custom and law, we meet with more than one example of a foreigner in the service of the Assyrian government. Thus, in the reign of Sargon, thirteen years after the fall of Samaria, the Israelites, Pekah and Nadabiah, who appear as witnesses to the sale of some slaves, are described, the one as "the governor of the city," the other as a departmental secretary. The founder, again, of one of the leading commercial families at Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors is entitled "the Egyptian," and the clerk who draws up a contract in the first year of Cambyses is the grandson of a Jew, Bel-Yahu, "Bel is Yahveh," while his father's name, Ae-nahid, "Ae is exalted," implies that the Israelitish Yahveh had been identified with the Babylonian Ae. Hebrew and Canaanite names appear in legal and commercial documents of the age of Khammurabi and earlier by the side of names of purely native stamp; Jacob-el and Joseph-el, for instance, Abdiel and Ishmael, come before us with all the rights and privileges of Babylonian citizens. The name of Ishmael, indeed, is already met with on a marble slab from Sippara, which is as early as about 4,000 B.C. In the time of Sargon of Akkad the Babylonian "governor" of Syria and Canaan bears the Canaanitish name of Uru-Malik, or Urimelech, and under the later Assyrian empire, the "tartan" of Comagene, with the Hittite name of Mar-lara, was an eponym, who gave his name to the year.

Mr. Pinches is probably right in seeing the name "Israel" itself in that of a high-priest who lived in the district of the Amorites outside Sippara in the reign of Ammi-zadok. His name is written Sar-ilu, and it was by his order that nine acres of ground "in the district of the Amorites" were leased for a year from two nuns, who were devotees of the Sun-god, and their nieces. Six measures of grain on every ten acres were to be paid to the Sun-god at the gate of Malgia, the women themselves receiving a shekel of silver as rent, and the field was to be handed back to them at harvest-time, the end of the agricultural year. That the women in the Amorite settlements enjoyed the same freedom and powers as the women of Babylonia is shown by two documents, one dated in the reign of the second King of the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged, the other in the reign of Khammurabi's great-grandfather. In the first, Kuryatum, the daughter of an Amorite, receives a field of more than four acres of which she had been wrongfully deprived; in the second, the same Kuryatum and her brother Sumu-rah are sued by the three children of an Amorite, one of whom is a woman, for the recovery of a field, house, slaves, and date-palms. The case was brought before "the judges of Bit-Samas," "the Temple of the (Babylonian) Sun-god," who rejected the claim.

At a very early period of Babylonian history the Syrian god Hadad, or Rimmon, had been, as it were, domesticated in Babylonia, where he was known as Amurru, "the Amorite." He had come with the Amorite merchants and settlers, and was naturally their patron-deity. His wife, Asratu, or Asherah, was called, by the Sumerians, Nin-Marki, "the mistress of the Amorite land," and was identified with their own Gubarra. Nin-Marki, or Asherah, presided over the Syrian settlements, the part of the city where the foreigners resided being under her protection like the gate which led to "the district of the Amorites" beyond the walls. The following lawsuit which came before the courts in the reign of Khammurabi shows that there were special judges for cases in which Amorites were concerned and that they sat at "the gate of Nin-Marki." "Concerning the garden of Sin-magir which Nahid-Amurri bought for money. Ilu-bani claimed it for the royal stables, and accordingly they went to the judges, and the judges sent them to the gate of Nin-Marki and the judges of the gate of Nin-Marki. In the gate of Nin-Marki Ilu-bani pleaded as follows: I am the son of Sin-magir; he adopted me as his son, and the seal of the document has never been broken. He further pleaded that ever since the reign of the deified Rim-Sin (Arioch) the garden and house had been adjudged to Ilu-bani. Then came Sin-mubalidh and claimed the garden of Ilu-bani, and they went to the judges and the judges pronounced that 'to us and the elders they have been sent and in the gate of the gods Merodach, Sussa, Nannar, Khusa, and Nin-Marki, the daughter of Merodach, in the judgment-hall, the disputants (?) have stood, and the elders before whom Nahid-Amurri first appeared in the gate of Nin-Marki have heard the declaration of Ilu-bani.' Accordingly they adjudged the garden and house to Ilu-bani, forbidding Sin-mubalidh to return and claim it. Oaths have been taken in the name of the Moon-god, the Sun-god, Merodach, and Khammurabi, the king. Before Sin-imguranni the president, Edilka-Sin, Amil-izzitim, Ubarrum, Zanbil-arad-Sin, Ak-hiya, Kabdu-gumi, Samas-bani, the son of Abia-rak-has, Zanik-pisu, Izkur-Ea the steward, and Bauila. The seals of the parties are attached. The fourth day of Tammuz, the year when Khammurabi the king offered up prayer to Tasmit."

While a portion of the land was thus owned by foreigners, there was a considerable part of it which belonged to the temples. Another part consisted of royal domains, the revenue of which went to the privy purse of the King. The King could make grants of this to his favorites, or as a reward for services to the state. The Babylonian King Nebo-baladan, for example, gave one of his officials a field large enough, it was calculated, to be sown with 3 gur of seed, and Assur-bani-pal of Assyria made his vizier, Nebo-sar-uzur, the gift of a considerable estate on account of his loyalty from the time that the King was a boy. All the vizier's lands, including the serfs upon them, were declared free from taxation and every kind of burden, the men upon them were not to be impressed as soldiers, nor the cattle and flocks to be carried away. It was also ordered that Nebo-sar-uzur, on his decease, should be buried where he chose, and not in the common cemetery outside the walls of the city. Like the monarch, he might have his tomb in the royal palace or in his own house, and imprecations were called down on the head of anyone who wished to disturb his final resting-place. The deed of gift and privilege was sealed, we are told, with the King's own "signet-ring."

A grant of immunity from taxation and other burdens could be made to the inhabitants of a whole district. A deed exists, signed by a large number of witnesses, in which Nebuchadnezzar I. of Babylon (about 1200 B.C.) makes a grant of the kind to the district of Bit-Karziyabku in the mountains of Namri to the east of Babylonia. We read in it that, throughout the whole district, neither the royal messengers nor the governor of Namri shall have any jurisdiction, no horses, foals, mares, asses, oxen, or sheep shall be carried off by the tax-gatherers, no stallions shall be sent to the royal stables, and no taxes of grain and fruit shall be paid to the Babylonian treasury. Nor shall any of the inhabitants be impressed for military service. It speaks volumes for the commercial spirit of the Babylonians that a royal decree of this character should have been thrown into legal form, and that the names of witnesses should have been attached to it, just as if it had been a contract between two private persons. The contrast is striking with the decree issued by the Assyrian King, Assur-bani-pal, to his faithful servant Nebo-sar-uzur. All that was needed where the King of Assyria was concerned was his signet-seal and royal command. But Assur-bani-pal was an autocrat at the head of a military state. The Babylonian sovereign governed a commercial community and owed his authority to the priests of Bel.



CHAPTER IX. THE LAW

Babylonian law was of early growth. Among the oldest records of the country are legal cases, abstracts of which have been transcribed for future use. The first law-book, in fact, was ascribed to Ea, the god of culture, and it was told how he had enacted that the King should deal uprightly and administer justice to his people. "If he regard not justice," it was said, "Ea, the god of destiny, shall change his fortune and replace him by another.… But if he have regard to the injunction of Ea, the great gods shall establish him in wisdom and the knowledge of righteousness."

The Ea of the cuneiform text seems to be the Oannes of the Chaldean historian Berossos, who was said to have risen out of the waters of the Persian Gulf, bringing with him the elements of civilization and the code of laws which were henceforth to prevail in Babylonia. The code of Oannes has perished, but fragments of another and more historical one have been preserved to us in a reading-book which was intended to teach the Semitic pupil the ancient language of the Sumerians. The original Sumerian text is given with its Semitic equivalent, as well as a list of technical legal terms. "If a son," it is said, "denies his father, his hair shall be cut, he shall be put into chains and sold for silver. If he denies his mother, his hair also shall be cut, city and land shall collect together and put him in prison.… If the wife hates her husband and denies him, they shall throw her into the river. If the husband divorces his wife, he must pay her fifty shekels of silver. If a man hires a servant, and kills, wounds, beats, or ill-uses him or makes him ill, he must with his own hand measure out for him each day half a measure of grain."

We have already seen that the last regulation was in force up to the latest period of Babylonian history. It betrays a humane spirit in the early legislation and shows that the slave was regarded as something more than a mere chattel. It provided against his being over-worked; as soon as the slave was rendered unfit for labor by his hirer's fault, the latter was fined, and the fine was exacted as long as the slave continued ill or maimed. The law which pronounced sentence of death by drowning upon the unfaithful wife was observed as late as the age of Khammurabi. Such at least is the evidence of some curious documents, from which we learn that a certain Arad-Samas married first a daughter of Uttatu and subsequently a half-sister of his wife. In the contract of marriage it is stipulated that unfaithfulness to the husband on the part of both the wives would be punished with drowning, on the part of the second only with slavery. On the other hand he could divorce them on payment of a maneh of silver—that is to say, of 30 shekels apiece. Under Nebuchadnezzar the old power of putting the wife to death in case of adultery was still possessed by the husband, where the wife was of lower rank than himself and little better than a concubine. It was a survival of the patria potestas which had once belonged to him. The wife who came from a wealthy and respectable family, however, stood on a footing of equality with her husband, and he could not venture to put in force against her the provisions of the ancient Sumerian law.

Babylonian law resembled that of England in being founded upon precedents. The code which was supposed to have been revealed by Ea, or Oannes, belonged to the infancy of Chaldean society and contained only a rudimentary system of legislation. The actual law of the country was a complicated structure which had been slowly built up by the labors of generations. An abstract was made of every important case that came before the judges and of the decision given in regard to it; these abstracts were carefully preserved, and formed the basis of future judgments.

The judges before whom the cases were brought were appointed by the King, and acted in his place. They sat under a president, and were usually four or five in number. They had to sign their names at the end of their judgments, after which the date of the document was added. It is probable that they went on circuit like Samuel in Israel and the "royal judges" of Persia.

Where foreigners were involved the case was first tried before special judges, who probably belonged to the same nationality as the parties to the suit; if one of the latter, however, was a Babylonian it was afterward brought again before a native tribunal. Sometimes in such cases the primitive custom was retained of allowing "the elders" of the city to sit along with the judges and pronounce upon the question in dispute. They thus represented to a certain extent an English jury. Whether they appeared in cases in which Babylonians alone were engaged is doubtful. We hear of them only where one at least of the litigants is an Amorite from Canaan, and it is therefore possible that their appearance was a concession to Syrian custom. In Babylonia they had long been superseded by the judges, the royal power having been greater there from the outset than in the more democratic West, and consequently there would have been but little need for their services. If, however, the foreign settlers had been accustomed at home to have their disputes determined by a council of elders, we can understand why they were still allowed in Babylonia to plead before a similar tribunal, though it could do little more than second the decisions of the judges.

Plaintiff and defendant pleaded their own causes, which were drawn up in legal form by the clerks of the court. Witnesses were called and examined and oaths were taken in the names of the gods and of the King.

The King, it must be remembered, was in earlier times himself a god. In later days the oaths were usually dropped, and the evidence alone considered sufficient. Perhaps experience had taught the bench that perjury was not a preventable crime.

Each case was tried by a select number of judges, who were especially appointed to inquire into it, as we may gather from a document dated at Babylon the 6th day of Nisan in the seventeenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. "[These are] the judges," it runs, "before whom Sapik-zeri, the son of Zirutu, [and] Baladhu, the son of Nasikatum, the servant of the secretary of the Marshlands, have appeared in their suit regarding a house. The house and deed had been duly sealed by Zirutu, the father of Sapik-zeri, and given to Baladhu. Baladhu, however, had come to terms with Sapik-zeri and handed the house over to him and had taken the deed (from the record-office) and had given it to Sapik-zeri. Nebo-edher-napisti, the prefect of the Marshlands; Nebo-suzzizanni, the sub-prefect of the Marshlands; Merodach-erba, the mayor of Erech; Imbi-ilu, the priest of Ur, Bel-yuballidh, the son of Merodach-sum-ibni, the prefect of the western bank; Abt, the son of Suzubu, the son of Babutu; Musezib-Bel, the son of Nadin-akhi, the son of the adopted one; Baniya, the son of Abt, the priest of the temple of Sadu-rabu; and Sa-mas-ibni, the priest of Sadu-rabu." The list of judges shows that the civil governors could act as judges and that the priests were also eligible for the post. Neither the one class nor the other, however, is usually named, and we must conclude, therefore, that, though the governor of a province or the mayor of a town had a right to sit on the judicial bench, he did not often avail himself of it.

The charge was drawn up in the technical form and attested by witnesses before it was presented to the court. We have an example of this dated at Sippara, the 28th day of Adar in the eighth year of Cyrus as King of Babylon: "Nebo-akhi-bullidh, the son of Su—, the governor of Sakhrin, on the 28th of Adar, the eighth year of Cyrus, king of Babylon and of the world, has brought the following charge against Bel-yuballidh, the priest of Sippara: I have taken Nan-iddin, son of Bau-eres, into my house because I am your father's brother and the governor of the city. Why, then, have you lifted up your hand against me? Rimmon-sar-uzur, the son of Nebo-yusezib; Nargiya and Erba, his brothers; Kutkah-ilu, the son of Bau-eres; Bel-yuballidh, the son of Barachiel; Bel-akhi-uzur, the son of Rimmon-yusallim; and Iqisa-abbu, the son of Samas-sar-uzur, have committed a crime by breaking through my door, entering into my house, and leaving it again after carrying away a maneh of silver." Then come the names of five witnesses and the clerk.

A suit might be compromised by the litigants before it came into court. In the reign of Nebuchadnezzar a certain Imliya brought witnesses to the door of the house of an official called Bel-iddin, and accused Arrali, the superintendent of the works, of having stolen an overcoat and a loin-cloth belonging to himself. But it was agreed that there would be no need on the part of the plaintiff to summon witnesses; the stolen goods were returned without recourse to the law.

The care taken not to convict without sufficient evidence, and the thoroughness with which each case was investigated, is one of the most striking features in the records of the Babylonian lawsuits which have come down to us. Mention has already been made of the case of the runaway slave Barachiel, who pretended to be a free citizen and the adopted son of a Babylonian gentleman. Every effort seems to have been made to get at the truth, and some of the higher officials were associated with the judges before whom the matter was brought. Eventually cross-examination compelled Barachiel to confess the actual facts. It is noticeable that no torture was used to compel confession, even though the defendant was not a free citizen. No allusion, in fact, is ever made to torture, whether by the bastinado or otherwise; the evidence of witnesses and the results of cross-examination are alone depended upon for arriving at the truth. In this respect the legal procedure of Babylonia offers an honorable contrast to that of ancient Greece or Rome, or even of Europe down to the middle of the last century.

Two cases which were pleaded before the courts in the reign of Nabonidos illustrate the carefulness with which the evidence was examined. One of them was a case of false witness. Beli-litu, the daughter of Bel-yusezib, the wine merchant (?), "gave the following testimony before the judges of Nabonidos, king of Babylon: In the month Ab, the first year of Nergal-sharezer, king of Babylon, I sold my slave Bazuzu for thirty-five shekels of silver to Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Sula of the family of Egibi, but he now asserts that I owed him a debt and so has not paid me the money. The judges heard the charge, and caused Nebo-akhi-iddin to be summoned and to appear before them. Nebo-akhi-iddin produced the contract which he had made with Beli-litu; he proved that she had received the money, and convinced the judges. And Ziriya, Nebo-suma-lisir, and Edillu gave further testimony before the judges that Beli-litu, their mother, had received the silver." The judges deliberated and condemned Beli-litu to a fine of 55 shekels, the highest fine that could be inflicted on her, and then gave it to Nebo-akhi-iddin. It is possible that the prejudice which has always existed against the money-lender may have encouraged Beli-litu to commit her act of dishonesty and perjury. That the judges should have handed over the fine to the defendant, instead of paying it to the court or putting it into their own pockets, is somewhat remarkable in the history of law.

The second case is that of some Syrians who had settled in Babylonia and there been naturalized. The official abstract of it is as follows: "Bunanitum, the daughter of the Kharisian, brought the following complaint before the judges of Nabonidos, king of Babylon: Ben-Hadad-nathan, the son of Nikbaduh, married me and received three and one-half manehs of silver as my dowry, and I bore him a daughter. I and Ben-Hadad-nathan, my husband, traded with the money of my dowry, and we bought together a house standing on eight roods of ground, in the district on the west side of the Euphrates in the suburb of Borsippa, for nine and one-third manehs of silver, as well as an additional two and one-half manehs, which we received on loan without interest from Iddin-Merodach, the son of Iqisa-ablu, the son of Nur-Sin, and we invested it all in this house. In the fourth year of Nabonidos, king of Babylon, I claimed my dowry from my husband Ben-Hadad-nathan, and he of his own free will gave me, under deed and seal, the house in Borsippa and the eight roods on which it stood, and assigned it to me for ever, stating in the deed he gave me that the two and one-half manehs which Ben-Hadad-nathan and Bunanitum had received from Iddin-Merodach and laid out in buying this house had been their joint property. This deed he sealed and called down in it the curse of the great gods (upon whoever should violate it). In the fifth year of Nabonidos, king of Babylon, I and my husband, Ben-Hadad-nathan, adopted Ben-Hadad-amara as our son and subscribed to the deed of adoption, and at the same time we assigned two manehs ten shekels of silver and the furniture of the house as a dowry for my daughter Nubt. My husband died, and now Aqabi-ilu (Jacob-el), the son of my father-in-law, has raised a claim to the house and property which was willed and assigned to me, as well as (a claim) to Nebo-nur-ilani, whom we bought for money through the agency of Nebo-akhi-iddin.

"I have brought him before you; pass judgment. The judges heard their pleas; they read the deeds and contracts which Bunanitum produced in court, and disallowed the claim of Aqabi-ilu to the house in Borsippa, which had been assigned to Bunanitum in lieu of her dowry, as well as to Nebo-nur-ilani, whom she and her husband had bought, and to the rest of the property of Ben-Hadad-nathan; they confirmed Bunanitum and Ben-Hadad-amara in their titles. (It was further added that) Iddin-Merodach should receive in full the sum of two and one-half manehs which he had given toward the purchase of the house, and that then Bunanitum should take in full three and one-half manehs, the amount of her dowry, and that part of the property (which had not been bequeathed to Nubt). Nebo-nur-ilani was to be given to Nubt in accordance with the will of her father. The following judges were present at the delivery of this judgment: Nergal-banunu the judge, the son of the architect; Nebo-akhi-iddin the judge, the son of Egibi; Nebo-sum-ukin the judge, the son of Irani; Bel-akhi-iddin the judge, the son of ——; Nebo-balasu-iqbi the judge, the son of ——; and the clerks Nadin and Nebo-sum-iskun. Babylon, the 29th day of Elul, the ninth year of Nabonidos, king of Babylon."

The term used in reference to the loan made by Iddin-Merodach implies that the lender accepted a share in the property that was bought instead of demanding interest for his money. Hence it was that, when the estate came to be settled after the death of Ben-Hadad-nathan, it was necessary to pay him off. What the grounds were upon which Aqabi-ilu laid claim to the property we are not told, and the dossier in which it was set forth has not been found. His name, however, is interesting, as it proves that the old Western Semitic name of Jacob-el, of which the Biblical Jacob is a shortened form, still survived in a slightly changed shape among the Syrian settlers in Babylonia. Indeed, Iqubu, or Jacob itself, is found in a contract of the tenth year of Nabonidos as the name of a coppersmith at Babylon. Two thousand years before there had been other Semitic settlers in Babylonia from Western Asia who had also taken part in the legal transactions of the country, and among whom the name of Ya'qub-ilu was known. The name had even spread to the Assyrian colonists near Kaisaryeh, in Cappadocia, who have left us inscriptions in uniform characters, and among them it appears as Iqib-ilu. Iqib-ilu and Aqabi-ilu are alike kindred forms of Ya'qub-ilu (or Yaqub-ilu), the Jacob-el of Canaan.

Death, more especially with "an iron sword," was the punishment of the more serious offences; imprisonment and scourging of lighter ones. Imprisonment might be accompanied by chains or the stock, but the prisoner might also be left unfettered and be allowed to range freely through the court or cell of the prison. Whether the penalty of imprisonment with hard labor was ever inflicted is questionable; in a country where slavery existed and the corve was in force there would have been but little need for it.

The prisoner could be released on bail, his surety being responsible for his appearance when it was required. Thus in the seventh year of Cyrus one of the officials of the temple of the Sun-god at Sippara was put into "iron fetters" by the chief priest of the god, but was afterward released, bail being given for him by another official of the temple. The latter undertook to do the work of the prisoner if he absconded. The bail was offered and accepted before "the priests and elders of the city," and the registration of the fact was duly dated and attested by witnesses. At a later date a citizen of Nippur was allowed to become surety for the release of his nephew from prison on condition that the latter did not leave the city without permission. The prison is called bit-kar, or "House of Walls."(9)

There was another bit-kar, which had a very different meaning and was used for a very different purpose. This was "the House of Cereals," the storehouse or barn in which were stored such tithes of the temples as were paid in grain. The name is also sometimes applied to the sutumme, or royal storehouses, where the grain and dates collected by the tax-gatherers were deposited, and from which the army and the civil servants were provided with food. The superintendent of these storehouses was an important personage; he was the paymaster of the state officials, in so far as they received their salaries in kind, and the loyalty of the standing army could be trusted only so long as it could be fed. Similar storehouses existed in Egypt, from the age of the eighteenth dynasty downward, and it is probable that the adoption of them was due to Babylonian influence. They gave the King a powerful hold upon his subjects, by enabling him to supply them with grain in the years of scarcity, or to withhold it except upon such terms as he chose to make with them.

The exportation of the grain, moreover, was a yearly source of wealth and revenue which flowed into the royal exchequer. In Babylonia, as in Egypt, the controller of the granaries was master of the destinies of the people.



CHAPTER X. LETTER-WRITING

We are apt to look upon letter-writing as a modern invention, some of us, perhaps, as a modern plague. But as a matter of fact it is an invention almost as old as civilization itself. As soon as man began to invent characters by means of which he could communicate his thoughts to others, he began to use them for holding intercourse with his absent friends. They took the place of the oral message, which was neither so confidential nor so safe. Classical scholars have long been familiar with the fact that letter-writing was one of the accomplishments of an educated Greek and Roman. The letters of Cicero and Pliny are famous, and the letters of Plato and Aristotle have been studied by a select few. Even Homer, who seems to avoid all reference to the art of writing as if it were an unclean thing, tells us of "the baleful characters" written on folded tablets, and sent by Proetos to the King of Lycia. Criticism, it is true, not so long ago doubted the facts of the story and tried to resolve the characters and the tablets into a child's drawings on the slate. But archology has come to the rescue of Proetos, and while we now know that letters passed freely backward and forward in the world in which he is supposed to have moved, Mr. Arthur Evans has discovered the very symbols which he is likely to have used. Even the Lycians, to whom the letter was sent, have been found, not only on the Egyptian monuments, but also in the tablets of Tel-el-Amarna.

Letter-writing in the East goes back to a remote antiquity. In the book of Chronicles it is stated that the messages that passed between Hiram and Solomon were in writing, but the age of Solomon was modern when compared with that to which some of the letters we now possess actually belong. Centuries earlier the words "message" and "letter" had become synonymous terms, and in Hebrew the word which had originally signified a "message" had come to mean a "book." Not only is a message conceived of as always written, but even the idea of a book is taken from that of a letter. Nothing can show more plainly the important place occupied by literary correspondence in the ancient Oriental world or the antiquity to which the art of the letter-writer reaches back.

While in Egypt the letter was usually written upon papyrus, in Western Asia the ordinary writing material was clay. Babylonia had been the nurse and mother of its culture, and the writing material of Babylonia was clay. Originally pictorial hieroglyphics had been drawn upon the clay, but just as in Egypt the hieratic or running-hand of the scribe developed out of the primitive pictographs, so too in Babylonia the pictures degenerated into cuneiform characters which corresponded with the hieratic characters of the Egyptian script. What we call cuneiform is essentially a cursive hand.

As for books, so also for letters the clay tablet was employed. It may seem to us indeed a somewhat cumbrous mode of sending a letter; but it had the advantage of being solid and less likely to be injured or destroyed than other writing materials. The characters upon it could not be obliterated by a shower of rain, and there was no danger of its being torn. Moreover, it must be remembered that the tablet was usually of small size. The cuneiform system of writing allows a large number of words to be compressed into a small space, and the writing is generally so minute as to try the eyes of the modern decipherer.

Some of the letters which have been discovered during the last few years go back to the early days of the Babylonian monarchy. Many of them are dated in the reign of Khammurabi, or Amraphel, among them being several that were written by the King himself. That we should possess the autograph letters of a contemporary of Abraham is one of the romances of historical science, for it must be remembered that the letters are not copies, but the original documents themselves. What would not classical scholars give for the autograph originals of the letters of Cicero, or theologians for the actual manuscripts that were written by the Evangelists? And yet here we have the private correspondence of a prince who took part in the campaign against Sodom and Gomorrah!

One of the letters which has found a resting-place in the Museum of Constantinople refers to another of the actors in the campaign against the cities of the cunei-plain. This was the King of Elam, Chedor-laomer, whose name is written Kudur-Loghghamar in the form. The Elamites had invaded Babylonia and made it subject and tributary. Sin-idinnam, the King of Larsa, called Ellasar in the book of Genesis, had been compelled to fly from his ancestral kingdom in the south of Chaldea, and take refuge in Babylon at the court of Khammurabi. Eri-Aku, or Arioch, the son of an Elamite prince, was placed on the throne of Larsa, while Khammurabi also had to acknowledge himself a vassal of the Elamite King. But a time came when Khammurabi believed himself strong enough to shake off the Elamite yoke, and though the war at first seemed to go against him, he ultimately succeeded in making himself independent. Arioch and his Elamite allies were driven from Larsa, and Babylon became the capital of a united monarchy. It was after the overthrow of the Elamites that the letter was written in which mention is made of Chedor-laomer. Its discoverer, Pre Scheil, gives the following translation of it: "To Sin-idinnam, Khammurabi says: I send you as a present (the images of) the goddesses of the land of Emutalum as a reward for your valor on the day of (the defeat of) Chedor-laomer. If (the enemy) annoy you, destroy their forces with the troops at your disposal, and let the images be restored in safety to their old habitations."(10)

The letter was found at Senkereh, the ancient Larsa, where, doubtless, it had been treasured in the archive-chamber of the palace. Two other letters of Khammurabi, which are now at Constantinople, have also been translated by Dr. Scheil. One of them is as follows: "To Sin-idinnam, Khammurabi says: When you have seen this letter you will understand in regard to Amil-Samas and Nur-Nintu, the sons of Gis-dubba, that if they are in Larsa, or in the territory of Larsa, you will order them to be sent away, and that one of your servants, on whom you can depend, shall take them and bring them to Babylon." The second letter relates to some officials about whom, it would seem, the King of Larsa had complained to his suzerain lord: "To Sin-idinnam, Khammurabi says: As to the officials who have resisted you in the accomplishment of their work, do not impose upon them any additional task, but oblige them to do what they ought to have performed, and then remove them from the influence of him who has brought them."

Long before the age of Khammurabi a royal post had been established in Babylon for the conveyance of letters. Fragments of clay had been found at Tello, bearing the impressions of seals belonging to the officials of Sargon of Akkad and his successor, and addressed to the viceroy of Lagas, to King Naram-Sin and other personages. They were, in fact, the envelopes of letters and despatches which passed between Lagas and Agad, or Akkad, the capital of the dynasty.

Sometimes, however, the clay fragment has the form of a ball, and must then have been attached by a string to the missive like the seals of medival deeds. In either case the seal of the functionary from whom the missive came was imprinted upon it as well as the address of the person for whom it was intended. Thousands of letters seem to have passed to and fro in this manner, making it clear that the postal service of Babylonia was already well organized in the time of Sargon and Naram-Sin. The Tel-el-Amarna letters show that in the fifteenth century before our era a similar postal service was established throughout the Eastern world, from the banks of the Euphrates to those of the Nile. To what an antiquity it reached back it is at present impossible to say.

At all events, when Khammurabi was King, letters were frequent and common among the educated classes of the population. Most of those which have been preserved are from private individuals to one another, and consequently, though they tell us nothing about the political events of the time, they illustrate the social life of the period and prove how like it was to our own. One of them, for instance, describes the writer's journey to Elam and Arrapakhitis, while another relates to a ferry-boat and the boat-house in which it was kept. The boat-house, we are told, had fallen into decay in the reign of Khammurabi, and was sadly in want of repair, while the chief duty of the writer, who seems to have been the captain of the boat, was to convey the merchants who brought various commodities to Babylon. If the merchant, the letter states, was furnished with a royal passport, "we carried him across" the river; if he had no passport, he was not allowed to go to Babylon. Among other purposes for which the vessel had been used was the conveyance of lead, and it was capable of taking as much as 10 talents of the metal. We further gather from the letter that it was the custom to employ Bedwin as messengers.

Among the early Babylonian documents found at Sippara, and now in the Museum at Constantinople, which have been published by Dr. Scheil, are two private letters of the same age and similar character. The first is as follows: "To my father, thus says Zimri-eram: May the Sun-god and Merodach grant thee everlasting life! May your health be good! I write to ask you how you are; send me back news of your health. I am at present at Dur-Sin on the canal of Bit-Sikir. In the place where I am living there is nothing to be had for food. So I am sealing up and sending you three-quarters of a silver shekel. In return for the money, send some good fish and other provisions for me to eat." The second letter was despatched from Babylon, and runs thus: "To the lady Kasbeya thus says Gimil-Merodach: May the Sun-god and Merodach for my sake grant thee everlasting life! I am writing to enquire after your health; please send me news of it. I am living at Babylon, but have not seen you, which troubles me greatly. Send me news of your coming to me, so that I may be happy. Come in the month of Marchesvan (October). May you live for ever for my sake!"

It is plain that the writer was in love with his correspondent, and had grown impatient to see her again. Both belonged to what we should call the professional classes, and nothing can better illustrate how like in the matter of correspondence the age of Abraham was to our own. The old Babylonian's letter might easily have been written to-day, apart from the references to Merodach and the Sun-god. It must be noticed, moreover, that the lady to whom the letter is addressed is expected to reply to it. It is taken for granted that the ladies of Babylon could read and write as well as the men. This, however, is only what might have been concluded from the other facts of Babylonian social life, and the footing of equality with the man upon which the woman was placed in all matters of business. The fact that she could hold and bequeath property, and trade with it independently, implies that she was expected to know how to read and write. Even among the Tel-el-Amarna we find one or two from a lady who seems to have taken an active part in the politics of the day. "To the king my lord," she writes in one of them, "my gods, my Sun-god, thus says Nin, thy handmaid, the dust of thy feet. At the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself. Let the king my lord wrest his country from the hand of the Bedwin, in order that they may not rob it. The city of Zaphon has been captured. This is for the information of the king my lord."

The letters of Tel-el-Amarna bridge over the gulf that separates the early Babylonia of Khammurabi from the later Assyria of Tiglath-pileser III. and his successors. The inner life of the intervening period is still known to us but imperfectly. No library or large collection of tablets belonging to it has as yet been discovered, and until this is the case we must remain less intimately acquainted with it than we are with the age of Khammurabi on the one hand, or that of the second Assyrian empire on the other.

It is true that the library of Nineveh, of which Assur-bani-pal was such a munificent patron, has preserved copies of some of the earlier epistolary literature of the country. Thus we have from it a fragment of a letter written by a King of Babylonia to two kings of Assyria, at a time when Assyria still acknowledged the supremacy of Babylon. But such documents are very rare, and apart from the Tel-el-Amarna tablets we have to descend to the days of the second Assyrian empire before we find again a collection of letters.

These are the letters addressed to the Assyrian government, or more generally to the King, in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III., Shalmaneser IV., Sargon, Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and Assur-bani-pal. They were preserved in the royal library of Nineveh, principally on account of their political and diplomatic importance, and are now in the British Museum. As might have been expected from their character, they throw more light on the politics of the day than on the social condition of the people. A few of them, however, are private communications to the King on other than political matters, and we also find among them reports in the form of letters from the royal astronomers, as well as upon such subjects as the importation of horses from Asia Minor for the royal stud. The letters have been copied by Professor R. F. Harper, who is now publishing them in a series of volumes. How numerous the letters are may be gathered from the fact that no less than 1,575 of them (including fragments) have come from that part of the library alone which was excavated by Sir A. H. Layard, and was the first to be brought to England.

Many of them are despatches from generals in the field or from the governors of frontier towns who write to inform the Assyrian government of the movements of the enemy or of the political events in their own neighborhood. It is from these letters, for example, that we learn the name of the King of Ararat who was the antagonist of Sennacherib and the predecessor of the King Erimenas, to whom his murderers fled for protection. The details, again, of the long Elamite war, which eventually laid Susa at the feet of Assyria, have been given us by them. It is needless, therefore, to insist upon the value they possess for the historian.

Among them, however, as has been already said, are some of a more private character. Here, for instance, is one which reminds us that human nature is much the same in all ages of the world: "To the king my lord, thy servant, Saul-miti-yuballidh: Salutation to the king my lord; may Nebo and Merodach for ever and ever be gracious to the king my lord. Bau-gamilat, the handmaid of the king, is constantly ill; she cannot eat a morsel of food; let the king send orders that some physician may go and see her." In another letter the writer expresses his gratitude to the King for his kindness in sending him his own doctor, who had cured him of a serious disease. "May Istar of Erech," he says, "and Nana (of Bit-Ana) grant long life to the king my lord, for he sent Basa the physician of the king my lord to save my life and he has cured me; therefore may the great gods of heaven and earth be gracious to the king my lord, and may they establish the throne of the king my lord in heaven for ever; since I was dead, and the king has restored me to life." In fact there are a good many letters which relate to medical matters. Thus Dr. Johnston gives the following translation of a letter from a certain Arad-Nana, who seems to have been a consulting physician, to Esar-haddon about a friend of the prince who had suffered from violent bleeding of the nose: "As regards the patient who has a bleeding from the nose, the Rab-Mag (or chief physician) reports: 'Yesterday, toward evening, there was a good deal of hmorrhage.' The dressings have not been properly applied. They have been placed outside the nostrils, oppressing the breathing and coming off when there is hmorrhage. Let them be put inside the nostrils and then the air will be excluded and the hmorrhage stopped. If it is agreeable to my lord the king I will go to-morrow and give instructions; (meanwhile) let me know how the patient is." Another letter from Arad-Nana translated by the same Assyriologist is as follows: "To the king my lord, thy servant Arad-Nana: May there be peace for ever and ever to the king my lord. May Ninip and Gula grant health of soul and body to the king my lord. All is going on well with the poor fellow whose eyes are diseased. I had applied a dressing covering the face. Yesterday, toward evening, undoing the bandage which held it (in place), I removed the dressing. There was pus upon the dressing, the size of the tip of the little finger. If any of your gods set his hand thereto, let him say so. Salutation for ever! Let the heart of the king my lord be rejoiced. Within seven or eight days the patient will recover."

The doctors were not alone in writing to the Assyrian King. Besides the reports which they were bound to make, the astronomers also sent letters to him on the results of their observations. Among the letters published by Professor Harper is an interesting one—unfortunately defaced and imperfect—which was sent to Nineveh from one of the observatories in Babylonia. After the ordinary compliments the writer, Abil-Istar, says: "As for the eclipse of the moon about which the king my lord has written to me, a watch was kept for it in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, and Nippur. We observed it ourselves in the city of Akkad." Abil-Istar then goes on to describe the progress of the eclipse, but the lines are so broken as to be untranslatable, and when the text becomes perfect again we find him saying that he had written an exact report of the whole occurrence and sent it in a letter to the King. "And whereas the king my lord ordered me to observe also the eclipse of the sun, I watched to see whether it took place or not, and what passed before my eyes I now report to the king my lord. It was an eclipse of the moon that took place.… It was total over Syria and the shadow fell on the land of the Amorites, the land of the Hittites, and in part on the land of the Chaldees." We gather from this letter that there were no less than three observatories in Northern Babylonia: one at Akkad, near Sippara; one at Nippur, now Niffer; and one at Borsippa, within sight of Babylon. As Borsippa possessed a university, it was natural that one of the three observatories should be established there.

As nothing is said about the eclipse of the sun which the astronomers at the Assyrian court had led the King to expect, it is probable that it did not take place, or at all events that it did not occur so soon as was anticipated. The expression "the land of the Amorites (and) the land of the Hittites" is noteworthy on account of its biblical ring; in the mind of the Assyrian, however, it merely denoted Palestine and Northern Syria. The Babylonians at an early age called Palestine "the land of the Amorites," the Assyrians termed it "the land of the Hittites," and it would appear that in the days of the second Assyrian empire, when Babylonia had become a province of its Assyrian rival, the two names were combined together in order to denote what we should entitle "Syria."

Letters, however, were written to the King by all sorts of people, and upon all sorts of business. Thus we find Assur-bani, the captain of a river-barge, writing about the conveyance of some of those figures of colossal bulls which adorned the entrance to the palace of Sennacherib. The letter is short and to the point: "To the king my lord, thy servant Assur-bani: Salutation to the king my lord. Assur-mukin has ordered me to transport in boats the colossal bulls and cherubim of stone. The boats are not strong enough, and are not ready. But if a present be kindly made to us, we will see that they are got ready and ascend the river." The unblushing way in which bakshish is here demanded shows that in this respect, at all events, the East has changed but little.

Of quite a different character is a letter about some wine that was sent to the royal cellars. The writer says in it: "As for the wine about which the king my lord has written to me, there are two homers of it for keeping, as well as plenty of the best oil." Later on, in the same letter, reference is made to a targu-manu, or "dragoman," who was sent along with the wine, which probably came from the Armenian highlands. It may be noted that in another letter mention is made of a "master of languages," who was employed in deciphering the despatches from Ararat.

A letter from the cellarers of the palace has been translated as follows by Dr. Johnston: "To the king our lord, thy servants … Bel-iqisa and Babi-l: Salutation to the king our lord! May Assur, … Bel, and Nebo grant long life and everlasting years to the king our lord! Let the king our lord know that the wine received during the month Tebet has been bottled, but that there is no room for it, so we must make (new) cellars for the king our lord. Let the king our lord give orders that a (place for) the cellars be shown to us, and we shall be relieved from our embarrassment (?). The wine that has come for the king our lord is very considerable. Where shall we put it?"

A good deal of the correspondence relates to the importation of horses from Eastern Asia Minor for the stables of the Assyrian King. The following is a specimen of what they are like: "To the king my lord, thy servant Nebo-sum-iddin: Salutation to the king my lord; for ever and ever may Nebo and Merodach be gracious to the king my lord. Thirteen horses from the land of Kusa, 3 foals from the land of Kusa—in all 16 draught-horses; 14 stallions; altogether 30 horses and 9 mules—in all 39 from the city of Qorn: 6 horses from the land of Kusa; 3 foals from Kusa—in all 9 draught-horses; 14 stallions; altogether 23 horses and 9 mules—in all 28 from the city of Dna (Tyana): 19 horses of Kusa and 39 stallions—altogether 57 from the city of Kullania (Calneh); 25 stallions and 6 mules—in all 31 from the city of Arpad. All are gelded. Thirteen stallions and 10 mules—altogether 23 from the city of Isana. In all 54 horses from Kusa and 104 stallions, making 148 horses and 30 mules—altogether 177 have been imported. (Dated) the second day of Sivan."

The land of Kusa is elsewhere associated with the land of Mesa, which must also have lain to the north-west of Syria among the valleys of the Taurus. Kullania, which is mentioned as a city of Kusa, is the Calneh of the Old Testament, which Isaiah couples with Carchemish, and of which Amos says that it lay on the road to Hamath. The whole of this country, including the plains of Cilicia, has always been famous for horse-breeding, and one of the letters to the Assyrian King specially mentions Melid, the modern Malatiyeh, as exporting them to Nineveh.

Here the writer, after stating that he had "inscribed in a register the number of horses" that had just arrived from Arrapakhitis, goes on to say: "What are the orders of the king about the horses which have arrived this very day before the king? Shall they be stabled in the garden-palace, or shall they be put out to grass? Let the king my lord send word whether they shall be put out to grass or whether they are to be stabled?"

As is natural, several of the letters are upon religious matters. Among those which have been translated by Dr. Johnston there is one which throws light on the religious processions which were held in honor of the gods. "To the son of the king my lord, thy servant Nebo-sum-iddina: salutation to the son of the king my lord for ever and ever! May Nebo and Merodach be gracious unto the son of the king my lord! On the third day of the month Iyyar the city of Calah will consecrate the couch of Nebo, and the god will enter the bed-chamber. On the fourth day Nebo will return. The son of the king my lord has (now) received the news. I am the governor of the temple of Nebo thy god, and will (therefore) go. At Calah the God will come forth from the interior of the palace, (and) from the interior of the palace will go to the grove. A sacrifice will be offered. The charioteer of the gods will go from the stable of the gods, will take the god out of it, will carry him in procession and bring him back. This is the course of the procession. Of the vase-bearers, whoever has a sacrifice to make will offer it. Whoever offers up one qa of his food may enter the temple of Nebo. May the offerers fully accomplish the ordinances of the gods, to the life and health of the son of the king my lord. What (commands) has the son of the king my lord to send me? May Bel and Nebo, who granted help in the month Sebat, protect the life of the son of the king my lord, and cause thy sovereignty to continue to the end of time!"

There is another letter in which, if Dr. Johnston's rendering is correct, reference is made to the inscriptions that were written on the walls of the temples like the texts which the book of Deuteronomy orders to be inscribed on the door-posts and gates (Deut. vi. 9, and xi. 20). "To the king my lord, thy servant Istar-Turi: salutation to the king my lord! I am sending Nebo-sum-iddina and Nebo-erba, the physicians of whom I spoke to the king, [with] my messenger to the presence of the king my lord. Let them be admitted to the presence of the king my lord; let the king my lord converse with them. I have not disclosed to them the real facts, and tell them nothing. As the king my lord commands, so is it done. Samas-bel-utsur sends word from the city of Der that 'there are no inscriptions which we can place on the walls of the Beth-el.' I send accordingly to the king my lord in order that an inscription may be written and despatched, (and) that the rest may be soon written and placed on the walls of the Beth-el. There has been a great deal of rain, (but) the harvest is gathered. May the heart of the king my lord rejoice!"

While the letters which have been found on the site of Nineveh come from the royal archives and are therefore with few exceptions addressed to the King, those which have been discovered in Babylonia have more usually been sent by one private individual to another. They represent for the most part the private correspondence of the country, and prove how widely education must have been diffused there. Most of them, moreover, belong to the age of Khammurabi or that of the kings of Ur who preceded the dynasty to which he belonged, and thus cast an unexpected light on the life of the Babylonian community in the times of Abraham. Here, for example, is one that was written by a tenant to his landlord: "To my lord says Ibgatum, your servant. As, my lord, you have heard, an enemy has carried away my oxen. Though I never before wrote to you, my lord, now I send this letter (literally tablet). O my lord, send me a cow! I will lie up five shekels of silver and send them to my lord, even to you. O my lord, by the command of Merodach you determine whatever place you prefer (to be in); no one can hinder you, my lord. O my lord, as I will send you by night the five shekels of silver which I am tying up, so do you put them away at night. O my lord, grant my request and do glorify my head, and in the sight of my brethren my head shall not be humbled. As to what I send you, O my lord, my lord will not be angry (?). I am your servant; your wishes, O my lord, I have performed superabundantly; therefore entrust me with the cow which you, my lord, shall send, and in the town of Uru-Batsu your name, O my lord, shall be celebrated for ever. If you, my lord, will grant me this favor, send [the cow] with Ili-ikisam my brother, and let it come, and I will work diligently at the business of my lord, if he will send the cow. I am tying up the five shekels of silver and am sending them in all haste to you, my lord."

Ibgatum was evidently the lessee of a farm, and he does his best to get a cow out of his landlord in order to make up for the loss of his oxen. The 5 shekels probably represented the rent due to the landlord, and his promptitude in sending them was one of the arguments he used to get the cow. The word rendered "tie up" means literally "to yoke," so that the shekels would appear to have been in the form of rings rather than bars of metal.

A letter in the collection of Sir Henry Peck, which has been translated by Mr. Pinches, is addressed to the landlord by his agent or factor, whose duty it was to look after his country estates. It runs as follows: "Letter from Daian-bel-ussur to Sirku my lord. I pray to-day to Bel and Nebo for the preservation of the life of my lord. As regards the oxen which my lord has sent, Bel and Nebo know that there is an ox [among them] for them from thee. I have made the irrigation-channel and wall. I have seen thy servant with the sheep, and thy servant with the oxen; order also that an ox may be brought up thence [as an offering?] unto Nebo, for I have not purchased a single ox for money. I saw fifty-six of them on the 20th day, when I offered sacrifice to Samas. I have caused twenty head to be sent from his hands to my lord. As for the garlic, which my lord bought from the governor, the owner of the field took possession of it when [the sellers] had gone away, and the governor of the district sold it for silver; so the plantations also I am guarding there [?], and my lord has asked: Why hast thou not sent my messenger and [why] hast thou measured the ground? about this also I send thee word. Let a messenger take and deliver [?] thy message."

Another letter of the same age is interesting as showing that the name of the national God of Israel, Yahum or Yahveh, was known in Babylonia at a much earlier date than has hitherto been suspected: "To Igas-Nin-sagh thus says Yahum-ilu: As thou knowest, Ad-ilu has obtained for me the money … for the maid-servant Khisam-ezib. Mida [?] the merchant has settled the price with me [?]. Now let the notary of Babylon send Arad-Istar in …, the three shekels of silver which you have in hand and the two shekels which you have put out at interest, and I will straightway bring the money [and] Arad-Istar. Do not hinder Arad-Istar and I will straightway bring him to the government."

Yahum-ilu is the Joel of the Old Testament, with the final m which distinguished the languages of early Babylonia and Southern Arabia, and the name probably belonged to one of those "Amorites" or natives of Syria and Palestine who were settled in Babylonia. Yahum-ilu, however, might also have been a native of Southern Arabia. The important fact is the occurrence of the name at so early a date.

That the clay tablet should ever have been used for epistolary purposes seems strange to us who are accustomed to paper and envelopes. But it occupied no more space than many modern official letters, and was lighter to carry than most of the packages that pass through the parcel-post. Now and then it was enveloped in an outer covering of clay, on which the address and the chief contents of it were noted; but the public were usually prevented from knowing what it contained in another way. Before it was handed over to the messenger or postman it was "sealed," which generally appears to mean that it was deposited in some receptacle, perhaps of leather or linen, which was then tied up and sealed. In fact, Babylonian and Assyrian letters were treated much as ours are when they are put into a post-bag to which the seals of the post-office are attached. There were excellent roads all over Western Asia, with post-stations at intervals where relays of horses could be procured. Along these all letters to or from the King and the government were carried by royal messengers. It is probable that the letters of private individuals were also carried by the same hands.

The letters of Tel-el-Amarna give us some idea of the wide extension of the postal system and the ease with which letters were constantly being conveyed from one part of the East to another. The foreign correspondence of the Pharaoh was carried on with Babylonia and Assyria in the east, Mesopotamia and Cappadocia in the north, and Palestine and Syria in the west. The civilized and Oriental world was thus bound together by a network of postal routes over which literary intercourse was perpetually passing. They extended from the Euphrates to the Nile and from the plateau of Asia Minor to the confines of Arabia. These routes followed the old lines of war and trade along which armies had marched and merchants had travelled for unnumbered generations.

The Tel-el-Amarna tablets show us that letter-writing was not confined to Assyria and Babylonia on the one hand, or to Egypt on the other. Wherever the ancient culture of Babylonia had spread, there had gone with it not only the cuneiform characters and the use of clay as a writing material, but the art of letter-writing as well. The Canaanite corresponded with his friends and neighbors quite as much as the Babylonian, and his correspondence was conducted in the same language and script. Hiram of Tyre, in sending letters to Solomon, did but carry on the traditions of a distant past. Long before the Israelites entered Palestine both a foreign and an inland postal service had been established there while it was still under Babylonian rule. The art of reading and writing must have been widely spread, and, when it is remembered that for the larger number of the Tel-el-Amarna writers the language and system of writing which they used were of foreign origin, it may be concluded that the education given at the time was of no despicable character.

The same conclusion may be drawn from another fact. The spelling of the Babylonian and Assyrian letters is in general extraordinarily correct. We meet, of course, with numerous colloquialisms which do not occur in the literary texts, and now and then with provincial expressions, but it is seldom that a word is incorrectly written. Even in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, where all kinds of local pronunciation are reproduced, the orthography is usually faultless, in spite of the phonetic spelling. All this shows how carefully the writers must have been instructed at school. The correctness of the spelling in the Assyrian letters is really marvellous, especially when we consider all the difficulties of the cuneiform script, and what a tax it must have been to the memory to remember the multitudinous characters of the syllabary with their still more multitudinous phonetic and ideographic values. It gives us a high idea of the perfection to which the teachers' art had already been brought.

In Assyria, however, the writers usually belonged to the special class of scribes who employed the same conventional hand and devoted their lives to the acquisition of learning. It is probable that they acted as private secretaries as well as public clerks, and that consequently many of the letters which purport to come from other members of the community were really written by the professional scribes. But in Babylonia it is difficult to find any traces of the public or private letter-writer who is still so conspicuous a figure in the East. It is seldom if ever that the Babylonian, whoever he may be, betrays any ignorance of the art of reading and writing, and the endless variety of handwritings and the execrable character of many of them indicate pretty plainly that the aid of the professional letter-writer was rarely invoked. In a commercial community like that of Babylonia an ability to write was of necessity a matter of primary importance.



CHAPTER XI. RELIGION

As in other countries, so too in Babylonia, the official and the popular religion were not in all respects the same. In the popular faith older superstitions and beliefs still lingered which had disappeared from the religion of the state or appeared in it in another form. The place of the priest was in large measure taken by the sorcerer and the magician, the ceremonies of the public cult were superseded by charms and incantations, and the deities of the official creed were overshadowed by a crowd of subordinate spirits whose very existence was hardly recognized among the more cultured classes. The Babylonian was inordinately superstitious, and superstition naturally flourished most where education was least.

The official creed itself was an artificial amalgamation of two different currents of belief. The Babylonian race was mixed; Sumerian and Semite had gone to form it in days before history began. Its religion, therefore, was equally mixed; the religious conceptions of the Sumerian and the Semite differed widely, and it was the absorption of the Sumerian element by the Semitic which created the religion of later days. It is Semitic in its general character, but in its general character alone. In details it resembles the religions of the other Semitic nations of Western Asia only in so far as they have been influenced by it.

The Sumerian had no conception of what we mean by a god. The supernatural powers he worshipped or feared were spirits of a material nature. Every object had its zi, or "spirit," which accompanied it like a shadow, but unlike a shadow could act independently of the object to which it belonged. The forces and phenomena of nature were themselves "spirits;" the lightning which struck the temple, or the heat which parched up the vegetation of spring, were as much "spirits" as the zi, or "spirit," which enabled the arrow to reach its mark and to slay its victim. When contact with the Semites had introduced the idea of a god among the Sumerians, it was still under the form of a spirit that their powers and attributes were conceived. The Sumerian who had been unaffected by Semitic teaching spoke of the "spirit of heaven" rather than of the god or goddess of the sky, of the "spirit of Ea" rather than of Ea himself, the god of the deep. Man, too, had a zi, or "spirit," attached to him; it was the life which gave him movement and feeling, the principle of vitality which constituted his individual existence. In fact, it was the display of vital energy in man and the lower animals from which the whole conception of the zi was derived. The force which enables the animate being to breathe and act, to move and feel, was extended to inanimate objects as well; if the sun and stars moved through the heavens, or the arrow flew through the air, it was from the same cause as that which enabled the man to walk or the bird to fly.

The zi of the Sumerians was thus a counterpart of the ka, or "double," of Egyptian belief. The description given by Egyptian students of the ka would apply equally to the zi of Sumerian belief. They both belong to the same level of religious thought; indeed, so closely do they resemble one another that the question arises whether the Egyptian belief was not derived from that of ancient Sumer.

Wholly different was the idea which underlay the Semitic conception of a spiritual world. He believed in a god in whose image man had been made. It was a god whose attributes were human, but intensified in power and action. The human family on earth had its counterpart in the divine family in heaven. By the side of the god stood the goddess, a colorless reflection of the god, like the woman by the side of the man. The divine pair were accompanied by a son, the heir to his father's power and his representative and interpreter. As man stood at the head of created things in this world, so, too, the god stood at the head of all creation. He had called all things into existence, and could destroy them if he chose.

The Semite addressed his god as Baal or Bel, "the lord." It was the same title as that which was given to the head of the family, by the wife to the husband, by the servant to his master. There were as many Baalim or Baals as there were groups of worshippers. Each family, each clan, and each tribe had its own Baal, and when families and clans developed into cities and states the Baalim developed along with them. The visible form of Baal was the Sun; the Sun was lord of heaven and therewith of the earth also and all that was upon it. But the Sun presented itself under two aspects. On the one side it was the source of light and life, ripening the grain and bringing the herb into blossom; on the other hand it parched all living things with the fierce heats of summer and destroyed what it had brought into being. Baal, the Sun-god, was thus at once beneficent and malevolent; at times he looked favorably upon his adorers, at other times he was full of anger and sent plague and misfortune upon them. But under both aspects he was essentially a god of nature, and the rites with which he was worshipped accordingly were sensuous and even sensual.

Such were the two utterly dissimilar conceptions of the divine out of the union of which the official religion of Babylonia was formed. The popular religion of the country also grew out of them though in a more unconscious way. The Semite gave the Sumerian his gods with their priests and temples and ceremonies. The Sumerian gave in return his belief in a multitude of spirits, his charms and necromancy, his sorcerers and their sacred books.

Unlike the gods of the Semites, the "spirits" of the Sumerian were not moved by human passions. They had, in fact, no moral nature. Like the objects and forces they represented, they surrounded mankind, upon whom they would inflict injury or confer benefits. But the injuries were more frequent than the benefits; the sum of suffering and evil exceeds that of happiness in this world, more especially in a primitive condition of society. Hence the "spirits" were feared as demons rather than worshipped as powers of good, and instead of a priest a sorcerer was needed who knew the charms and incantations which could avert their malevolence or compel them to be serviceable to men. Sumerian religion, in fact, was Shamanistic, like that of some Siberian tribes to-day, and its ministers were Shamans or medicine-men skilled in witchcraft and sorcery whose spells were potent to parry the attacks of the demon and drive him from the body of his victim, or to call him down in vengeance on the person of their enemy.

Shamanism, however, pure and simple, is incompatible with an advanced state of culture, and as time went on the Shamanistic faith of the Sumerians tended toward a rudimentary form of polytheism. Out of the multitude of spirits there were two or three who assumed a more commanding position than the rest. The spirit of the sky, the spirit of the water, and more especially the spirit of the underground world, where the ghosts of the dead and the demons of night congregated together, took precedence of the rest. Already, before contact with the Semites, they began to assume the attributes of gods. Temples were raised in their honor, and where there were temples there were also priests.