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Each bound in clothette, is. net First and Last Things. By H. G. Wells. Education. By Herbert Spencer. The Riddle of the Universe. By Ernst Haeckel. Humanity’s Gain from Unbelief. By Charles Bradlaugh. On Liberty. By John Stuart Mill. A Short History of the World. By H, G. Wells. Autobiography of Charles Darwin. The Origin of Species. By Charles Darwin. (6th Copyright edition.) Twelve Tears in a Monastery. By Joseph McCabe. History of Modern Philosophy. By A. W. Benn. Gibbon on Christianity. Being Chapters XV and XVI of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With Introduction by the Rt. Hon. J. M. Robertson. The Descent of Man. Part I and the concluding Chapter of Part III. By Charles Darwin. History of Civilization in England. By H. T. Buckle. Vol. I. Anthropology. An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization. By Sir Edward B. Tylor. Vols. I and II. Iphigenia. Two plays by Euripides. English version by C. B. Bonner, M.A. (Trinity College, Cambridge). 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Howard Moore. The Outcast. By Winwood Reade. The Revolt of the Qagels. By Anatole France. Penalties Upon Opinion ; or Some Records of the Laws of Heresy and Blasphemy. Brought together by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner. Oath, Curse, and Blessing. By E. Crawley. Fireside Science. By Sir E. Ray Lankester. Prepared and annotated by Surgeon Rear-Admiral Beadnell. History of Anthropology. By A. C. Haddon. The Thinker’s Library, No. 43. THE WORLD’S EARLIEST LAWS WATTS & CO., 5 & 6 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C * First published in the Thinker’s Library, x 934 CENTRAL arc, AKOvOGir*; , library, Ntw 33foV – tl. i i’f ‘ «*# *»™ — ^M9 • fry-; Printed and Published in Great Britain by C. A. Watts and Co. Limited, 5 & 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.4 PREFACE Nearly thirty years have passed since the first edition of this book. In the interval much has been done towards the better understanding of the great lawcode of King Hammurabi, and fresh information has been collected regarding the life and surroundings of that celebrated monarch. As a consequence, it has been necessary to re-write the entire book in order to place the reader in possession of the latest knowledge on the subject. The notes on the Code have been expanded into a score of essays of varying length, which, it is hoped, will set the legal provisions in a clearer light and give a more accurate idea of the state of civilization in Babylonia, particular attention being paid to the metrology of the period and the current prices of the day, because such details will appeal more forcibly to the general public. Chronology is an essential part of history, and the recovery of the complete lists of the three contemporary dynasties has given hs a firm insight into the political conditions of ancient Mesopotamia up to the unifica- tion of the country by King Hammurabi. Two important and startling discoveries have been made by American scholarship during the last few years. The monument unearthed at Susa in 1902 had had part of its inscription obliterated. A large amount of this missing matter has now been restored. VI PREFACE Of still greater moment is the decipherment and publication of a portion of an earlier Sumerian Code of Laws. Dr. Stephen Langdon will be the first to admit that his latest improved translation is a provisional one, so that we need not insist upon the exact text ; but it is sufficient to prove King Hammurabi’s indebtedness to his Sumerian predecessors. As a result of these additions to our knowledge the present work is able to present a much more complete version of the Babylonian law-code than has yet appeared as well as an account of the antecedent Sumerian legislation. Professor Schell’s publication of the Code of Hammurabi in 1902 immediately challenged comparison with the Mosaic Law, and three main theories were formulated : (1) that the Laws of Moses were entirely independent of those of Hammurabi ; (2) that both systems had been derived independently from a presumed body of primitive Semitic custom; and (3) that the Laws of Moses were in direct descent from those of Babylonia. The first theory has had few supporters, for it is obviously untenable, the resemblances between the Chaldean and the Hebrew” legislation being far too great. The second theory is now overthrown by the discovery of the Sumerian law-code. We can no longer postulate any imaginary body of Semitic custom, for, even wdth our present imperfect knowledge, it is clear that Hammurabi’s legislation was PREFACE vii founded upon that of the Sumerians. Consequently, any likeness between the Hebrew and the Babylonian systems must be due to their dependence upon a common Sumerian original; and the only way in which the Hebrews could have derived anything from the Sumerians was through the great Code of Hammurabi. Thus the third view may be considered to have been fully demonstrated and established. ‘ C. E. m: CONTENTS Preface . . . CHAP. I. The Discovery of the Code II. Hammurabi and His Reign . . III. The Text of the Inscription . . IV. Notes on the Code . V. The Laws of Moses appendices A. Babylonian Weights, Measures, and Values . B. Abraham and Amraphel . C. Dynastic Lists . . D. Earlier Sumerian Law Codes . Index to Code General Index PAGEV I4 1357 114 134 136 140 142 148 151 Chapter I THE DISCOVERY OF THE CODE In 1897 the French Ministry of Public Instruction and Fine Arts decided to open excavations at Susa, in Persia, the site of a famous ancient city. These excavations yielded much information regarding the early history of the Persians and their predecessors, the Elamites ; but the most notable discovery of all had nothing to do with either of those peoples; it was a monument containing the Code of Laws which regulated the lives and conduct of the Ancient Babylonians. Towards the end of December, 1901, the diggers came upon a large fragment of black diorite, A few days later two other pieces were unearthed ; and when they were all fitted together they proved to belong to the same monument, a pillar in the shape of an elon- gated sugar-loaf, inscribed on back and front with columns of Babylonian writing. Professor V. Scheil, the veteran Assyriologist, immediately set to work to decipher it, and found it to be a proclamation of the Babylonian king, Hammurabi, who reigned from 2123 to 2080 B.c., and who had published a Code of Laws in this permanent form. The pillar had originally been erected in the temple at Sippara (now Abu-Hubba, near Bagdad), where it remained the chief ornament for a thousand years, until, about A 2 2 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CODE 1176 b.c., an Elamite monarch, named ShutrukNahunte, over-ran Babylonia, sacked Sippara, and removed the monument to Susa, a distance of two hundred miles, as a tangible memorial of his conquests. Realizing the importance of the discovery, the French Government had the whole of the text published in heliogravure in a magnificent quarto, entitled Textes Elamites-Semitiques, being tome iv of the Memoires de la Delegation en Perse (Paris, 1902). The pillar is now in the Louvre at Paris, and a very fine reproduction is exhibited in London, at the British Museum. The monument stands 7 ft. 4 in. high, and is 2 ft. in diameter. The hard stone of which it is composed has preserved the original writing with extreme sharpness, and, except for a section polished away in antiquity, the whole of this lengthy inscription is quite plain and legible. We are thus in possession of a document which has the unique advantage of being contemporary with its author; and no question can arise as to its original composition or the accuracy of generations of transcribers ; for it is the autograph of King Hammurabi himself, and has come down to us through the ages, with little injury, in this remarkable manner. It is needless to say that a monument of this character and importance has met with the deep attention it deserves from scholars and jurists in all parts of the civilized world, and an exceedingly large literature has grown up around it. The mere enumeration of these works would occupy a considerable space ; but, fortunately for the student, there is a masterly sketch of the whole of the literature by the late Dr. C. H. W. Johns, of St. Catharine’s THE DISCOVERY OF THE CODE 3 College, Cambridge, in his work on The Relations between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples (second edition; Oxford University Press; London, 1917). Dr. Johns’s Classified Bibliography, pp. 65-98, is a complete guide to the subject; and the name of the author is a sufficient guarantee of its completeness and impartiality. A few later contributions will be noticed in the course of the present book. m’ Chapter II HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN The territory between the southern Tigris and the southern Euphrates was anciently called Babylonia, taking its name from the City of Babylon. There was nothing singular in this, for many of the empires of the world have taken their rise from cities. We need not mention Rome, which at one time dominated the Mediterranean; or its rival, Carthage. The empire of the Hittites originated in the city of Hatti, in Anatolia, now represented by a pile of ruins near the Turkish village of Boghaz-k5i, a hundred miles due east of Angora. In like manner the Assyrian empire sprang out of the city of Assur, on the Tigris. Therefore it was in the natural course of things that the Babylonian empire should have received its title from Babylon. But there must be a beginning to everything; and the city of Babylon did not emerge into prominence until a comparatively late period, for there were other cities in southern Mesopotamia, more ancient, and at one time more important. Babylonia was occupied at the earliest known period by two distinct races, the Semites and the Sumerians, and ethnologists have not yet decided which of them was there first. The Semites spoke a language of the same family as Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic, and the people, for the most part, had the 4 HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN 5 peculiar physiognomy which we style “Jewish,” the Jews being better known in western Europe than any othex of the Semitic nations. The Sumerians, on the other hand, spoke what is called an “ agglutinative ” tongue, the affinities of which are still a puzzle ; and, as far as we can judge from the scanty evidence of sculptures, the Sumerians themselves were markedly different in physique and feature from their Semitic neighbours. Whatever their origin may have been, they were a remarkable people, and it was they who originated the civilization of Mesopotamia. For Some reason or another, the Sumerians gradually died out, and the Semitic language and the Semitic type became universal, though still preserving much that had been originally borrowed from the Sumerians. European theologians have always expressed great interest in Babylonia, as being the supposed site of the Garden of Eden. But that was after the Sumerians had transformed the country. We know what it was like in its original state, because centuries of neglect have destroyed the work of the Sumerians, and the greater portion of the land has reverted to its primitive condition, where ” Nature ” rages uncontrolled. The surface of the earth is impassable marsh in the wet season, and a dusty waste in the dry period. The air is full of noxious insects, and the ground swarms with still more horrible reptiles. At intervals the land is swept by awful storms, while the temperature alternates between torrid heat and arctic cold. In the words of a disgusted British soldier : ” If this was the Garden of Eden, it wouldn’t want a blink- ing angel with a flaming sword to turn me out of it.” But it did not dismay the Sumerians. If the 6 HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN country was unattractive to the human species, vegetation flourished. De Candolle considers it to have been the original home of wheat, which still grows wild there ; and we need not dwell on the vital importance of that cereal. West of Babylonia it is the staple food of man, while eastward the staple food is rice. Thus Mesopotamia is the real dividing line between Asiatic and European civilization. The fertility of the country astonished the Hellenes coming from the barren soil of Greece. Theophrastus, the Greek agriculturist, writing in the fourth century b.c. (Hist. Plant., viii, 7), says: — In Babylonia they reap two crops of wheat ; then, in the third year, they drive sheep into the fields. This strengthens the straw, and otherwise it would run too much to blade. When little trouble is taken wheat yields fifty to one; but under careful tillage it is a hundred to one. The treatment of the soil consists in running water upon it and letting it remain some time, so as to form plenty of slime. If, however, the earth is too fat and close, it must be loosened with the plough. Unlike Egypt, shrubs and weeds do not flourish. This is in consequence of the excellence of the soil. We may better appreciate what this means when we reflect that in our climate the farmer scarcely ever succeeds in obtaining a greater yield than twenty to one. Herodotus (I, 193) and Strabo (XVI, i, 14) are still more lavish in their estimates ; but we will rest content with the testimony of Theophrastus. The date-palm was of even greater utility to the. HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN 7 Babylonians, for the fruit, the leaves, the trunk, and every part of it are capable of manifold applications, and Strabo (XVI, i, 14) tells us of an ancient song praising the date-palm because it had as many uses as there were days in the year. In the opinion of the botanist, \ ictor Hehn, the culture of the date-palm originated in Babylonia; for it flourishes best under the care of man. 1 It is one of those plants that have two sexes, and the Babylonians appear to have been the first to apply the principle of pollination. Thus the human race is indebted to the Sumerians for two of the most important foodstuffs in the vegetable world, and it is impossible to guess how civilization would have been developed without them. The Sumerian planted his fields of wheat and his gardens of palm-trees in this uninviting wilderness. To curb the dangerous floods he built embankments and “ dug canals, making a howling desert into a Garden of the Lord.” The Sumerians even found uses for the ever-present mud, moulding it into bricks, and building houses, cities, forts, and temples. Most wonderful of all, they made this mud into books ! They developed a species of hieroglyphic writing, and when these hieroglyphs were impressed on clay tablets with a squared stick the strokes assumed the form of wedges ; hence we call the script ” cuneiform writing.” The Semites adopted all the civilization of the Sumerians, including this cuneiform writing; and, as a baked clay tablet is practically indestructible, many thousands have survived to inform us about the daily life of the Babylonians. 1 The Wanderings of Plants and Animals (London- 1888I TX 202. • * 8 HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN We have said that the Sumerians founded cities. At the end of the third millennium b.c. there were three of these cities that were of special importance. They were Nisin, Larsa, and Babylon. Nisin is sometimes called Isin. Larsa is usually spelt Larsam ; but in Babylonian final m, though written, was not always pronounced. Babylon is the Greek form of the native Semitic Bab-ili = “the Gate of the Gods/’ In Western Europe a gate is merely an opening to go in and out of. In the East it means much more. It is the usual place of assembly where the townsmen can safely meet strangers, and where all the public business of the city is transacted. Consequently, the word “ gate ” {bob) has a more extended meaning than in the West, and Bab-ili may be more expressively rendered as “ the meeting-place of the gods.” Nisin, Larsa, and Babylon formed the centres of three distinct kingdoms, and each of these three cities was under the rule of an independent line of native kings. The Sumerian population was dying out, and the Semitic type and language were predominant, though much of the business of life was still recorded in the Sumerian tongue. Somewhere about 2145 b.c. Babylonia was invaded from Elam by a prince calling himself Kudur-Mabuk, the “ adda ” of Yamutbul, and son of Simti-Silhak. The two sons of Kudur-Mabuk became masters of the city of Larsa, in Southern Babylonia. These two sons were Warad-Sin and Rim-Sin, and it was at one time supposed that both names belonged to the same person; but it is now proved by the Dynastic List that they were two different individuals—Warad-Sin reigning for twelve years, and being succeeded by his HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN 9 brother Rim-Sin, who ruled Larsa for sixty-one years. _ Warad-Sin first appears with the title of Patesi, or viceroy of the Sun-god of Larsa ; but he soon adopted the style of “ king ” and extended his rule over the city of Ur, which he fortified with a great wall. He then conquered Hallabu, near Erech ; and also Eridu and Lagash, two very ancient and important localities. Thus his reign was obviously an active one.Rim-Sin succeeded to all his brother’s conquests, and soon made himself master of the holy city of Nippur, in virtue of which he styled himself “ King of Sumer and Akkad” — i.e., Southern and Northern Babylonia—although there were still the independent monarchs of Nisin and Babylon. In his thirtieth year his subjects dated their contracts by the conquest of Nisin, or, as one of the tablets in the Louvre expresses it, “ In the Year in which, with the sublime power of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the shepherd Rim-Sin took the city of Damiq-ilishu, the people, and the spoil of Nisin.” Thus one of his powerful rivals was disposed of, and for the future his subjects dated their documents as so many years after the conquest of Nisin, the latest yet observed being his thirty-first year. To judge by the number of tablets that have been preserved, RimSin’s reign must have been a prosperous one, and business was brisk. In the course of his life he married at least twice. One of his wives was the daughter of Warad-Nannar ; another the daughter of Sin-Magir. Thus both were Semitic Babylonians (and the second was probably the daughter of the king of Nisin, and sister of Damiq-ilishu, who was dispossessed by her 10 HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN husband). He had a daughter, named Lirish- gamlum, and a sister named Enaneul, who became a priestess. 1 At that epoch the city of Babylon was ruled by a line of monarchs whom we style “ the First Dynasty of Babylon,” dating from 2225 b.c. Sin-muballit, the fifth of the line, reigned twenty years, mostly in peace ; though in his fourteenth year he defeated the army of Ur, in his seventeenth he stormed Nisin, and in his twentieth he defeated the army of Larsa. He was then succeeded by his son Hammurabi in the year in which Rim-Sin overthrew Damiq-ilishu and captured Nisin. Hammurabi reigned forty-three years. His first care was to settle the country, which had, no doubt, been thrown into some confusion by the contest between Rim-Sin and Sin-muballit; for his second year is described in the date-lists as “ the Year when Hammurabi established righteousness in the midst of the land.” As far as we can gather, the greater part of his reign was spent in peace ; but occasional wars were inevitable in that state of society, and we learn that in his seventh year he captured Erech and Nisin, in his tenth he took Malgu, and in the eleventh he stormed Rabiku and Shalibi. There was then a pro- found peace for nineteen years, at the end of which 1 A rebel prince, called Rim-Sin, appeared in the tenth year of Samsu-iluna, the successor of Hammurabi on the throne of Babylon ; but this must have been another indi- vidual of the same name, which was not an uncommon one at that period ; for the tenth year of Samsu-iluna was eighty- three years after the accession of Rim-Sin, the son of KudurMabuk, and it is quite impossible that the latter could have remained a vigorous man at such a protracted age as these figures would imply. HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN ii time hostilities broke out with Rim-Sin and his Elamite allies. Hammurabi was uniformly successful His thirtieth was “ the Year Hammurabi defeated the army of Elam”; his thirty-first, “ the Year of Hammurabi, when the king’s hand, with the help of Ann and Bel, who marched before his army, had captured Yamutbul and king Rim-Sin”; his thirtysecond, “ the Year the army of Mankitu was smitten with the sword.” A further period of peace lasted a few years ; and in his thirty-ninth he advanced along the Tigris and conquered Assyria, thus becoming the sole monarch of the whole of Assyria and Babylonia, about a century and a-half after his predecessor, Sumu-la-ilum, had founded the fortunes of his family by proclaiming himself king of Babylon. While Sumu-la-ilum may have laid the foundations of Babylon’s military power, Hammurabi was the real founder of her greatness. To his military achievements he added a genius for administrative detail, and his letters and despatches which have been recovered reveal him as in active control of even subordinate officials stationed in distant cities of his empire. That he should have superintended matters of public importance is what might be naturally expected; but we also see him investigating quite trivial complaints and disputes among the humbler classes of his subjects, and even sending back a case for re-trial or for further report. In fact, Hammurabi’s fame will always rest on his achievements as a lawgiver, and the great legal Code which he drew up for use throughout his empire. It is true that this elaborate system of laws, which deal in detail with every class of the 12 HAMMURABI AND HIS REIGN population, from the noble to the slave, was not the creative work of Hammurabi himself. Like all other ancient legal codes, it was governed strictly by precedent, and where it did not incor- porate earlier collections of laws it was based on careful consideration of established custom. Hammurabi’s great achievement was the codifica- tion of this mass of legal enactments, and the rigid enforcement of the provisions of the resulting Code throughout the whole territory of Babylonia. Its provisions reflect the king’s own enthusiasm, of which his letters give independent proof, in the cause of his humbler, and the more oppressed, classes of his subjects. Numerous legal and commercial documents also attest the manner in which its provisions were carried out ; and we have evidence that the legislative system so established remained in practical force during subsequent periods. 1 This great work of codifying the law and custom of Babylonia must have occupied the major portion of his life, and we have evidence in the Prologue of his inscription that it was not completed until the very end of his reign, for he mentions that he is ruler of Assur and Nineveh, which were not conquered until his thirty-ninth year. Consequently the great LawCode of Hammurabi must have been promulgated in his closing years, or, according to the chronology of Dr. L. W. King, between 2084 and 2081 b.c. 1 King, History of Babylon, p. 160. Chapter III THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION [R. Col. I], When Anu, the supreme, the king of the Anunnaki, and Bel, the lord of heaven and earth, who fixes the destiny of the universe, had allotted the multitudes of mankind to Merodach, the first-born of Ea, the divine master of Law, they made him great among the Igigi ; they proclaimed his august name in Babylon, exalted in the lands; they established for him within it an eternal kingdom whose foundations, like heaven and earth, shall endure. Then Anu and Bel delighted the flesh of mankind by calling me, the renowned prince, the god-fearing Hammurabi, to establish justice in the earth, to destroy the base and the wicked, and to hold back the strong from oppressing the feeble : to shine like the Sun-god upon the black-headed men, and to illuminate the land. Hammurabi, the elect shepherd of Bel, am I, dis- penser of riches and abundance, completing all things in Nippur and Duranki, generous provider of E Ktir. The hero king who has restored Eridu to its original state [R. Col. II], purifier of the cult of E Absu. Invader of the Four Quarters, exalter of the fame of Babylon, rejoicer of the heart of his lord, Merodach, whom he daily serves in E Sagila . ^3 i4 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION The royal offspring created by Sin, who loads the city of Ur with blessings, the humble suppliant who brings abundance to E Gish-shir-gal. The prudent king, favoured of Shamash the powerful, the founder of Sippara, who has clothed with verdure the cenotaphs of Malkat; builder of E Babbar like heaven’s throne. Avenging warrior of Larsa, restorer of E Babbar or the glory of Shamash, his helper. The prince who has given life to Erech by bringing abundant waters to its inhabitants, who has raised the head of E Anna, who has shaken out abundance over Anu and Ishtar. The protector of the land, who has reassembled the dispersed citizens of Nisin, who has made riches to abound in E Galmah. Guardian king of the city, brother of the god Zamama, who has established the colony of Kish, who has enveloped E Mete-ursag with splendour. Decorator of the great sanctuaries of Ishtar, sacristan of E Harsag-kalatna. The grave of the foe, by whose help victory is attained [R. Col. Ill], who has enlarged Kutha, and amplified everything in E Meshlam. The impetuous bull that overthrows the enemy, the darling of Tutu, the desire of Borsippa; the august, the tireless for E Zida . The divine urban king, the wise, the prudent, who has expanded the plantations of Dilbat, who has accumulated com for Ninip, the mighty. Possessor of sceptre and crown, whom the wise Mama has created, who has set out the boundary of Kesh, who lavishes holy food for Nintu. . THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 15 The far-seeing one, who has carefully provided pasture and drinking-places for Lagash and. Girsu„ who has made rich offerings to E Ninnu. The taker of enemies, the chosen of Telitim, accomplisher of the oracles of Hallabu, who rejoices the heart of Anunit. The pure prince whose prayers are heard by Adad„ who contents the heart of Adad the warrior in Karkar, who has set out the vessels of E UgalgaL The king who has given life to Adab, the prelate of the temple of E Makk The royal prince of the city, wrestler without rival [R. Col. IV], who has given life to Mashkanshabri, who has made [the temple of] Meshlam drink of abundance. The wise, the active, who has struck down the bandits, who has sheltered the people of Malgu during troubles, and has established their habitations in abundance. Who has instituted pure offerings for ever for Ea and Damgal-nunna, because they have exalted his sovereignty. The royal ruler of the city who has subjugated the districts on the river Euphrates, by the power of Dagan, his creator, who has rewarded the men of Mera and of Tutul. The renowned potentate, who has made the face of Ishtar to shine, who has placed pure food before- Ninazu, who fills his people during dearth, and assures, them their goods in peace in the suburbs of Babylon. The shepherd of men, the servant who pleases. Anunit, who installed Anunit in E Ulmash in the suburbs of Agade. The promulgator of justice, the guider of the HI 16 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION people, who has restored its tutelary deity to , Assur. The crusher of enemies, who has glorified the name of Ishtar in Nineveh in E Mishmish. The exalted one, who humbles himself before the great gods, the descendant of Sumu-ia-ilu, the mighty son of Sinmuballit [R. Col. V], the eternal scion of royalty, the powerful king, the sun of Babylon, beaming light over Sumer and Akkad, the king who is obeyed in the four quarters, the darling of Ishtar am I. When Merodach had instituted me governor of men, to conduct and to direct, Law and Justice I established in the land, for the good of the people. 1. If a man has laid a curse upon another man, and it is not justified, the layer of the curse shall be slain. 2. If a man has thrown a spell upon another man, and it is not justified, he who has suffered the spell shall proceed to the holy river : into the holy river shall he plunge. If the holy river seize him, the layer of the spell shall take his house. If the holy river hold him guiltless, and he remains unharmed, the layer of the spell shall be slain. He that plunged into the holy river shall take the house of the layer of the spell. 3. If in a lawsuit a man gives false evidence, and the word he has spoken is not justified : then if that case involve a life, that man shall be slain. 4. If he has given evidence [R. Col. VI] concerning corn or silver, then he shall bear the penalty involved in that case, r THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 17 5. If a judge has heard a case, and given a decision, and delivered a written verdict, and if afterwards his case be disproved, and that judge be convicted as the cause of the misjudgment ; then shall he pay twelve times the penalty awarded in that case. In public assembly he shall be thrown from the seat of judgment; he shall not return ; and he shall not sit with the judges upon a case. 6. If a man steal the goods of a god, or a great house, that man shall be slain. And whoever receives the booty at his hand shall be slain also. 7. If a man has bought silver, or gold, or man slave, or woman slave, or ox, or sheep, or ass, or anything else, from the hands of a man’s child, or a man’s slave, without elder or contract, or receives them on deposit, that man shall be considered a thief : he shall be slain. yN.’ 8. If a Freeman has stolen an ox, or a sheep, or an ass, or a pig, or a boat, either from a god or a great house, he shall pay thirty-fold. If he be a plebeian, he shall render ten-fold. If the thief has nothing to pay, he shall be slain. 9. If a man has lost anything [R, Col. VII], and finds it in the hands of another ; if the holder says, “ A seller sold it me; before the elders I bought it.” And if the claimant says, “ I can produce witnesses who will recognize my property.” Then the purchaser shall bring the vendor who gave it him, and the elders before whom he bought it ; and the claimant the witnesses recognizing his lost property. The judge shall weigh their evidence. The elders before whom the purchase was made, and the wit- nesses recognizing the property, shall affirm before • 18 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION God what they know. The seller shall be held for a thief, and slain ; the claimant shall receive back his lost property; and the purchaser shall receive back the money he paid from the house of the seller. 10. If the purchaser have not produced the seller from whom he received it, and the elders before whom he bought it ; but the claimant has brought witnesses recognizing the property; then the purchaser shall be held for a thief, and slain ; and the owner shall take his lost property. 11. If the claimant has not brought his witnesses recognizing the property [R. Col. VIH], he has acted in bad faith, he has calumniated; he shall be slain 12. If the seller has gone to his fate, then from his house the purchaser shah claim five-fold as the penalty in the case. 13. If that man has not the elders at hand, the judge shall give him a time, up to six months, if in six months his witnesses do not appear, he has acted in bad faith; the penalty of that case he shall bear. 14. If a man has stolen a man’s son under aee he shall be slain. 5 ’ 13. If a man has brought a male or female slave of a great house, or the male or female slave of a plebeian to pass out of the gate, he shah be slain. 16. If a man has harboured in his house a fugitive male or female slave of a great house, or of a plebeian, and has not brought them to the order of the bailiff’ that householder shall be slain. 17. If a man has seized in the field a fugitive slave male or female, and has brought him back to his lord : the owner of the slave shall pay him two shekels of silver. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 19 18. If tliat slave will not name his owner : to the great house he shall be brought : his past shall be investigated, to his lord he shall be delivered. 19. If that slave be hidden in his house, and be arrested in his hands [R. CoL IX], that man shall be slain. 20. If a slave has escaped from the hand of his captor, the latter shall swear by the name of God to the owner of the slave, and shall be guiltless. 21. If a man has broken into a house, before the breach shall he be slain, and there buried. 22. If a man has perpetrated brigandage, and has been caught, that man shall be slain. 23. If the brigand has not been taken, the man plundered shall claim before God what he has lost; and the city and sheriff in whose land and boundary the theft has taken place shall restore to him all that he has lost. 24. If a life, the city and sheriff shall pay one mina of silver to his people. 25. If a fire break out in a man’s house, and another man has gone to extinguish it, and has lifted his eyes upon the goods of the householder, and has taken the goods of the householder ; that man shall be thrown into the same fire. 26. If a heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] has been ordered upon ” the way of the king ” [R. CoL X], and has not gone, but has hired a substitute, that soldier shall be slain. The substitute shall take his house. 27. If a heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] has been taken in a “ misfortune of the king/’ and his field and orchard have been given to another to administer; 20 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION when he returns and regains his city, he shall receive back his field and orchard and shall administer them. 28. If a heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] has been taken in a “ misfortune of the king/” and his son can work them ; field and orchard shall be given him, and the affairs of his father he shall administer. 29. If his son be under age, and unable to administer his father’s affairs, then a third part of the field and orchard shall be given to his mother, and his mother shall bring him up. 30. If a heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] has neglected his held, his orchard, and his house, instead of working them; and another take his held, his | orchard, and his house, and work them for three years; if he returns and desires to till his held, his orchard, and his house, they shall not be given him [R. Col. XI]. He that has taken and worked them shall continue to use them. 31. If one year only he had neglected them, and he returns ; held, orchard, and house shall be restored to him, and he shall work them. 32. If a heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] has been taken prisoner on “ the way of the king/” and a trader ransoms him, and brings him back to his city; then, if his house contain sufficient for his ransom, he personally shall pay for his liberation. If his house do not contain sufficient, the temple of his city shall pay. If the temple of his city have not the means, the great house shall ransom him. His field, his orchard, and his house shall not be given for his ransom. 33.. If a prefect or a brigadier permits evasion of service, and accepts a hired mercenary to go on ” the THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 21 way of the king,” that prefect or brigadier shall be slain, ‘ ‘ 34. If a prefect or a brigadier has taken away the property of a soldier, has injured a soldier, has given a soldier for hire, has abandoned the soldier to a superior in a lawsuit, or taken away from the soldier a gift of the king, that prefect or brigadier shall be slain, 35. If any man purchase cattle or sheep that the king has given to a soldier [R. Col. XII], he shall lose his money. 36. Neither field, nor orchard, nor house of a heavyarmed, or light-armed, or a feudatory, shall be sold separately for silver. 37. If a man has bought the field, orchard, or house of a heavy-armed, or a light-armed, or a feudatory, his contract-tablet shall be broken, his money shall be forfeited, and the field, orchard, or house shall be returned to the owner. 38. A heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] or a feudatory may not assign his field, or orchard, or house to his wife or his daughter ; neither can they be pledged for debt. 39. He may bequeath in writing to his wife or daughter a field, an orchard, or a house that he may have bought, and may pledge it for debt. 40. He may sell his field, his orchard, or his house to a priestess, a trader, or another feudatory ; and the purchaser may work the field, orchard, or house that he has bought. 41. If a man has enclosed the field, orchard, or house of a heavy-armed or a light-armed [soldier] or a feudatory, and has provided the stakes ; if the heavyarmed or light-armed [soldier] or feudatory return into 22 THE TEXT OF THE . INSCRIPTION the field, orchard, or house, he shall pay for the stakes that have been provided. 42. If a man take a field to farm, and grows no corn on the field [R. Col. XIII], he shall be accused of neglecting to work the field; and he shall give to the lord of the field an amount of corn according to the yield of the district. 43. If he have not cultivated the field, but has let it lie fallow, he shall give corn like its neighbour to the lord of the field. And the field that lay fallow he shall hoe and sow, and to the lord of the field restore it. 44. If a man lease unreclaimed land for three years for cultivation, but has been lazy and has not worked the field ; in the fourth year he shall break up the field, hoe it, and sow it, and to the lord of the field restore it. And he shall measure out to him ten gur of corn for each gan. 45. If a man has let his field to a cultivator for a rental, and has received the rental; and if after- wards the god Adad [i.e. } a thunderstorm] has flooded the field and destroyed the harvest, the loss is to the cultivator. 46. If he has not received the rental of his field, or has let it for one-half or one-third of the crop, then the cultivator and the lord of the field shall take their proportions of the corn that is left in the field. 47. If the cultivator, because he had made no profit in the preceding year, has sub-let the field for tillage, the lord of the field cannot condemn the cultivator. His field has been tilled, and at the harvest he shall take com according to his contract. 48. If a man owe a debt [R. Col. XIV], and the god Adad has . flooded his field, or the harvest has been THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 23 destroyed, or the corn has not grown through lack of water, then in that year he shall not pay com to his creditor. He shall dip his tablet in water, and the interest of that year he shall not pay. 49. If a man has received silver from a trader, and has given to the trader a cornfield or sesame field, saying, “ I will plant the field with corn or sesame ; take and reap whatever there is,” then, when the cultivator has grown corn or sesame on the field, the lord of the field shall take corn or sesame, whatever is upon the field at the harvest; and shall give to the trader corn for the silver he has received from the trader, and for its interest; and sustenance for the cultivator. 50. If an already sown field, or a field already planted with sesame, has been given, the lord of the field shall take the com or sesame which is in the field, and he shall render silver and interest to the trader. 51. If he has not silver to pay back, he shall give to the trader sesame according to the value of the silver he, has received, with its interest, at the royal tariff [R. Col. XV]. 52. If the cultivator has not grown corn or sesame in the field, his contract shall not be annulled. 53. If a man has been too lazy to strengthen his dyke, and has not strengthened the dyke, and a breach has opened in the dyke, and the ground has been flooded with water, the man in whose dyke the breach has opened shall reimburse the corn he has destroyed. 54. If he has not corn to reimburse, he and his goods shall be sold for silver, and it shall be divided among those whose com has been destroyed. 24 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 55. If a man has opened his irrigation ditch, and, through negligence, his neighbour’s field is flooded with water, he shall measure back corn according to the yield of the district. 56. If a man has opened the waters and flooded the planted field of his neighbour, he shall measure back ten gur of corn for each gan. 57. If a shepherd has put his sheep to grass without an understanding with the lord of the field; and, unknown to the lord of the field, it has been grazed by the sheep; then the lord shall reap his field, and the shepherd who has grazed his sheep unknown to the lord of the field shall pay to the latter in addition twenty gur of corn for every gan. 58. If the sheep have left the field, and have been enclosed with hurdles in a fold ; and then the shepherd allows the sheep to escape, and return to the field to graze ; then that shepherd shall take the field that has been re-grazed, and at the harvest he shall measure sixty gur of corn for each gan [R. Col. XVI] to the lord of the field. 59. If a man, unknown to the lord of the orchard, has cut down a tree in another man’s orchard, he shall pay half a mina of silver. 60. If a man has leased a field to a gardener to be converted into an orchard and the gardener has planted it, for four years he shall attend to it ; in the fifth year the lord of the orchard and the gardener shall share equally. The lord of the orchard shall choose his share and take it. 61. If the gardener has not planted all the field, but leaves a waste, the waste shall be put in his portion. 62. If the field entrusted to him has not been planted THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 25 as an orchard, and was cornland, the gardener shall measure back to the lord of the field the produce of the field according to the yield of the vicinity during the years he has neglected it. And he shall prepare the field and return it to the lord. 63. If it were waste land, he shall prepare it and restore it to the lord of the field, and he shall measure ten gur of corn per gem for each year. 64. If a man has leased an orchard to a gardener to manage it, the gardener, as long as he holds it, shall give two-thirds of the produce to the lord of the orchard; one-third he shall keep himself. 65. If the gardener has not managed the orchard, and the crop has diminished, the gardener shall measure out according to the yield of the vicinity. (At this point of the inscription, five columns of the writing were erased at an ancient date. The following Sections are supplied from other sources, and the text of the monument is resumed at [V. Col I].) 66. If a man has leased an orchard of dates to a gardener to manage it, and the gardener has borrowed silver from a trader; and when the trader demands payment he has nothing to give ; and he has said to the trader, f< The dates in my orchard take for thy silver ” ; the trader shall not consent. The lord of the orchard shall gather the dates which are in the orchard. The silver and its interest according to the tenour of the tablet he shall pay to the trader; and the remainder of the dates which are found in the orchard shall be taken by the lord of* the orchard. B m 26 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 71. If a man have given corn or silver, or other things, for a house, and the house is built on to foundations or walls belonging to the house of its neighbour, then he shall lose all that he has paid, and the house shall be given back again. If the house is not built on to existing foundations or walls [but stands free], then he may- buy it for corn or silver, or any other goods. 90. If a trader has lent [corn or] silver at interest, then for every gur of corn he shall take 100 qa as interest. If he has lent silver at interest, then for each shekel of silver he shall take a sixth part of a shekel, plus six grains, as interest. 91. If a man has taken a loan at interest, and has not silver for repayment, but has corn, then, in accordance with the ordinance of the king, the trader shall take interest at the rate of 100 qa per gur. If the trader objects, and seeks to receive, in addition to the 100 qa per gur, the interest of a sixth part of a shekel and six grains for each shekel of silver, then he shall lose the whole of his loan. 92. If a trader has lent out corn or silver at interest and has received his interest, and the total sum of corn or silver, but afterwards pretends that the com or silver . . . [remainder missing], 93. . . . [wanting]. 94. [If a trader has received corn in part payment] and he does not bring the corn into account and has not written a new tablet, or if he has added the interest to the capital, then that trader shall pay back double the amount of the corn he has received. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 27 95* If a trader has lent corn or silver at interest, and has delivered the silver in light weight, or the corn in light measure ; or if when he collects the debt he takes the silver over weight, or the corn over measure ; then that trader shall lose the whole amount that he has lent,96. If a trader has lent corn or silver, and it is a day when the elders are not sitting, then he shall lose the whole amount that he has lent. 97. If a man has borrowed corn or silver from a trader, and has not corn or silver for repayment, but has other goods, then he must show whatever he has before the witnesses, and shall give what he has to his trader. The trader may not refuse to accept it, 98. . . . [wanting]. 99. . . . [wanting]. 100. If a man has lent silver to another man for joint business, then the resulting gain or loss shall be declared before God, and they shall share in equal parts, 101. If a trader has given silver to a retailer for buying and selling, and has sent him upon a journey to employ the silver he has given him, then, if he finds profit in the place where he has gone [V. Col. I], interest for the silver he has received, he shall write down; they shall reckon his da}/s, and he shall pay to his trader. If in the place where he has gone he finds no profit, then the retailer shall pay back to the trader double the amount of the silver he has received. 102. If a trader has lent silver to a retailer as a favour, and where he has gone he has suffered loss, he shall return the capital sum to the trader. 103. If the enemy has taken from him whatever he 28 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION carried upon the road, the retailer shall swear by the name of God, and shall be absolved. 104. If a trader has entrusted corn, wool, oil, or any other goods to a retailer to trade with, the retailer shall write down the value and give it to the trader. Then shall the retailer take a sealed receipt for the silver given to the trader [in settlement]. 105. If the retailer is negligent and has not taken a sealed receipt for the silver given to the trader, the silver that is not sealed shall not be carried to account. 106. If a retailer has received silver from a trader, and disputes with the trader, then the trader shall call the retailer before God’ and the elders regarding the silver received, and the retailer shall restore three-fold the silver he has received. 107. If a trader has wronged a retailer, and the retailer has repaid to the trader all that the trader gave him [V. Col. II], and the trader contests what has been given to him, then that retailer shall call the trader before God and the elders; and because the trader has contested with his retailer, he shall pay to the retailer six-fold of all that he has received. 108. If a (female) wine-seller has not accepted corn as the price of drink, but silver by the full weight has accepted, and has made the price of drink less than the price of corn, then that wine-seller shall be prosecuted and thrown into the water. 109. If rebels meet in the house of a wine-seller and she does not seize them and take them to the great house, that wine-seller shall be slain. no. If a priestess or holy sister who has not re- mained in the convent shall open a wine-shop, or enter a wine-shop for drink, that woman shall be burned. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 29 in. If a wine-seller has given sixty qa of drink on credit for a festival, at the harvest she shall receive fifty qa of com. 112. If a man goes on a journey and gives to another man silver, gold, gems, or portable goods, that they may be carried home, and that man has not carried and delivered all that was given him to carry, but has kept them, then the owner shall prosecute that man for all the things carried, but not delivered, and that man shall pay five-fold to the owner for all that was given him. 1 13. If a man has a claim for corn or silver upon another man [V. Col. Ill], and without the knowledge of the owner has taken corn from the granary or store ; that man, because he has taken corn from the granary or store without the knowledge of the owner, shall be prosecuted. The corn he has taken shall be returned, and all that he should have received he shall lose. 1 14. If a man has no claim upon another man for corn or silver, but seizes him to work for the debt, for each seizure he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver. 115. If a man has a claim upon another man for com or silver, and seizes him for distraint, if the dis- trained go to his fate in the house of the distrainer [by a natural death], then that case has no further claim. 116. If the distrained die in the house of the dis- trainer through blows or ill-treatment, the superior of the distrained shall call his trader to account. If he be freeborn, his son shall be slain; if a slave, he shall pay a third of a mina of silver ; and all that he should have received he shall lose. 117. If a man has contracted a debt, and has given THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION his wife, his son, his daughter for silver or for labour, three years they shall serve in the house of their bondmaster ; in the fourth year they shall regain their original condition. nS. If he has assigned a male or female slave for labour, and the trader sends them out, and sells them for silver, there is no claim. 119. If a man has contracted a debt, and has sold for silver a slave who has borne him children [V. Col. IV], the lord of the slave shall pay back the silver the trader has given him, and the slave shall be free.120. If a man has stored his corn in the house of another man, and the store has been damaged, or the householder has opened the granary taking corn, or he disputes the quantity of the corn heaped up, then the owner of the corn shall pursue his com before God, and the householder who has taken the corn shall give back double to the owner. 121. If a man has stored corn in the house of another man, he shall pay five qa of corn per gur per annum for warehousing. 122. If a man desires to deposit with another man silver, gold, or anything else, he shall exhibit all before the elders, draw up a contract, and then make the deposit. 123. If he has given on deposit without elders or contract, and where he has given they contest it, there Is no claim. 124. If a man has deposited silver or gold or any thing else with another man before the elders, and if that man denies it, he shall prosecute him, and all that he contests he shall replace and restore double. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 31 125. If a man lias given his goods on deposit, and in the place of deposit, either by breaking in or by climbing over, anything has been lost, together with property of the householder, then the householder in question shall make good all that was deposited with him and lost [V. Col. V], and shall restore it to the owner. The householder shall pursue his stolen goods and recover from the thief. 126. If a man has not lost everything, but says everything of his is lost, exaggerating what is lacking, then, as he has not lost everything, his lack he shall bring before God. All that he substantiates shall be made up ; what he lacks shall be restored. 127. If a man point the finger against a holy sister or a man’s wife unjustifiably, that man shall be thrown before the judge, and his brow shall be branded. 128. If a man take a wife and a contract has not concluded, then that woman is no wife. 129. If the wife of a man is found lying with another male, they shall be bound and thrown into the water ; unless the husband lets his wife live, and the king lets his servant live. 130. If a man has forced the wife of another man, who has not known the male, and who still resides in the house of her father, and has lain within her breasts, and he is found, that man shall be slain; that woman is guiltless. 131. If a man’s wife is accused by her husband, but has not been found lying with another male, she shall swear by the name of God and return into her house. . ; ‘C C : ; ;; v” C;i – : . 3; : 132. If the finger is pointed against a man’s wife because of another male [V. Col. VI], and she has not 32 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION been found lying with another male, then she shall plunge for her husband into the holy riven 133. If a man has been taken captive, and there is food in his house, and his wife forsakes his house, and enters the house of another ; then because that woman has not preserved her body, but has entered another house, then that woman shall be prosecuted, and shall be thrown into the water. 134. If a man has been taken captive, and there is no food in his house, and his wife enters the house of another, then that woman bears no blame. 135. If a man has been taken captive, and there is no food before her, and his wife has entered the house of another, and bears children, and afterwards her husband returns and regains his city, then that woman shall return to her spouse. The children shall follow their father. 136. If a man has abandoned his city and absconded, and after that his wife has entered the house of another ; if that man comes back and claims his wife ; because he had fled and deserted his city, the wife of the deserter shall not return to her husband. 137. If a man has set his face to divorce a concubine who has borne him children, or a priestess who has presented him with children, then he shall give back to that woman her dowry, and he shall give her the usufruct of field, orchard, and property [V. Col. VII], and she shall bring up her children. After she has brought up her children, she shall take a son’s portion of all that is given to her children, and the man of her choice may take her in marriage. 138. If a man divorce his spouse who has not borne him children, he shall give to her all the silver THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 33 of the bride-price, and restore to her the dowry which she brought from the house of her father ; and so he shall divorce her. 139. If there were no bride-price, he shall give her one mina of silver for the divorce. 140. If he be a plebeian, he shall give her onethird of a mina of silver. 141. If a man’s wife, dwelling in a man’s house, has set her face to leave, has been guilty of dissipation, has wasted her house, and has neglected her husband, then she shall be prosecuted. If her husband says “ she is divorced,” he shall let her go her way ; he shall give her nothing for divorce. If her husband says “ she is not divorced,” her husband may espouse another woman, and that woman shall remain a slave in the house of her husband. 142. If a woman hate her husband, and say “ Thou shalt not possess me,” the reason for her dislike shall be inquired into. If she is careful, and has no fault, but her husband takes himself away and neglects her, then that woman is not to blame fV. Col. VIII]. She shall take her dowry and go back to her father’s house. 143. If she has not been careful, but runs out, wastes her house, and neglects her husband, then that woman shall be thrown into the water. 144. If a man has married a priestess, and that priestess has given to her husband a female slave and caused him to have children ; then, if that man has set his face to marry a concubine, he shall not be permitted ; he shall not marry a concubine. 145. If a man has married a priestess and she has not presented him with children, and he has set his 34 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION face to marry a concubine; if that man marries a concubine and brings her into his house, then that concubine shall not rank with the priestess. 146. If a man has married a priestess, and she has given to her husband a female slave, who bears children; and afterwards that slave ranks herself with her mistress, because she has borne children, her mistress may not sell her for silver. She may be fettered, and counted among the slaves. 147. If she has not borne children, her mistress may sell her for silver. 148. If a man has married a wife, and sickness has seized her, and he has set his face to marry another, he may marry ; but his wife whom the sickness has seized he shall not divorce. She shall dwell in the house he has built, and he shall support her while she lives [V. Col. IX]. 149. If that woman is not content to dwell in the house of her husband, he shall return to her the dowry she brought from her father’s house, and she shall go. 150. If a man has given to his wife field, orchard, house, or goods, and has given her a sealed tablet, then after her husband [has gone to his fate] her children have no claim. The mother can give what she leaves behind to the children she prefers. To brothers she shall not give. 151. If a woman who dwells in a man’s house has bound her husband not to assign her to a creditor, and has received a tablet ; then, if that man had a debt upon him before he married that woman, his creditor may not seize his wife. And if that woman had incurred debt before she entered the man’s house, her creditor may not seize her husband. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 35 152. If, after that woman has entered the man’s house, they incur debt, both of them must satisfy the trader. 153. If a man’s wife, because of another male, has killed her husband, that woman shall be impaled upon a stake. 154. If a man has known his daughter, that man shall be banished from his city. 155. If a man has betrothed a bride to his son, and his son has known her ; and afterwards he has lain in her breasts, and he is found; that man shall be bound and thrown into the water [V. Col. X]. 156. If a man has betrothed a bride to his son, and his son has not known her, and he has lain in her breasts, he shall pay half a mina of silver ; and all that she brought from her father’s house shall be returned to her, and the man of her choice may take her in marriage. 157. If a man after his father has lain in the breasts of his mother, both of them shall be burned. 158. If a man after his father is discovered in the breasts of his lady, who has borne children, that man shall be cut off from his father’s house. 159. If a man has brought goods into the house of his father-in-law, and has given the bride-price, and has looked upon another woman, and has said to his father-in-law, “ Thy daughter I will not marry,” then the father of the girl shall retain all that has been brought. . bVbbV : bb N’ ‘ 160. If a man has brought goods into the house of the father-in-law, and has given the bride-price, and the father of the girl says, “I will not give thee my 36 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION daughter/’ he shall repay double of all that has been brought him. 161. If a man has brought goods into the house of his father-in-law, and has given the bride-price, and his friend has slandered him, and the father-in-law has said to the husband of the wife, “ My daughter thou shalt not marry,” he shall repay double of all that has been brought him ; and his wife shall not marry his friend. 162. If a man has married a wife, and she has borne children, and that woman has gone to her fate [V. Col. XI], then her father has no claim upon her dowry. The dowry is her children’s. 163. If a man has married a wife, and she has presented no children to him, and that woman has gone to her fate ; if the bride-price which that man brought to the house of his father-in-law has been returned to him by his father-in-law, then the husband has no claim upon that woman’s dowry. The dowry is to her father’s house. 164. If his father-in-law has not returned the bride-price in her dowry, then he shall deduct all her bride-price, and shall give back her dowry to her father’s house. 165. If a man has made a gift of field, or orchard, or house, to his son, the first in his eyes, and has sealed him a tablet; then, after the father has gone to his fate, when the brothers divide he shall retain the father’s present which he has given him over and above the equal part that he shares in the possessions of his paternal house. 166. If a man has married wives to the children he has had, but has not married a wife to an infant son ; THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 37 then, after the father has gone to his fate, when the brethren share the possessions of the paternal house, they shall give silver for a bride-price to their infant brother who has not married a wife, besides his share, and he shall be married to a wife. 167. If a man has married a wife, and she has borne him children, and that woman has gone to her fate; and after her he has married another woman who bears him children; then, after the father has gone to his fate [V. Col. XII], the children shall not share according to the mothers, but they shall take the dowries of their own mothers. The possessions of their paternal house they shall share equally. 168. If a man has set his face to disown his son, and has said to the judge, “ I disown my son/’ then the judge shall look into his reasons. If the son has not borne a heavy crime which would justify his being disowned from filiation, then the father shall not disown his son from filiation. 169. If he has committed against his father a heavy crime justifying his being disowned from filiation, then for his first offence he shall turn aside his face. If he commit a heavy crime the second time, the father shall disown his son from filiation. 170. If a man whose spouse has bom him children, and whose female slave has borne him children, and the father in his lifetime has said to the children of the female slave “ my children,” and has counted them with the children of his spouse, and after that the father has gone to his fate ; then the children of the spouse and the children of the female slave shall share the possessions of the paternal house equally. 38 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION The sons that are children of the wife shall choose and allot in the division. 171a. And if the father in his lifetime has not said to the children whom the female slave has borne him “ my children,” and afterwards the father has gone to his fate, the children of the female slave shall not share with the children of the spouse. The slave and her children shall be emancipated, and the children of the spouse shall have no claim for service upon the children of the slave. 171&. The spouse shall take her dowry, and the settlement which her husband made her and wrote in a tablet for her, and she shall dwell in the domicile of her husband [V. Col. XIII]. While she lives she shall enjoy it ; she may not sell it for silver, but after her it is her children’s. 172a. If her husband has not made her a settle- ment, her dowry shall be returned to her, and she shall receive a portion of the possessions of her husband’s house equal to that of a son. If her children annoy her, to make her leave the house, the judge shall look into the reasons ; and if the children be in fault, that woman shall not leave her husband’s house. 172b. If that woman has set her face to depart, she shall surrender to her children the settlement which her husband made her. She shall retain the dowry from her father’s house, and the man of her choice may take her in marriage. 173* M that woman where she has gone bears children to her later husband, and afterwards the woman dies, her former and her latter children shall share her dowry. . , 174. If she bears no children to her later hus~ THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 39 band, the children of her former consort take her dowry. 175. If either a slave of a great house, or the slave of a plebeian, marry the daughter of a free man, and she bears children, the owner of the slave has no claim for service upon the children of the free man’s daughter. ij6a. And if a slave of a great house, or the slave of a plebeian, marry the daughter of a free man, and when she marries she enters the house of the slave of a great house or the plebeian’s slave with a dowry from the house of her father; and when they are settled and have founded a house they have acquired property, and afterwards the slave of a great house or the slave of the plebeian has gone to his fate, then the daughter of the free man shall take her dowry [V. Col. XIV], and all that her husband and herself have acquired since they settled shall be divided into two parts : the owner of the slave shall take half, and the free man’s daughter shall take half for her children. 176b. If the free man’s daughter had no dowry, all that her husband and herself have acquired since they settled shall be divided into two parts : the owner of the slave shall take half, and the free man’s daughter shall take half for her children. 1 77. If a widow who has infant children has set her face to enter a second house, she shall not enter with- out [consent] of the judge. When she would enter the second house the judge shall inquire into the residue of her former husband’s house. The house of her former husband and that woman shall be entrusted to the house of her later husband, and a tablet shall 4o THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION be delivered to them. They shall maintain the house and bring up the infants. They may sell nothing for silver. The purchaser who buys any vessel belonging to the widow’s children shall lose his silver, and the property shall return to its owner. 178. If a holy sister, priestess, or hierodule, her father has given her a dowry, and has written a tablet ; but has not written in the tablet that what she leaves behind her she may give as she sees good, and has not allowed the fullness of her heart ; and afterwards the father has gone to his fate; then her brothers shall take her field or her orchard, and according to the value of her share they shall give her com, oil, and wool, and her heart shall be satisfied. If her brothers have not given her corn, oil, and wool according to the value of her share, and her heart is not satisfied [V. Col. XV], then her field or her orchard shall be entrusted to the cultivator whom she sees good, and her cultivator shall sustain her. While she lives she shall enjoy field and orchard and everything which her father has given her; but she may not sell for silver nor alienate to another. Her inheritance is to her brothers. 179. If a holy sister, priestess, or hierodule, her father has given her a dowry, and has written a deed, and has written in the tablet that what she leaves behind her she may give as she sees good, and has allowed the fullness of her heart ; then after her father has gone to his fate, she may give what she leaves behind to whom she sees good. Her brothers have no claim. 180. If the father has not given a dowry to his daughter, a priestess in a convent or a hierodule, then THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 41 after the father has gone to his fate, she shall take out of the possessions of the paternal house the portion of one son. She shall enjoy it during her life. What she leaves behind is to her brothers. 181. If the father has dedicated a priestess, conse- crated woman, or temple maiden, to God, and has not given her a dowry; after the father has gone to his fate she shall take out of the possessions of the paternal house one-third of the portion of a son. She shall enjoy it during her life. What she leaves behind is to her brothers. 182. If the father has not given a dowry to his daughter, a ” priestess of Merodach of Babylon/’ and not written a deed ; then after the father has gone to his fate she shall take out of the possessions of the paternal house one-third of the portion of a son with her brothers. She shall not have the management. The “priestess of Merodach” may give what she leaves behind to whom she sees good [V. Col. XVI], 183. If the father has provided a dowry for his daughter by a concubine, has given her to a husband, and written her a deed; then after the father has gone to his fate she shall not share in the possessions of the paternal house. 184. If the father has not provided a dowry for his daughter by a concubine, and has not given her to a husband ; then after the father has gone to his fate her brothers shall provide her a dowry according to the wealth of the paternal house, and give her to a husband. 185. If a man has taken an infant to adopt into his own name, and brought him up, that adopted son may not be reclaimed. 42 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 1S6. If a man has adopted an infant, and when he has taken him he injures his father and his mother, then that adopted son shall return to his father’s house. 187. The [adopted] son of a servitor, a doorkeeper of a great house, and the [adopted] son of a hierodule may not be reclaimed. 188. If a son of the people has taken a child to adoption, and has taught him his handicraft, he may not be reclaimed. 189. If he has not taught him his handicraft, that adopted son shall return to his father’s house. 190. If a man has adopted an infant as a son, and brought him up, but has not reckoned him with his children, then that adopted son shall return to his father’s house. 191. If a man has adopted an infant as a son, and brought him up, and has founded a household, and afterwards has had children, and if he has set his face to disown the adopted son, then that child shall not go his way. His foster-father shall give him out of his possessions one-third of the portion of a son, and then he shall go. Of field, or orchard, or house he shall not give him [V. Col. XVII]. 192. If the [adopted] son of a servitor, or the [adopted] son of a hierodule, has said to his foster-father or his foster-mother, “ Thou art not my father,” or “ Thou art not my mother,” his tongue shall be cut out. 193. If the [adopted] son of ,a servitor, or the [adopted] son of a hierodule, has. come to know his father’s house, and he despises his foster-father and his foster-mother, and goes to the house of his father, his eyes shall be torn out. 194. If a man has given his child to a nurse, and THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 43 the child dies in the hand of the nurse, and the nurse without the knowledge of his father and his mother substitutes another child, she shall be prosecuted, and because she has substituted another child without the knowledge of his father and his mother her breasts shall be cut off. 195. If a son has struck his father, his hands shall be cut off. 196. If a man has destroyed the eye of a Freeman, his own eye shall be destroyed. 197. If he has broken the bone of a Freeman, his bone shall be broken. 198. If he has destroyed the eye of a plebeian, or broken a bone of a plebeian, he shall pay one mina of silver. 199. If he has destroyed the eye of a man’s slave, or broken a bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay half his value. 200. If a man has knocked out the teeth of a man of the same rank, his own teeth shall be knocked out. 201. If he has knocked out the teeth of a plebeian, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver. 202. If a man strike the body of a man who is great above him, he shall receive sixty lashes with a cowhide whip in the assembly. 203. If a Freeman strike the body of the son of a Freeman of like condition, he shall pay one mina of silver. 204. If a plebeian strike the body of a plebeian, he shall pay ten shekels of silver. 205. If a man’s slave strike the body of the son of a free man [V. Col. XVIII], his ear shall be cut off. 206. If a man has struck another man in a dispute 44 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION and wounded him, that man shall swear “I did not strike him knowingly/’ and he shall pay for the doctor. 207. If he die of his blows, he shall swear likewise ; and if it be the son of a Freeman, he shall pay half a mina of silver. 208. If he be the son of a plebeian, he shall pay a third of a mina of silver. 209. If a man strike the daughter of a Freeman and cause her foetus to fall, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her foetus. 210. If that woman die, his daughter shall be slain. 211. If he has caused the daughter of a plebeian to let her foetus fall through 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 the slave of a man and made her foetus fall, he shall pay two shekels of silver. 214. If that slave die, he shall pay a third of a mina of silver. 215. If a doctor has treated a Freeman with a metal knife for a severe wound, and has cured the Freeman, or has opened a Freeman’s tumour with a metal knife, and cured a Freeman’s eye, then he shall receive ten shekels of silver. 216. If the son of a plebeian, he shall receive five shekels of silver. 217. If a man’s slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the doctor. 218. If a doctor has treated a man with a metal knife for a severe wound, and has caused the man to die, or has opened a man’s tumour with a metal knife and destroyed the man’s eye, his hands shall be cut off. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 45 219. If a doctor has treated the slave of a plebeian with a metal knife for a severe wound and caused him to die, he shall render slave for slave. 220. If he has opened his tumour with a metal knife and destroyed his eye, he shall pay half his price in silver. 221. If a doctor has healed a Freeman’s broken bone [V. Col. XIX] or has restored diseased flesh, the patient shall give the doctor five shekels of silver, 222. If he be the son of a plebeian, he shall give three shekels of silver. 223. If a man’s slave, the owner of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the doctor. 224. If a doctor of oxen or asses has treated either ox or ass for a severe wound, and cured it, the owner of the ox or ass shall give to the doctor one-sixth of a shekel of silver for his fee. 225. If he has treated an ox or an ass for a severe wound and caused it to die, he shall give the quarter of its price to the owner of the ox or the ass. 226. If a brander, unknown to the owner of a slave, has branded him with the mark of an inalien- able slave, the hands of that brander shall be cut off , 227. If a man deceive a brander into branding with the mark of an inalienable slave, that man shall be slain and buried in his own house. The brander shall swear “ I did not brand him with knowledge,” and he shall be guiltless. 228. If a builder has built a house for a man and completed it, he shall give him for his pay two shekels of silver for each sar [of surface] of the house. 229. If a builder has built a house for a man and his work is not strong, and if the house he has built THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION falls in- and kills the householder, that builder shall be slain. . . ‘ 230. If the child of the householder be killed, the child of that builder shall be slain. 231 If the slave of the householder be killed, he shall give slave for slave to the householder. 232. If goods have been destroyed, he shall replace all that has been destroyed ; and because the house that he built was not made strong, and it has fallen in, he shall restore the fallen house out of his own material. 233. If a builder has built a house for a man, and his work is not done properly and a wall shifts [V. Col. XX], then that builder shall make that wall good with his own silver. 234. If a boat-builder has built a sixty-ton boat for a man, he shall give him two shekels of silver for his pay. 235. If a boat-builder has built a boat for a man and his work is not firm, and in that same year that boat is disabled in use, then the boat-builder shall overhaul that boat and strengthen it with his own material, and he shall return the strengthened boat to the boat-owner. 236. If a man has given his boat on hire to a boatman, and the boatman is careless, and the boat is sunk and lost, then the boatman shall replace the boat to the boat-owner. 237. If a man has hired boatman and boat, and laden her with corn, wool, oil, dates, or any other kind of freight, and if that boatman is careless and sinks the boat, and her cargo is lost, then the boatman shall replace the boat he has sunk and all her cargo that he has lost. , , 238. If a boatman has sunk a man’s boat and refloated her, he shall give silver to half her value. THE TEXT’ OF THE INSCRIPTION 47 239. If a man hire a boatman, he shall give him six gur of com per annum, 240. If a cruising boat has run into a cargo boat and sunk her, the owner of the sunken boat shall pursue all that was lost in his boat before God. The cruiser shall replace to the cargo boat that was sunk, his boat and all that was lost in her. 241 If a man distrain an ox, he shall pay a third of a mina of silver. 242. If a man hires for a year, the fee for a draught ox is four gur of com. 243. The fee for a milch-cow is three gur of corn given to the owner [V. Col. XXI]. 244. If a man has hired an ox or an ass, and a lion has killed it in the open country, then it is to the owner. ‘ 245. If a man has hired an ox, and by neglect or by blows has caused its death, he shall replace ox by ox to the owner of the ox. 246. If a man has hired an ox and broken its foot or cut the nape of its neck, he shall replace ox by ox to the owner of the ox. 247. If a man has hired an ox and has knocked out its eye, he shall give silver to the owner of the ox for half its value. 248. If a man has hired an ox and has broken oh its horn, or cut off its tail, or damaged its muzzle, he shall give silver for a quarter of its value. 249. If a man has hired an ox and God has stmck it, and it has died, then the man who hired the ox shall swear by the name of God, and shall be guiltless. 250. If a mad bull meet a man in the highway and gore him, and kill him, that case has no remedy. 48 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 251. If a man’s ox is known to be addicted to goring, and be has not blunted his horns, nor fastened up his ox, then if his ox has gored a free man and killed him he shall give half a mina of silver. 252. If it be a man’s slave, he shall give a third of a mina of silver. 253. If a man has let his field to another man to dwell upon its face, and has given him seed corn and entrusted him with draught oxen, and has contracted with him to cultivate the field, and if that man has stolen seed or crop, and they are found in his hands, his hands shall be cut off. 254. If he has received the seed, but worn out the oxen, he shall replace by hoed corn. 255. If he has given the man’s draught oxen on hire, or stolen the seed-corn and not grown it in the field, that man shall be prosecuted, and he shall measure out sixty gur of corn for every gan. 256. If he is not able to advance the compensation, he shall be placed with the cattle in the field [V. Col XXII]. 257. If a man hire a field-labourer, he shall give him eight gur of corn per annum. 258. If a man hire a herdsman, he shall give him six gur of corn per annum. 259. If a man has stolen a water-wheel from the estate, he shall give five shekels of silver to the owner of the wheel. 260. If he has stolen an irrigating bucket or a harrow, he shall pay three shekels of silver. 261. If a man hire a pasturer for cattle and sheep, he shall give him eight gur of com per annum. 262. If a man either ox or sheep . . . [defaced]. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 49 263. If he has lost ox or sheep that has been entrusted to him, he shall replace ox by ox, sheep by sheep, to the owner. 264. If a [herdsman] who has had cattle or sheep given him to pasture, and has been paid his wages as agreed, and his heart is satisfied, and if the cattle he has made to diminish, or the sheep he has made to diminish, and has made the progeny to decline, then he shall give progeny and number according to his agreement. 265. If a herdsman to whom cattle and sheep have been given to pasture has lied, and has altered the bargain, and sold for silver, then he shall be prosecuted. He shall restore cattle or sheep to their owner tenfold what he has stolen. 266. If a stroke of God has occurred in a fold, or a lion has slain, then the herdsman shall clear himself before God, and the owner of the fold shall meet the disaster to the fold. 267. If the herdsman is in fault, and has been the occasion of the loss in the fold, then the herdsman shall restore the cattle and sheep which he has caused to be lost in the fold, and shall give them back to the owner. 268. If a man has hired an ox for threshing, twenty qci of corn is its hire. 269. If an ass has been hired for threshing, ten qa of corn is its hire. 270. If a young animal has been hired for threshing, one qa of corn is its hire. 271. If a man hire cattle, wagon, and driver, he shall give 180 qa of corn per diem [V. Col. XXIII]. 272. If a man has hired a wagon by itself, he shall give forty qa of com per diem. 50 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 273. If a man hire a workman, then from the beginning of the year until the fifth month he shall, give six grains of silver per diem. From the sixth month until the end of the year he shall give five grains of silver per diem. 274. If a man hire a son of the people, () Pay of a () Pay of a potter (c) Pay of a weaver of linen (d) Pay of a stonemason (e) Pay of a (/) Pay of a (g) Pay of a carpenter (h) Pay of a leather-worker (i) Pay of a boat-builder (j) Pay a house-builder he shall give per diem. five grains of silver, five grains of silver, five grains of silver, grains of silver, of silver, of silver, four grains of silver, four grains of silver, grains of silver; grains of silver, 275. If a man hire a boat [?], her hire is three grains of silver per diem. 276.. If a man hire a cruising boat, he shall give two and a half grains of silver per diem for her hire. 277. If a man hire a sixty-ton boat, he shall give a sixth part of a shekel of silver per diem for her hire. 278. If a man has bought a slave, male or female, and before his month has expired epilepsy has developed, then he shall return him to the vendor, and the buyer shall receive back the purchase-money. 279. If a man has bought a slave, male or female, and there is a claim, then the vendor shall answer the claim. 280. If a man has bought another man’s slave, male or female, in a foreign land, and when he has come THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 51 into the midst of the country the master of the slave recognizes his male or female slave, then, if they ;j are children of the land, he shall give them their | freedom without price. j 281. If they are children of another land, the purchaser shall take oath before God as to the silver he has paid; and the owner of the slave, male or female, shall give to the trader the silver that he has paid, and shall recover his male or his female slave. 282. If a slave shall say to his master, Thou art not my master/’ he shall be prosecuted as a slave, and his owner shall cut off his ear [V. Col. XXIV]. The judgments of justice which Hammurabi, the mighty king, has established, conferring upon the land a sure guidance and a gracious rule. Hammurabi, the protecting king, am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the blackheaded race that Bel / has entrusted to me, and over whom Merodach has made me shepherd. I have not reposed myself upon my side, but I have given them places of peace. Difficult points have I made smooth, and radiance have I shed abroad. With the mighty weapon that Zamama and Ishtar have lent me, with the penetration with which Ea has endowed me, with the valour that Merodach has given me, I have rooted out all enemies above and below, and the depths have I subjugated. The flesh of the land I have made v, rejoice : the resident people I have made secure ; I have not suffered them to be afraid. It is I that the great gods have elected to be the Shepherd of Salvation, whose sceptre is just. I throw my good shadow over my city. Upon my bosom I cherish the men of 52 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION the lands of Sumer and Akkad. By my protecting genius, their brethren in peace are guided : by my wisdom are they sheltered. That the strong may not oppress the weak; that the orphan and the widow may be counselled ; in Babylon, the city whose head has been lifted up by Ann and Bel ; in E Sagila, the temple whose foundations are as solid as heaven and earth : to proclaim the law of the land : to guide the procedure of the land, and to sustain the feeble, I have written my precious words upon my pillar, and before my image as King of Justice I have placed it. I am the monarch -who towers above the kings of the cities. My words are well weighed; my valour has no equal. By command of Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, my justice shall glisten in the land. By direction of Merodach, my lord, my monument shall never see destruction. In E Sagila that I love my name shall ever be spoken [V. Col. XXV]. The oppressed who has a lawsuit shall come before my image as king of justice. He shall read the writing on my pillar, he shall perceive my precious words. The word of my pillar shall explain to him his cause, and he shall find his right. His heart shall be glad [and he shall say] “ The Lord Hammurabi has risen up as a true father to his people; the will of Merodach, his god, he has made to be feared; he has achieved victory for Merodach above and below. He has rejoiced the heart of Merodach, his lord, and gladdened the flesh of his people for ever. And the land he has placed in order. 5 ‘ Reading the mandates, he shall pray before my lord Merodach and my lady Zarpanit with a full heart ; and the guardian spirits, THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 53 the deities, who reside in E Sagila within E Sagiia, shall daily intercede before Merodach my lord and Zarpanit my lady. In after days, and for all time, the ruler who is in the land shall observe the words of justice which are written upon my pillar. He shall not alter the law of the land which I have formulated, or the statutes of the country that I have enacted, nor shall he damage my sculptures. If that man has wisdom, and strives to keep his land in order, he will heed the words which are written upon my pillar. The canon, the rule, the law of the country which I have formulated, the statutes of the country that I have enacted, this pillar shall show to him. The black-headed people he shall govern ; their laws he shall pronounce, their statutes he shall decide. He shall root out of the land the perverse and the wicked, and the flesh of his people he shall delight. Hammurabi, the king of justice, am I, to whom Shamash has granted rectitude. My words are well weighed, my deeds have no equal ; above and below I am the whirlwind that scours the depth and the height [V. Col. XXVI]. If that man heeds my words that I have engraved upon my pillar, departs not from my laws, alters not my words, changes not my sculptures, then may Shamash make the sceptre of that man to endure as long as I, the king of justice, and to lead his people with justice. But if that man heed not my words that I have written upon my pillar; if he has scorned my malediction, nor feared the curse of God; if he has annulled the law that I have given, or altered my words, or changed my sculptures, or erased my name 54 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION in order to write his own; or if, from fear of these curses, he has commissioned another, then that man, whether he be king, or lord, or viceroy, or a man of any other title, may the great Anu, the father of the gods, who has decreed my reign—may he extinguish the glory of his throne, may he shatter his sceptre, may he curse his end. May the lord Bel, w Tho fixes fate, whose word is unalterable, and who has magnified my royalty—may he allot him a rebellion which his hand cannot quell : the breath of his ruin may he breathe upon his throne : years of sighing : fewness of days : years of famine : darkness without light : and a death with open eyes. May his deep mouth decree him the over- throw of his city, the dispersion of his people, the removal of his royalty, and the annihilation of his name and memory in the land. May Beltis, the great mother, whose word is great in E Kur, the lady who gives ear to my desires in the place of justice and statutes before Bel—may she make his cause bad before Bel ; may she put in the mouth of Bel, the king, to devastate his land, to annihilate his people, and to pour out his soul like water. May Ea, the great prince, whose decisions take first place, the divine thinker, the omniscient, who has lengthened the days of my life [V. Col. XXVII]—may he take understanding and prudence from him ; may he plunge him in forgetfulness, obstruct his rivers at their sources, and prevent the growth of corn, 1 the life of men, in his land. May Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, 1 Literally ** Ashman,” the deity who presided over the growth of corn. THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION 55 who maintains all living creatures, the lord who gives confidence—may he cut short his kingship, misjudge his law, obstruct his path, arrest the march of his troops, give him unpropitious visions of the uprooting of the foundation of his rule, and the ruin of his land. May the decree of Shamash hasten after him; may he lack life on earth; may he lack water among the spirits under the earth. May Sin, the lord of the heavens, my divine creator, whose crescent shines among the gods—may he take from him diadem and throne of royalty ; may he lay heavy sin upon him, with a penalty which shall never depart out of his body ; may he complete the days of the months, the months of the years of his reign in sighs and tears; may the cares of government be multiplied to him ; may he destine him a life which is a struggle with death. May Adad, the lord of fertility, the prince of the heavens and the earth, my helper—may he take away from him the rains of heaven, and dry up the outflow of springs ; may he waste his territory with want and famine ; may he thunder his anger against his city ; may he turn his dominions into ruins by tempests. May Zamama, the great warrior, the eldest son of E Kur, who marches at my right hand upon the field of battle—may he break his weapons ; may he convert his day into night, and cause his foe to triumph over him. May Ishtar, the mistress of battles and combats, who wields my weapons, my guardian angel, who loves my reign—may she, in her passionate heart, in her deep anger, curse his royalty, turning her favours into evils [V. Col. XXVIII] ; may she shatter his weapons – 56 THE TEXT OF THE INSCRIPTION upon the field of battles and combats ; may she bring tumult and rebellion upon him; may she overthrow his warriors, soaking the earth with their blood ; may she strew the corpses of his armies in heaps over the plain, giving them no quarter ; may he be delivered into the hand of his foes, a prisoner in the enemy’s land. May Nergal, the mighty among the gods, whose onslaught none can withstand, who has granted me victory—with his mighty force may he burn up his people like a wisp of rushes; with his powerful weapons may he lop off his limbs, and shatter him like an image of clay. May Nintu, the sublime lady of the lands, my creative mother—may she deny him offspring, and leave him no name, and create no seed of mankind in the habitations of his people. May Nin-Karrasha, the daughter of Anu, the herald of my mercy in E Kur—may she let loose in his members a violent sickness, a noisome pestilence, a fear- some wound which cannot be cured, whose nature no doctor can tell, that cannot be assuaged by bandage, which—like the bite of death—cannot be avoided, until she conquer his life ; and over the loss of his vigour he shall groan. May the great gods of heaven and earth, the Anunnaki in their assembly, the circuit of this temple of E Babbara—may they all curse him with deadly curses, his seed, his land, his army, his people, and his servitors. May Bel, whose word is irrevocable—may he curse him with a mighty curse, which shall immediately take effect. Chapter IV NOTES ON THE CODE In order to avoid breaking up the text of the inscription with notes, all remarks upon it are relegated to this chapter. The legislative part is usually cited by the numbers of the sections, as divided by Professor Scheil; but this numbering does not extend to the prologue and epilogue, which are always quoted by the columns of the original. In this book, therefore, the columns are indicated all through in square brackets. Those on the front, or recto, being marked [R. Col. I], etc., and those on the back, or verso [V. Col. I]. §§ 171, 172 appear to have been incor- rectly divided by Professor Scheil, but it would lead to confusion to alter the numeration. By a printer’s error in Professor Schell’s book (pp. 84, 85) two successive paragraphs have the same number, § 176 ; therefore these are now distinguished a and b. The Babylonians were a literary people, and all matters of business were put on record. We might therefore expect among the thousands of tablets that have come down to us to find many that would illus- trate the provisions of the Code. The difficulties are that most of these records are fragmentary and do not yield a connected sense, the language is involved and redundant, the legal phrases employed are not always obvious, and the contracts are crowded with 58 NOTES ON THE CODE uncouth names. As a consequence the perusal of many such documents is apt to be irritating rather than helpful. Some writers content themselves with giving summaries of the tablets, and this is often sufficient. In other cases the text can be condensed and simplified somewhat for the benefit of the general reader. Many important contract tablets have been collected together by Dr. A. Ungnad in Hammurabis Gesetze (Leipzig, 1909), Professor Morris Jastrow in Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia, 1915), and Dr. B. Meissner in Babylonian und Assyrian (Heidelberg, 1920). The present writer is much indebted to all these works. The sections of the Code are carefully classified according to the Babylonian conceptions of law ; but the last group, §§ 278-82, appears out of place. We should expect these sections to follow the other pre- cepts regarding slavery, §§ 14-20. Evidently this group is an afterthought, or appendix, • due to a revision of the Code, showing that the whole compilation has received anxious study, and been touched up where considered necessary. Nevertheless, the editor might have gone a little further and improved the wording of the sections. They may have been clear and intelligible to their first readers; but the modern student is often puzzled. Thus §§ 6, 8 refer to thefts from a temple or a great house only ; thefts from the humble citizen must surely have been dealt with in the same way. § 42 speaks of corn alone; but from the context we must understand that it would apply to anything else. § 51 mentions sesame alone; whereas from § 50 it ought to comprise com as well. In the important series of laws dealing with NOTES ON THE CODE 59 marriage and inheritance we are left in doubt as to whether some of them are limited to priestesses only or apply to any married woman. §§ 183, 184 only mention the offspring of a concubine ; but surely the daughters of the regular wife would be provided for in the same way I At first sight § 150 appears in conflict with § 172b. In the former the children have no claim on the gift made to the wife ; in the latter she is obliged to surrender the gift to the children. It requires some study to perceive that the two sec- tions are dealing with two different kinds of things. There is also the continually recurring difficulty of deciding whether the word “ man “ means a man in general or a special class of man—the Freeman. These blemishes are excusable in a purely human composition; but Professor V. Scheii says of the monument (p. 12) : “ Au sommet figure en bas-relief le (lieu Santas dictant ces lots d Hammourabi ” ; and many editors have blindly repeated that it is Shamash dictating his laws to the king, although it is an ordinary scene of a worshipper adoring his deify, such as occurs on scores of cylinder seals, on the well- known relief of Nabu-pal-iddin in the British Museum, and on another monument discovered at Susa (Deleg. en Perse, VII, PL 1), where there is no question of dictating anything. Such statements are in direct conflict with the inscription, which consistently claims that the laws were originated by Hammurabi himself. The epilogue commences with the words Dindt mi- sharim ska Hammurabi sharrum Hum ukimmma— “The judgments of justice which Hammurabi, the mighty king, has established ” [V. Col. XXIV, 1-5]. Later on it makes Hammurabi speak of the law of 6o NOTES ON THE CODE the land which he has formulated and the statutes of the country that he has enacted [XXV, 64-83], and it is impossible to make him claim the authorship of the Code in stronger language. It is true that he refers several times to the god Shamash, “the great judge of heaven and earth/’ as the source and the supporter of law and justice ; but that is quite another thing to claiming that the Code was dictated by the Sun-god. In most mythologies the Sun is the god of Justice, because when he rises over the earth he discovers everything. Professor Clifton D. Gray, of Chicago University, has published an Assyrian hymn in praise of the Sun-god, in which, among other things, Shamash is hailed as the revealer and chastiser of perjury, adultery, bribery, and all other offences, and the one who unmasks the dishonest tradesmen who uses false weights and scales, and goes further than most legis- lators by rewarding the good as well as repressing the guilty. 1 But, though the Chaldeans appealed to Shamash as their judge, they did not credit him with the Code we have before us, for, as Professor Langdon reminds us, ” The royal legislation of Hammurabi was known to the Assyrian scribes as the dinani (sha) Hammurabi—/The judgments of Hammurabi’) ” (J.RAS 1920, p. 490). The Sumerian laws, however, were not ascribed to a monarch. The newly-discovered Sumerian lawcode is entitled “The Decisions of Nisaba and Hani.” Nisaba was the goddess of Writing, and Hani “ the Lord of the Seal,” from which we may infer that the Sumerians made the same distinction as the English 1 The Shamash Religious Texts (Chicago, 1901)-. NOTES ON THE CODE 61 lawyers between documents under hand and under seal.1 Hammurabi begins with a long prologue in which the legislator claims to have been appointed clci gratia , and he gives a list of his principal cities, arranged in the order of their sacerdotal importance. Thus Nippur, as the holiest of all, comes first ; and then they grade off in sanctity until we get to Nineveh, which comes last. In the list of places we have put the names of the cities in small capital letters for more easy reference. Each city is accompanied with the title of its chief temple, which we have put in italic type. The temple may also be recognized by the prefix E, an old Sumerian word meaning “ house ” (Semitic Babylonian bit, the Hebrew beth). Thus E Kur is “the house of the land,” E Absu “ the house of the abyss,” etc.In Sippara the chief temple was E Babbar, “the house of light,” dedicated to Shamash. His consort Malkat (in Akkadian A a) was the Persephone of the Babylonian pantheon, and it appears that her grave was shown in the temple covered with green turf, for she represented Nature in her winter sleep, from which she is revived by the summer sun. Consequently her symbol in the great temple of Sippara was the “ verdant cenotaph,” restored by the pious care of Hammurabi. Nergal, the god of the dead, was the tutelary deity of Kutha, which, accordingly, was the centre of an enormous cemetery. Therefore Hammurabi appro1 Yale Oriental Series : Babylonian Texts, vol. i, p. 19 (New Haven; 1915). 62 NOTES ON THE CODE priately styles himself “ the grave of the foe ” when he refers to this city and its temple. Hallabu was the Semitic name of an important city of Southern Babylonia. It stood in the vicinity of Sippara. The British Museum has a tablet of Rim-Sin recording the erection of a temple to the goddess of this city, and also another tablet record- ing that Hammurabi rebuilt the same temple. 1 Evidently the edifice was commenced by the one and finished by the other. It is interesting to note the name of Nineveh at the end of the list, for this is the first known mention of the city that afterwards became so celebrated as the capital of the realm of Assyria, which took its name from Assur, the cradle of the Assyrian power. Hammurabi’s list of cities is enough to prove that his was not a world-empire. His kingdom extended from Nineveh to the Persian Gulf, and embraced a territory slightly larger than Italy. Most of the places named are well known in early Babylonian history, some of them being at one time the centres of independent States. Semitic Idioms. The translation of the Code has been made as literally as possible consistent with intelligibility ; hence idiomatic expressions are left as in the original. These need not offer any difficulty, for some are familiar from the Old Testament and the others are easily comprehensible. The following are a few examples : — 1 King, Letters of Hammurabi, iii, p. 185. NOTES ON THE CODE 63 § 137. “ Set his face ” = has a’ design to. § 169. “ Turn aside his face ” = change his intention, § 162, “Gone to her fate ” = has died. Shimtu means “ fate/’ or ” destiny/’ or ” lot ” ; and, as death is the common lot of humanity, the Babylonian idiom expressed it as going to one’s destiny. § 194. ” In the hand of ” = in the possession of; etc. The Three Estates oe Babylonia. The Code divides the inhabitants of Mesopotamia into three classes—the Freeman, the Plebeian, and the Slave (.Amelu, Mushkenu, and Wardu). The word Amelu means, primarily, a ” man ” ; and occasionally it is difficult to know whether the Code is speaking of a man in general or a special kind of man. In the latter case, the offence committed against an Amelu entails a heavier punishment than if committed against either of the other classes ; and, correspondingly, a crime by an Amelu carried the greater penalty. Thus the Amelu must have been a prominent and important personage. Some translators have designated him as a Patrician, or Gentleman; but either of those terms might convey an incorrect impression. The Amelu was neither more nor less than the full citizen of Babylonia. In ancient societies the full citizen was the only person recog- nized by the eye of the law. A stranger had no rights whatever, and had no kinsman to take his part in quarrels. He was obliged to place himself under the protection of a full citizen if he wished to remain in 64 NOTES ON THE CODE the community in peace and security* In ancient Rome the Patrician was surrounded by a body of “ clients ” whom he protected, and who were expected to support him politically. In like manner, in ancient Babylon there was a body of Ameli, or Freemen, who were of cardinal importance in the social organization, and formed the ruling class. The Freeman lived in an ekallu, or “ great house,” which most of the translators of the Code render by “ palace.” This, again, conveys a wrong impression, as in §§ 15, 18, 109, for we cannot suppose that every one was in easy reach of the king’s residence. The house of the Amelu might not be a large or an ornate edifice. It was an ekallu because it was the home of the full citizen. Just as we express the same idea by the proverb that “ an Englishman’s house is his castle,” which was at one time a literal fact. In the city of London, for example, we find thoroughfares named Aldermanbury, Bucklersbury, and Lothbury. The “ bury ” stands for the Anglo-Saxon burh, a fortified house, and these place-names inform us that in the early Middle Ages there , were in those localities the fortified house of an alderman, another stronghold belonging to the Bukerells (the earliest form of the name is Bukerelesbury), 1 and another belonging to a man named Hloth (cognate with Clothaire). The Anglo-Saxon Atheling kept his head by his own right arm and by the spears of his liegemen. Therefore he lived in a stockaded hall in the country and in a fortified house in town. Life was slightly more peaceful in ancient Babylon, so we need not imagine the Amelu to require a castle n 1 Arthur Bonner, F.S.A., Some London Place-Names/’ Transac. London and Middlesex Arch. Socy., 1916, p. 296. NOTES ON THE CODE 65 for his residence. In this book we translate ekallu by “ great house/” merely warning the reader not to attach too much importance to the word, for houses in the East are neither imposing nor comfortable, judged by Western standards. The Amelu was a leader in the community, §§ 18, 32, 109, and exercised a general supervision over his clients. He enforced respect from the lower classes, but was expected to follow a higher standard himself, and if he offended his punishment was so much more severe. Apparently, the most appropriate term for him is “ Free- man/’ which we write with a capital letter to dis- criminate from other cases where it is only a question of the distinction between the free man and the slave. hA/;;/ ‘// The Mushkenu is less easy to define. All through the Code we have definite regulations regarding Mushkenu (the Hebrew mishen, adopted into the Italian as meschino, and thence -into the French mesquin, “mean”” or ” shabby ”). The Mushkenu, however, was by no means a pauper. He possessed silver, § 140; and he owned slaves, §§ 15, 175, 219; and his slaves were sometimes sufficiently well-off to marry free women, §§ 175, 176. A mere artisan, or man who lives by his labour, is not a Mushkenu; he is styled a mar ummia, or ** son of the people/” §§ 188, 274; and the “ son of the people ” was evidently a free man, like the other persons who served for wages and are mentioned in §§ 239, 257, 258, 261, and 271. A slave could be emancipated ; but there is nothing in the Code to show how a Mushkenu could change his condition. His status depended upon birth, for §§ 208, 216, 222 deal with the son of a Mushkenu, -and c 2 66 NOTES ON THE CODE § 211 with a daughter of the same. The Mushkenu’s life and limb were valued at less than those of a Freeman, and more than those of a slave, §§ 198, 201, 204. Consequently he stood midway between the class of full Freeman and the class of full slave, and the term “ plebeian ” would seem best to express his condition. When § 15 wishes to express the idea of “ the slave of a man of high degree or the slave of a man of low degree ” it uses the terms “ slave of the great house or slave of a plebeian therefore, the plebeian was the humblest individual who could be thought of as possessing slaves. Slavery in Babylonia was quite different to the modern conception of the institution. In ancient society, and, generally speaking, in the East at the present day, the slave was a member of the family, and might become a person of wealth and conse- quence. Some of the ruling dynasties in the East had a servile origin, or might even be recruited from that class, as the Mamelukes of Egypt. When an ancient Roman required an act of self-denying devotion he did not turn to his friends or his relatives, he turned to his freedman, and he was never dis- appointed. Slavery was not a desirable condition. By the Babylonian Code, if a slave were injured his owner took the compensation, but he had to pay for the slave’s medical treatment. The slave might marry a free woman, in which case his children were free, and on his death the wife inherited half his property. If a free man had children by his female slave, she could not be sold, and at his death she and her children were emancipated. Slaves were most often foreigners; but Babylonians might be reduced to the NOTES ON THE CODE 67 same condition, either because they had committed some crime or because they had fallen into debt, §§ 54, 127. The slave was known by having his hair shaved in a peculiar way, or by being tattooed in the forehead, these marks being the work of the barber or brander, §§ 226, 227. Curiously enough, the Code makes no provision for the emancipation of slaves (except the slave girl and her children). I11 the contracts we have cases of manumission. Either the slave purchases his own freedom, or, more frequently, he is released by the generosity of his owner. f< His brow is purified/’ and he becomes a free man (see p. 108). The status of slavery must be distinguished from that of a person distrained for debt (see “ Debt and Distraint The Ordeal and the Oath. The Babylonians had their courts of law, in which evidence was heard and judges gave their decisions, §§ 5 , 168, 177. But there were cases where credible testimony seemed impossible, and therefore recourse was had to the ordeal by water. The sus- pected person was laid carefully upon the surface of the “ Holy River.” If he floated, he was innocent. If he sank and was drowned, he was guilty. The River-deity had decided the case supernaturally, §§ 2, 132. A less drastic method of discovering the good faith of a witness was by making him swear an oath. Oaths were the regular feature of Babylonian pro- cedure, and almost every contract-tablet is attested in this way. The matter has been discussed by Dr. 68 NOTES ON THE CODE Samuel A. Mercer, of Chicago, in his treatise, The Oath in Babylonian and Assyrian Literature (Paris, 1912), p. 31 : — The Babylonian and Assyrian oath was a solemn promise or declaration made under divine sanction or penalty, and ratified by spoken word, action, or word and action. It was considered, as by modern people, a sufficient indication that the person in question was sincere in his promise or statement. The deity was invoked to strengthen that promise or statement, and to attest its truth, giving assurance of honest and serious intention. The Code usually expresses it “ affirm before God,” § 9; but at various times witnesses swore by the King or by the City—the monarch and the city being regarded as quasi-divine. The tablets do not usually threaten any penalty for perjury, because the sanctity of the oath was evidently universally recognized; but in at least two instances the formula is, “ He that forswears himself, and thereby breaks his oath, shall have boiling asphalt poured upon his skull ” (Mercer, p- 32)- Sorcery. The Babylonians distinguished two kinds of witchcraft—viz., nertu and kispu which we have here translated by ” curse ” and “spell.” A man who considered himself bewitched would resort to the village Asu. The Asu (translated in this Code by “ doctor ”) combined in himself the offices of exorcist, medicine man, physician, and surgeon. His method of procedure was usually to pronounce a counterspell upon the suspected wizard. Such a suspicion. NOTES ON THE CODE 69 however, might be without foundation, and a perfectly innocent manmight find himself in the unpleasant predicament of being denounced before his neighbours as a wizard, and himself the subject of the village magician’s exorcism, carrying with it unknown perils to the superstitious mind. The Code, therefore, gives the suspected party the right of challenging the exorcism; and we know from African examples that a native will face any ordeal to clear himself from the suspicion of witchcraft. The Code does not inform us how nertu was to be justified—perhaps that could be made the subject of judicial inquiry ; but the sufferer from kispu could claim the ordeal by water, and the “ River-God ” 1 decided the case. Not only did the Babylonians consider sorcery an actual thing, capable of being dealt with legally, but the Romans, who are usually considered a practical, hard-headed people, were fully convinced of the reality of magic, and the XII Tables (viii, 8) forbid a man to remove his neighbour’s crops from one field to another by incantation, or to conjure away his corn. .Theft. The punishments in the Code are all summary. There is nothing said about imprisonment. In fact, we cannot say if there were any convict prisons in Babylonia. With the exception of § 202, the penalties resolve themselves into fine, mutilation, and death. At the beginning of the nineteenth century theft was a capital offence in most European countries, and the 1 In the inscription the word for “ river ” has the sign for divinity prefixed to it. 70 NOTES ON THE CODE same thing obtained in Mesopotamia. The Code makes a distinction between animate and inanimate objects. The dog-stealer, when confronted with his crime, invariably excuses himself with the assertion : “ The dawg follered me/’ Hence there might be some doubt as to whether the quadruped or the boat followed the thief of their own free will. He was given the option of compounding for them. There could be no such excuse in the case of portable goods ; they must obviously have been carried away, so the capital penalty was inflicted. §§ 6, 8 confine themselves to the property of a temple or a great house ; but it is reasonable to infer that the property of a plebeian or a slave, § 176, would be equally protected by law. The sections on stolen goods say nothing about temple or great house ; and the same reasoning applies to the other provisions of the Code where property is obtained by force or fraud. Ancient Babylonia was badly policed, and brigandage was common, §§ 22- 4, 103. The hymn to Shamash, already referred to, says : f< The robber, the thief, is thine enemy, 0 Shamash ! He who is over- powered on the road and by the field prays to thee.” Prayer is a poor protection, and we see by these sections that the district was held liable, and had to recompense the victim. §§ 24 and 153 are the only places in the Code where murder is mentioned. Military Service. The Babylonian monarchs possessed vast landed estates. Parts of these were allotted to individuals on a kind of feudal system, the feoffee being bound to NOTES ON THE CODE 71 come up when summoned and serve as soldier or slave- driver or policeman or in any other capacity, for we must remember that military and civil employments were not distinguished. §§ 26-41 deal with this subject, and § 35 shows that sheep and cattle were sometimes included in the fief. Two peculiar phrases are employed : “ Way of the King ” and “ Misfortune of the King.” As regards the first, Dr. Winckler recalled that in Arabic “ the Way of Allah ” means a campaign. In Islam, Allah has taken the place of the King as director of the war. Many translators render it “ the king’s business,” which is more comprehensive. As to the second phrase, dannat sharrim, there is less agreement. Professor Scheil rendered it “ fortress of the King,” and he has been frequently followed. Dr. Winckler proposed “ misfortune of the King,” and Professor Ungnad ” overthrow of the King,” both of them taking the phrase to denote a defeat of the army. Dr. Winckler’s rendering seems to give the better sense. The sections name three classes of feoffee red sabe, literally, marcher of troops bairu, ,, catcher nashi bilti, „ bearer of tribute It is not clear what these terms mean, and various renderings have been adopted. Professor Ungnad suggests (Hammumbis Gesetze, II) that the redu was a heavy-armed soldier, and the bairu a light-armed soldier, and he has been followed in the present work. On the Vulture Stele (now in the Louvre) there is a representation of the heavy-armed troops of Eannadu, king of Lagash (about 3100 B.c.). They wear helmets 72 NOTES ON THE CODE of copper, and each man carries a large square, oblong shield studded with plates of metal. Their offensive weapons are spears, and they march in a close phalanx, with their shields overlapping each other. Professor Scheil rendered nashi bilti as “ tax-gatherer/’ but it seems more likely that he was a man liable to pay taxes, and so, in fact, a feoffee, or feudatory. The feudal soldier was under strict discipline. If he refused service, he was executed. If the soldier did not choose to work his fief, any one else could do so ; and if they held it three years in succession, it was alienated as far as the soldier was concerned ; and if the superintending official did not pursue him, he was no longer liable for service. 1 A soldier taken prisoner had to find his own ransom, § 32. The fief could pass only to the son, not to the wife or daughter, because they could not serve in the army. I11 addition to his fief, the soldier could purchase property out of his own resources ; and he could deal with such property as he chose, and pass it to his wife or daughter, or sell it to a priestess or a trader (priestesses and traders being the people who did most of the business in Babylonia). It was illegal to assign, sell, or pledge the fief, and any consideration paid for it was forfeited. The exact status of the officials mentioned in §§ 33, 34 is not known. Translations vary from sergeant to general. § 41 is not clear. The interpretation of Professor Scheil has been followed. 1 See the article by Dr. Samuel Daiches, of the London Jews’ College, in Z. fur Assyr., Band 18 (Strasburg, 1904-5), NOTES ON THE CODE n Agriculture. The Code deals with two main classes of agricultural property—the field and the orchard. The Babylonians cultivated grain and various kinds of vegetables, and they possessed many varieties of trees, but their main reliance was corn and the date-palm. Hence the field must be understood as being chiefly devoted to wheat, barley, and sesame, and the orchard to the date-palm. The olive tree did not grow in Mesopotamia, and therefore they had no oil except what was extracted from sesame. Wheat and barley were eaten as porridge, or were rubbed into flour between two stones, and the flour made into dough and baked into loaves. The barley was also brewed into beer. The dates were eaten, and the fermented juice made into arefresh- ing drink, which we may call “ toddy/’ as it was pretty nearly the same thing as what is now known by that name in India. A great deal of the land was in the hands of widows or other people who could not cultivate it themseives. Consequently, it was customarily let to farmers, on the stipulation that the landowner should receive onehalf, or one-third, of the crop, § 46. The farmer pro- vided the seed and did the ploughing and reaping, either by himself and his family and slaves or with the help of hired labour. Sometimes, instead of a per- centage of the crop, the farmer covenanted for a fixed rental, as in the following : — From Ina-libbi-ershet (priestess of Shamash and daughter of Warad-ilishu) Idin-zamama has rented seven gan of land for tillage upon a yearly 74 NOTES ON THE CODE rental. At the harvest he will measure out at the gate of the temple two-thirds of a gur of com for every gan. In addition, he will deliver at each of the three great festivals 20 qa of toddy, 5 qa of bread, and one joint of meat. (Names of wit- nesses and date.) In. the case of uncultivated land the farmer took it on a lease of three years. The first year he paid nothing, as he had to prepare the soil. The second year he paid a small rental, and in the third and following years he paid his due proportion of the crop, thus : — From Shillashuna, the proprietor, Marduk-nasir has leased three gan, part of the Estate of the Adad-gate, bounded by the land of Adad-bani. Marduk-nasir will clear and prepare the land in the first year. In the second year he will measure out two-thirds of a gur of corn. In the third year he will measure out corn the same as the tenants of the adjacent fields. (Witnesses and date.) §§ 42-52 regulate the farming of arable land. Having made the contract, the farmer was compelled to carry it out ; and if he had taken uncultivated land on a three years’ lease and had done nothing to it, then in the fourth year he must prepare it and pay a certain quantity of corn as a fine. In case of drought or storm the farmer dipped his tablet in water as a symbolical act and paid no rent for that year. § 45. The Babylonians looked upon most of the operations of nature as due to the direct interference of the gods; thus §§ 45, 48 speak of the god Adad as flooding the fields. Adad was the deity of storms and thunder ; hence in this place his name is to be read as NOTES ON THE CODE 75 the equivalent of “ thunderstorm. ” There is a similar expression, “ stroke of God,” in § 266. When the farmer rented his held he might not have the requisite seed-corn for sowing. He would there- fore go to a trader and borrow money for the purpose of buying seed-corn. But he was not allowed to pledge the crop to the moneylender, lest the latter should swallow up the rental. The landowner stepped in and reaped the crop, first of all taking his share ; then he repaid the loan to the trader, and handed the balance to the farmer. If the landlord (as was usually the case) did not possess enough silver to pay the debt and interest, he gave an equivalent in corn or sesame, according to the rate fixed by royal proclamation ; for the kings took on themselves to fix the prices of the various commodities. On the other hand, if the farmer had borrowed the money, but had not grown any com, he was still liable for the debt. The principal requirement for securing a good har- vest was irrigation, §§ 53-6; and this was just as necessary for the date-palm as for corn. The kings often took great praise for their care for their people by digging canals ; but these were by no means philanthropic undertakings, for the farmers were expected to pay a certain proportion of their crop in return for the water so supplied them. Similar irriga- tion works were carried out by rich landowners and bankers as a speculation. A late contract tablet reads as follows : — Amurm-etir and Amurru-natan have spoken to Ellil-nadin-shum, the son of Murashu, saying: “ Give us water out of the Bel Canal belonging to 76 NOTES ON THE CODE thee, so that we may irrigate our land. For that thou shall enjoy with us one quarter of the dates that grow thereon/’’ Then heard Ellil-nadin- shum, and gave them water out of his Bel Canal for their orchard. Annually in the month of Tishri he enjoyed with them one-quarter of the dates. But the farmer’s liability did not end here. He had to be very careful in opening and closing his ditch and in maintaining the banks of the irrigating stream. Otherwise his fellow-farmers could recover damages from him, §§ 53-6. As mentioned by Theophrastus (p. 6), the usual rotation of agriculture was to take two crops of corn and then turn flocks of sheep on to the land to manure it. §§ 57, 58 are intended to protect the farmer against having his young corn eaten down by sheep through the fraud or negligence of the shepherd. §§ 59-66 regulate orchards on much the same lines as arable fields. The date-palm being a valuable tree, it was a great crime to cut one down. The date does not begin to bear before the fifth year. It is pro- pagated from slips taken from the foot of an adult tree, kept well watered. The care of a planted orchard did not demand so much manual labour as a cornfield, after the trees were grown ; so the owner of the orchard took two-thirds of the crop from the farmer, leaving him one-third as his recompense. If the farmer borrowed money, the owner could claim the whole of the crop, leaving the farmer nothing, but paying off the money-lender, § 66. NOTES ON THE CODE 77 House Property. § 71 is all that has been recovered of a group of laws relating to house property. It deals with what must have been a frequent cause of dispute—namely, where one man’s house could be built on to or lean against another man’s wall. The law enacts that a building attached to another house shall belong to that house, and may not be sold separately from it. The Erasure Upon the Pillar. After § 65 a large portion of the writing on the base of the front of the pillar has been polished away. Professor V. Scheil has shown that there is no doubt that this was done by order of the Elamite king, ShutrukNahunte, who has placed his name and title upon other Babylonian monuments discovered at Susa. In this case, however, the Elamite monarch was evidently appalled by the terrible curses denounced in the Epilogue [V. Col. XXV, 59, etc.] against any ruler who should damage Plammurabi’s inscription, and there- fore the work was never completed. This erasure has deprived us of five columns of writing, and it is estimated that some thirty-live sections of the laws have thus been lost. Some of these have now been recovered. The Code of Hammurabi having been the authoritative law-book of Babylonia during the whole of its later history, it was necessary for the lawyers and students to have portable copies, and several tablets of this nature have been found to contain portions of the law. Professor Scheil in 1902 restored two of the sections from a couple of copies in the British Museum,, an improved translation of which has 78 NOTES ON THE CODE been published by Dr. A. Ungnad in Hammurabis Gesetze (1909), Bd. Ill, p. 268. He has identified them as § 66 and § 71 of the Code ; and this numeration has been adopted by the present writer, basing his render- ing upon that of Ungnad. A larger portion of the text was recovered by Dr. Arno Poebel in 1913 upon a tablet from the temple library of Nippur, now pre- served in the Philadelphia Museum. Dr. Poebel has published his discovery, and it has been discussed by Professor Scheil and M. Ed, Cuq, “ Les nouveaux fragments du Code de Hammourabi,” Memoires de VAcademic dec Inscriptions, tome xli (Paris; 1918), pp. 159-270. The latter has identified the new sec- tions as § 90 to § 100. This numeration has been adopted, and the translation based upon that of Cuq. In 1914 Professor Stephen Langdon published “ A Fragment of the Hammurapi Code ” in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeology, vol. xxxvi, p. 100. The text is contained on a badly damaged tablet of the late Babylonian period, preserved in the British Museum. There are eight or nine sections, but unfortunately they are too mutilated to be intelligible. They are not quite in the same style as the laws on the pillar from Susa/ and it is difficult to guess what part of the gap they could fill. Nevertheless, these dis- coveries encourage us in the hope that before very long the whole of the missing sections may be restored from other copies, and that we shall then be in possession of the complete law-book of the ancient Babylonians. Money-Lending. A loan may be defined as a form of contract whereby one party delivers to the other a certain quantity of NOTES ON THE CODE 79 goods which are consumed in use, on the understanding that the borrower shall return to the lender within a specified time either an equal quantity of goods of the same kind and quality or else an equivalent in goods of another kind. Owing to the universal employment of coined money in modern life, the latter condition seldom presents itself ; but it was an important feature in Babylonian commerce, where one might make a loan in silver to be repaid in wheat or barley or onions or bricks, or might lend wool or oil and expect to be paid back in silver. Such transactions would not be regarded as ” loans ” nowadays. We should give them a different name. But these conditions should be borne in mind, as the business of the Chaldean money-lender would often, from our point of view, be that of a merchant rather than a banker. As a general rule, a lender expects not merely to be repaid the sum he has lent, but to get something in addition, which we call “ interest/’and the Babylonian lender regarded it as a matter of course that he should receive this additional consideration. Money-lending at interest is a standing feature of the contract-tablets from the earliest times; and it is quite evident that the Babylonians never felt that horror of “ lending at usury ” which is so remarkable in Greco-Roman and Medieval economic thought. Curiously enough, the introduction of the use of coined money intensified, if it did not originate, this feeling. The Greek language also contributed to the same idea. Even such a great thinker as Aristotle, in his Politics, argues that tokos, “ interest/’ is an anomaly, for tokos means to have offspring ; and as it is contrary to nature that So NOTES ON THE CODE a piece of money should produce another piece of money, therefore the popular defence of interest was wrong. This notion was eagerly taken up by the ecclesiastics, St. Basil argued that to receive interest for money lent was to reap where one had not sown. Other theologians added arguments from Deut, xxiii, 19, 20 ; Lev. xxv, 35-7 ; and Exod. xxii, 55 ; as well as Luke vi, 35. 1 Convictions of this kind resulted in legislation, both in Roman and Medieval times, and laws were passed forbidding lending at interest (merely recognizing the repayment of the capital sum) or else, limiting the rate of interest by prescribing penalties against ” usury/’ It was not until the sixteenth century that economists began to uphold the obvious fact that interest served to indemnify the risk of total, or partial, loss of the capital or delays in the final repayment, besides being a recompense to the lender for the service he had rendered the borrower. But such was the force of religious prejudice and the authority of the Canon Law that it was a long time before these principles were accepted. The Babylonians were never troubled with such discussions, and the Hammurabi Code treats moneylending as a perfectly legitimate transaction, only needing to be regulated for the purpose of preventing the one side from injuring the other. The Babylonian conception of the subject may be gauged from the term used to denote interest—viz., sibtn ; i.e., “ growth.” The Babylonians having no coined money (and very little uncoined silver) for currency, their loans were largely made in wheat, barley, or sesame—things that were naturally capable of growth. 1 S§e Vulgate, and English Authorized Version. NOTES ON THE CODE 81 If a man borrowed a bushel of corn, and sowed it, it yielded so much more corn. If the lender merely received back his bushel, he had actually made a present of the increase to the borrower. Consequently it was only fair to both parties that the lender should receive some portion of the “ growth ” or increase which had arisen from his loan of the corn. The Babylonians did not distinguish between interest and profit as we do; they had the same word, sihtu, for both. In their view the lender and the borrower had entered into a partnership, and consequently each was entitled to some part of the growth or, as wr e should express it, the lender was entitled to his interest and the borrower to his profit. The notion that the use of metallic silver made any difference was foreign to the Babylonian mind, for it was quite evident that if a man borrowed silver he could buy corn with it, and the corn would grow in the ordinary course of nature. The rate of interest (thirty per cent, for corn and twenty per cent, for silver) seems to us to be excessive; but it reflects the financial conditions in Babylonia, and the fertility of the soil enabled the cultivator to bear such a charge with ease, for we have seen on p. 6 that his crop yielded him at the least fifty to one, and often much more. It was the operations of agriculture which chiefly necessitated these loans. The cultivator found himself without sufficient corn for sowing. He therefore applied to some one who had corn, or could lend him silver to buy com, which he could repay at the harvest. Cuq, Le pret a inieret (Paris; 1918), pp. 36-8, quotes several contract-tablets of this nature, the usual formula being : — 82 NOTES ON THE CODE First year of Samsu-iluna, 9th month. Loan of twelve shekels of silver for the purchase of corn. One month after the harvest the borrower will repay the silver with interest. The above is quite intelligible to the modem mind ; but the tablets record many other varieties of transaction which, at first sight, would not be defined by us as loans bearing interest. If the Chaldean borrowed silver on the understanding that in a few months* time he would deliver dates to the value of the silver, together with an additional payment by way of interest, we should treat it as an ordinary arrangement for the purchase of dates for future delivery, and would not dream of complicating it by considerations of principal and interest. But that was not the way the Babylonians expressed it. Another piece of business recorded by Cuq would be still more foreign to our notions of a loan at interest : — In the 35th year of Ammi-ditana, 10th month, 2nd day. A loan by a judge to three brothers of nine gur of sesame on condition that they extracted one-third of the oil, to be delivered in one month. The borrowers to deal with the sesame in the interval and make their profit by expressing the rest of the oil and disposing of the residue. Our view of the matter would be that the judge sold the sesame to the brothers for a specified quantity of oil to be delivered at a later date. These instances, however, will suffice to show that the business of “ money-lending ” in Babylonia covered a great many more classes of transaction than we should place under NOTES ON THE CODE 83 that head, and will tend to explain why the moneylender played such an important part in ancient Babylonian life. It must not be inferred that Babylonians invariably took interest. There are many records of gratuitous loans where the capital alone was repaid; and Cuq (pp. 25-8) refers to an interesting class of loans made by the officials of the Temple of the Sun-God, these advances being made to sick people on the sole condition that if the borrower recovered he would repay. If he died there was no further claim : — Sixth year of Ammi-zaduga, 5th month. Two gur of corn and two-thirds of a shekel of silver, lent by the God Shamash, to be repaid to the treasury of Shamash in the event of the borrower recovering from his present illness. Pedlars. From the Code and from the contract-tablets we learn that it was customary for the trader to establish himself at some centre where he could look after his warehouses. The retail trade was conducted by agents, who were sent in various directions, carrying goods which they sold as opportunity offered. The term for the principal in these transactions is tamkar, which we render by “ trader.” The agent is shamallu, which we render by retailer.” The ” trader ” combined the business of wholesale dealer, general merchant, and money-lender. The “ retailer ” might be a pedlar, or slave merchant, and carry his goods with him; or he might be entrusted with silver to make purchases for the trader’s warehouse; or he 84 NOTES ON THE CODE might borrow money, and buy and sell on his own account, sharing the profit with his principal. Thus there is really no term in our language which ade- quately expresses his position and his activity. Conditions were much the same in the time of Hammurabi as they are to-day in Oriental countries. At the present time it is usual for merchants to collect together in a caravan for mutual protection. They proceed along tracks which have been followed for ages and are universally known. At intervals of a day’s march there is usually a building, called a caravanserai, a walled enclosure where the merchants can repose for the night in security, and be able to beat off the attacks of nocturnal robbers. We associ- ate caravans with camels, but the camel was a rare beast in ancient Mesopotamia, and the horse still more rare. The loads were carried by men or by strings of donkeys. Such caravans travelled immense distances, going far into Asia Minor and Egypt and the shores of the Caspian Sea ; but the Code seems chiefly to con- template agents and retailers and pedlars who wandered about Assyria and Babylonia, buying and selling. We must remember that even in England, before the introduction of main roads, canals, mail-coaches, and railways, the greater part of the internal trade of the country was done by pedlars and pack-trains which travelled everywhere and supplied the wants of the community. In Hammurabi’s time the work was dangerous; brigandage was rife, §§ 22-4; and the intermittent warfare between the petty states fre- quently rendered the roads unsafe, § 103. NOTES ON THE CODE $5 Wine-Shops. It is an anachronism to speak of a wine-shop, seeing that wine was not drunk in Babylonia. Herodotus notes that neither the olive nor the vine grows in that region. The Code was first published in French, and Professor Scheil very naturally spoke of a marchande de vin, and all other translators have followed him. The principal beverages in Babylonia were beer, brewed from barley, and toddy, prepared from fer- mented date-juice. Xenophon, like a true soldier, made special note of the drinks he met with on his march. In Armenia he found barley beer in large bowls, with the grains of barley floating on the top, so that the liquid had to be sucked up through reeds. “ The liquor was very strong unless one mixed water with it, and a very pleasant drink to those accustomed to it.” With regard to the toddy, he says “ the drink was very agreeable, but it brought on violent headaches.” As a general rule, the brewing of beer and the fermentation of the toddy were the work of women, who made and sold the stuff in their own houses. Large proprietors had a brewhouse attached to their premises, and professional brewers came round at intervals and prepared a quantity for the cellar, flavouring with cassia, sesame, and other approved additions. ‘ ;C;;. .—v The following contract-tablet is dated in the thirtyfifth year of the Persian king Artaxerxes (430 B.c.) : — Ahi-iddin has spoken thus to Ribat : “ Give me for brewing 100 gur of dates, 100 barrels, 6 tubs, 2 vats, 2 hired slaves, and cassia ; and I will 86 NOTES ON THE CODE carry out the work. In Sivan and Tammuz I wiE deliver to thee ioo barrels full of good toddy.” Kibat heard him, and gave him the dates to the amount of ioo gur, and the utensils he demanded. In Sivan and Tammuz of the thirty-sixth year he will deliver ioo barrels of good toddy. The drinking-places attracted undesirable characters, § 190, and the proprietors were not of good repute. The Code regulates the price at which the beer was to be sold, §§108, hi, and prohibits the seller from making any extra profit by taking silver and refusing corn at the current tariff of the day. Debt and Distraint. In modem law the creditor can distrain only on the goods of a debtor. In ancient times the debtor’s person could be seized, and he himself sold into slavery, § 54 (apparently into absolute slavery). In order to preserve his own freedom, the debtor might give his wife or children or slaves, who would labour for the creditor, and so work off the debt. But the wife or children were not absolute slaves ; they were not bound to serve more than three years; in the fourth year they were free whether the debt had been worked off or not, § 117. A slave might also be assigned for debt in the same manner; and if the creditor chose to sell the slave, and so recover the debt summarily, he could not be prevented, § 118. If it happened to be a woman who had borne children to her master, he was obliged to buy her back again, and she was then free, §119. If the wife or child or slave died in the hands of the creditor through overwork or ill-treatment, then the debtor could proceed against the. creditor. The Code speaks only of a son, but probably it means that the lex talionis would apply ; and if a relative of the debtor had been worked to death, the corresponding relative of the creditor would suffer. If it were the debtor’s slave, the creditor had to pay twenty shekels (twice the ordinary price of a slave). In addition to these penalties, the debt was extinguished. If it were proved to be a case of natural death, there was no penalty, §115. A woman might stipulate before marriage that she should not be seized for debt, and bind her husband, §151. In most countries the tools of a workman are exempt from seizure, because they are his means of livelihood. In Babylonia the ox was the farmer’s means of liveli- hood, and therefore the creditor was debarred from distraining an ox under a penalty of twenty shekels of silver, § 241. Naturally, this power of distraint was liable to abuses, and §§ 113, 114, protect the householder from any unjust claim, and inflict penalties for illegal distraint. Babylonian Marriage. The Code employs three technical terms in connection with marriage—viz., tirhatu = “ Bride-price ” ; sheriqtu = “ Dowry and nudunnu — “ Marriage settlement.” In theory, Semitic marriage is marriage by purchase. The girl is regarded as the property of her father, and he sells her to the husband for an agreed price. Among some primitive peoples this is not mere theory, but the actual recognized procedure ; and the husband, having 88 NOTES ON THE CODE purchased the wife, is free to sell her again, or to give her in pledge, or to bequeath her to his heirs. Among the Kabyles of northern Africa, for example, marriage is a strictly business transaction ; and the wife passes like any other chattel. The father is not described as having given his daughter in. marriage. The expres- sion is : “ He has eaten the girl/’ meaning that he has parted with her for some article of personal consumption ; as in Gen. xxxi, 15, where Leah and Rachel say Laban “ hath sold us, and hath also quite devoured our money/’ The husband announces his marriage in the words : “ I bought a wife yesterday/’ Further, in the expressive language of the Kabyles : “ The wife hangs to the husband ” ; and in the event of his death she is inherited like any other piece of property. 1 That is marriage by purchase in its extreme form In higher phases of society, although the theory is there, the practice is much milder, and is little more than a form. The Romans had a type of marriage called coempiio, in which the woman was sold with due •ceremony ; but that sale did not give the husband any proprietary rights in her : it was merely a method of releasing her from the authority of her father, as the head of her family, in order that she might pass into the family of her husband.2 The modern law of Islam is animated by the same theory of purchase, but it is not worked out with such 1 La Kabylie et les coutumes Kabyles, par Hanoteau et Xatourneux (Paris; 1873), tome ii, pp. 148, 156. The Laws • of Moses, by Stanley A. Cook (London; 1903), p. 73. Kin- .ship and Marriage in Early Arabia, by W. R. Smith and ; ‘S. A. Cook, 2nd ed. (London; 1903). 2 “ Le Mariage a Babylone/’ par Ed. Cuq, Revue Biblique, -dome ii (Paris; 1905), p. 358. NOTES ON THE CODE 89 logical completeness as among the Kabyles. In ancient Babylonia there was likewise the idea of ; purchase, though the wife is no longer the mere chattel. ; In this connection it may be noted that throughout the Code the woman is regarded as a passive instru- ment. Her father or her brothers “give her to a husband and even when she is really her own ; mistress, and exercises a choice for herself, the phrase is : “ The man of her heart shall take her in marriage.” As a general rule, no resistance is contemplated on the part of the woman. When the wife presents a slavegirl to her husband, the girl is assumed to make no objection, §§ 144, 146. In case of rape “ the woman | is guiltless,” § 130. In other sexual offences it is the I man who is punished, §§ 154-6, 158. Only in the case of a married woman is she held responsible, §§ 129, 133 ; and in one case of incest, § 157. In Babylonia marriage was a solemn business transaction; and, like other matters of business, it had to be put in writing, § 128. “ If a man take a ; wife, and a contract has not concluded, then that woman is no wife.” It was the duty of parents to J marry off their children, § 166. The suitor or his : family paid an agreed sum to the woman’s father as bride-price, this amount being often handed over in | instalments, §§ 159-61. As an example, we may quote j the following marriage contract, dated in the reign of Immerum : — – ;{ Warad-Sin (the son of Libni-Sin) has taken in marriage Ishtar-ummi (daughter of Buzazum). 3 He has weighed out to Buzazum as her bridev? price two-thirds of a mina of silver, and given one 4 slave. For all time Buzazum and his sons shall 9 o NOTES ON THE CODE have no further claim upon Ishtar-ummi. If Warad-Sin forsake Ishtar-ummi, he will weigh out to her one mina of silver. If Ishtar-ummi forsake Warad-Sin, she shall be thrown from a high tower, and dashed to pieces. Sworn by all the parties in the names of Shamash and Aia, the City of Sippara, and king Immerum. (Names of eleven male witnesses and five female witnesses.) The average price of a slave was ten shekels. Warad-Sin gives such a slave in addition to forty shekels of silver. Thus he pays fifty shekels in all to the bride’s father, who solemnly declares he has no further claim on Ishtar-ummi, the bride. In other words, this is a marriage by purchase. The transaction entails certain legal consequences. The woman becomes the wife of the purchaser, even though she does not immediately co-habit with him, § 130. If the father receives part of the bride-price ‘and eventually refuses to hand over the girl, he is obliged to return double the amount received, §§ 160, 161. If the woman dies without children (children being one of the conditions of marriage, according to Semitic idea), the husband deducts the bride-price he has paid from any property she has before handing back her property to her father, § 164. Thus it will be seen that the purchase-money is the usual prelude to marriage ; but the rule is not absolute, for §§ 139, 140 contemplate cases where no bride-price has been paid. (§§ x39> I4° may refer to a woman who has contracted a second marriage, and so did not require a bride-price to be paid to her father.) Nevertheless, this purchase does not give the husband any proprietary rights in the wife. He may NOTES ON THE CODE 91 give her to work for debt, §§ 117, 151, 152 ; but that servitude is limited to three years. In case of aggravated disobedience he may treat her as a slave, but only in his own house ; that is to say, he cannot sell her to any one else, § 141. In no case does the Code regard the woman as a mere chattel. On the contrary, it is full of clauses defining her rights and interests. Thus, although the suitor has paid the bride-price, he cannot be regarded as having actually purchased the woman, for his rights over her are limited. There is, however, a second marriage custom, or condition of marriage—namely, the payment of a dowry by the bride’s father. This practice is quite incompatible with marriage by purchase, because, instead of the suitor making a payment to the father to obtain his daughter, the father now appears to give something to the husband to induce him to take the girl ! It is true that, when we study the Sections more carefully, the dowry is not really given to the husband. Although he may have the management of it, it is always ultimately the property of the wife. It is a present given to her to cover the expenses of marriage. If she dies without children, her father takes back the amount of the dowry, § 163. If she has children and then dies, her children inherit her dowry, § 167. If the wife be neglected and ill-treated, she takes her dowry, and goes back to her father, § 142. If she be divorced through no fault of her own, her husband is obliged to give her back her dowry and make no deduction for the bride-price, §§ 137, 138. If the wife fall ill and wishes to return to her own family, she takes her dowry with her. 92 NOTES ON THE CODE § 149. If the husband, dies, the wife resumes her dowry, §§ 171&, 172b. Hence it is quite clear that the husband is only in temporary custody of the wife’s fortune. It is such a recognised custom for the father to give his daughter a dowry that if he dies before she is married the executors reserve part of the estate for her dowry, § 184. From that point of view, therefore, the dowry represents the portion of the paternal estate to which the daughter is entitled. When she leaves her father’s house in marriage she takes this participation with her instead of waiting for the death of her parent. That is the reason why, if she dies without issue, her share of the family estate reverts to the family. The following is a short contract-tablet where the bride carries a dowry : — Enlil-idzu (priest of Enlil and son of Lugalazida) has taken in marriage Ama-sukkal (daughter of Ninib-mansi). Nineteen shekels of silver has Ama-sukkal brought to Enlil-idzu as her dowry. If Enlil-idzu says to Ama-sukkal “ Thou art not my wife,” he shall return the nineteen shekels of silver, and in addition pay half a mina of silver for her divorce. If Amasukkal says to Enlil-idzu “ Thou art not my husband,” she shall forfeit the nineteen shekels of silver and in addition pay half a mina of silver. In mutual agreement they have sworn by the name of the King. How, then, can we reconcile these two apparently discordant customs, where on the one hand the suitor pays a price to the father, and on the other the NOTES ON THE CODE 93 father makes a gift of property at the time he hands the bride over to the husband ? We can only conclude that the marriage by purchase, once universal, had decayed. The father felt repugnance at the idea of selling his child for money, and therefore the brideprice degenerated into a symbol. It was now accepted as a pledge, or earnest-money, that the suitor really wished to enter into matrimony, besides being a tangible proof that he was in a position to support a wife. In most cases the bride-price resolved itself into a gift made by the suitor to the bride, but passing through the father; unless the father were poor, or covetous, and so pocketed it himself. In late Babylonian times the bride-price went completely out of fashion, and we meet with nothing in the marriage contracts except the dowry. Herodotus (i, 196-9) has some remarks upon female life in Babylonia. He came himself from a land where a girl had no chance of contracting a respectable marriage unless she possessed a dowry, and where it was considered a meritorious form of charity to provide portions for dowerless maidens. Therefore one Babylonian custom struck him as being particularly worthy of praise, though he adds regretfully Such was their best institution ; it has not, however, con- tinued to exist/’ As he relates it, the institution was that once a year all the marriageable girls were brought together. The handsome ones were sold to prospective husbands, and the money so collected was given to the ugly ones as a dowry, so that they too might be wedded. “ Neither might a purchaser carry off a girl without security ; but he was obliged first to give security that he would certainly marry 94 NOTES ON THE CODE her, and then he might take her away. If they did not agree, a law was enacted that the money should be repaid/’ All this reads like a garbled and blundering account of the Babylonian marriage customs of Bride-price and Dowry. The Greek traveller was quite mistaken in thinking that the price paid by the suitor went to form a fund for providing dowries for less attractive maidens. The Code plainly shows, §§ 163, 164, that the bride-price usually came into possession of the same girl, as part of her own dowry. As we have already seen, Herodotus was quite correct in saying that, according to law, if the parties did not agree the bride-price was returned. He was also rightly informed that in his time the custom of paying a price for the bride had fallen out of favour. His most serious mistake is in supposing that Babylonian marriages were all arranged at one time—on St. Valentine’s Day. The varying dates upon the contract-tablets show that weddings took place all the year round. So much for bride-price and dowry. The third feature of Babylonian matrimony—viz., the Marriage Settlement—is a much simpler and more intelligible affair. It was a voluntary gift made to the wife by the husband, § 1716, the object being to provide for her future, because, if she had already received it, the widow did not share in her husband’s estate after his death. If she had not had a settlement, she took the same proportion as one of the sons. If she married again, the settlement reverted to her first husband’s family, § 1726. We thus translate nudunnu by 21 The Babylonian Code only contemplates injuries to slaves by third parties. In § 217, however, the owner is liable for fees for medical attendance on a slave. v. 22-5 §§ 209-14 are more detailed than the Hebrew, and, as the Code only recognizes the lex talionis in the case of equals (§ 200), the I law of retaliation comes into force solely in 1 case of the death of a free woman. v. 26,27 xhe Hebrew assesses eye or tooth of slave at full value; the Babylonian at only half 1 (§ 199)- ; v. 28 § 250. Both legislations acquit the owner of a goring ox; but the Hebrew has super- posed the Bedaween idea that the animal is accursed. The ox is to be stoned to death, and its flesh may not be eaten, j v- 29-32 § 251. The Hebrew law lays the owner of 122 v. 33-6 xxii, i v. 2-4 v. 5 v. 6 V. 7 v. 8 v. 9 THE LAWS OF MOSES a vicious ox open to the vengeance of the relatives of the deceased, though they are allowed to accept a ransom if they so choose. The Babylonian fixes a penalty of thirty shekels in case of a free man, twenty shekels for a slave. The Hebrew assesses the slave at thirty shekels, and in all cases directs the ox to be stoned. Although the Babylonian Code does not provide for these specific instances, §§ 53-6 make a man responsible for injuries done tp the property of others. § 262 would probably deal with this if it were entire. § 8 inflicts a thirty-fold penalty in the case of a free man, ten-fold in the case of a plebeian, for animals stolen from mansion or temple. § 21. Both direct a thief caught in the act to be slain; but the Hebrew (like the XII Tabb.) limits this to robbery by night. § 57- In both Codes trespass is to be paid for in kind. See note to xxi, 33-6. § 125. Both laws agree, and both leave to the depositee the duty of recovering the loss from the thief. § 120. In both laws the suspected de- positee has to clear himself by oath “ before * God.” §§ 9-13. The Babylonian is the more detailed in directing inquisition into claims for lost property. But while the Code is con- cerned in tracing out and identifying the THE LAWS OF MOSES 123 original thief, the Hebrew legislator merely orders the receiver or holder of the stolen goods to refund double. v. jo, 11 § 266. Both laws are identical, and in both the shepherd clears himself by oath, v. 12 § 263. The laws again agree. v- *3 § 244. The laws again agree. v* *4 §§ 245-8. The laws agree, but the Babylonian is more detailed. v- The Babylonian law makes no mention of such a case as injury to an animal in charge of its owner. But it would probably take the same view. The Hebrew gloss is not very enlightening (glosses seldom are); but it probably means that, the owner having voluntarily put the animal to the work, he had no grievance if any ill result followed. § 130. The Code agrees more fully with Deut. xxii, 25, 26. The regulation in Exodus implies that the Hebrew father exacted a higher bride-price for a virgin daughter. Seduction rendered her less saleable, and therefore he was given the right to compel the seducer to marry the girl at the full price, or pay the difference in her value. The Book of the Covenant inhibits only a female sorcerer. From Jer, xxvii, 9, it appears that male sorcerers were recognized in Israel even after the publication of Deut. xviii, xo, which forbade them. In Isaiah iii, 3, which is probably pre-Deuteronomic, the cunning charmer and the skilful enchanter are reckoned among the notables, and the deprivation of :1118Illli 13 124 THE LAWS OF MOSES the services of these sorcerers is held up as a terrible punishment. v* 19 Not in Babylonian Code. v- 20 The Babylonian Code nowhere inculcates religious persecution. v« 21 The Hebrew merely recommends the Ger to the mercy of the Israelite, while the Babylonian Code contains a series of regulations in regard to the rights of the plebeian. v.~22-4 Widows and orphans are left in the Hebrew to the mercy of relations, and it appears from the complaints of the prophets, Isaiah i, 23, Ezek. xxii, 7, Mai. iii, 5, etc., that these unfortunates received scant justice in Israel, v. 25-7 § 241. The Hebrew forbids distraint upon necessary clothing, but inflicts no penalty in case of infraction. Deut. xxiv, 64 forbids distraint upon a quern or quern-stone, but likewise inflicts no penalty. The Babylonian extends the provision to plough oxen, and enforces the regulation by fine, v. 28 31 There are no religious ordinances in the Babylonian Code. xxiii, 1-2, §§ 4, and 5. While the Hebrew is merely 6-8 rhetorical, the Babylonian makes practical provisions. The rest of Exod. xxiii is either religious or aphoristic, and therefore presents no analogy with an established code of legislation. There is no need to suppose that the promulgation of the Book of the Covenant put a stop to the influ- ence of external codes upon Hebrew law, and we THE LAWS OF MOSES 125 actually find precepts in the later legislation of the Pentateuch which recall ordinances of the Hammurabi Code that are neglected in Exodus . Thus : — § 3 is in greater agreement with Deut. xix, 15-21, than Exod. xxiii, 1-8, to which we have compared it. § 59 may have inspired Deut . xx, 19. § 60 prescribes that when an arboriculturist undertakes to plant an orchard he is to enjoy the fruit for four years, and in the fifth year the owner comes in and takes his share. Lev . xix, 23-5, reads very much like a blundering reminiscence of this ordinance. For three years the yield of the orchard is tabu, the fourth year’s crop is sacred, and not until the fifth year (as in the Babylonian) does the owner appropriate the fruit. ‘ § 129 agrees with Deut. xxii, 22. § 132. Num. v, ii~3i,is essentially the same, and in both cases the woman is directed to undergo an ordeal by water. The Babylonian Holy River, however, was out of the question, for rivers are rare in Palestine. It is therefore replaced by the “ water of jealousy.” §§ 154-8. The Hebrew laws of incest, omitted in the Book of the Covenant, are to be found in Deut. xxvii, 20, 22, 23, and Lev. xviii, 6-18. Several of the usages referred to in the legends of the Hebrew patriarchs are now seen to be in accord- ance with the Hammurabi Code. Thus in Gen. xvi, 3, the barren Sarai gives her maid Hagar to Abram for the purpose of raising children. In Gen. xxx, 3, Jacob’s wife Rachel acts in the same manner ; while xxx, 9, relates the same thing of Leah. All this is in strict conformity with §§ 144-6 of the Code. In Gen. xvi, 4-16, Hagar plumed ’ herself upon her 126 THE LAWS OF MOSES superiority to her mistress, as in § 146, and Sarai “ dealt hardly with her/’ as she was entitled to do by the Code. Hagar ran away, and was sent back home by the ” angel of the Lord,” who directed her to submit herself to her mistress. If the angel had been a police officer of Hammurabi, he could hardly have acted otherwise. When Jacob kept the flocks of Laban (Gen. xxxi, 38-40) he prided himself upon having observed the Babylonian laws laid down in §§ 262-7, and upon the fact that he had not availed himself of § 266 for the purpose of clearing himself by oath in the case of damage by wild animals. Laban, however, did not regulate his wages by § 261. The marriage customs of the Hebrews, though not expressly regulated by law, are in general agreement with Babylonian ideas. Exod. xxii, 15, speaks of the bride-price, or Mohar (mistranslated “ dowry ” in the English version). The enamoured Shechem understood perfectly well that a bride-price would be expected for Dinah (Gen. xxxiv, 12), and offered any desired amount. And in 1 Sam. xviii, 25-7, Saul having desired a peculiar bride-price for his daughter Michal, David duly procured it and wedded the lady. In Jud. i, 15, and the parallel narrative in Josh. xv, 19, we have the only mention in the Old Testament of a dowry given with a daughter, it being called a berakah or “ blessing,” and not being very clearly distinguished from a mere gift from a father to his daughter. Lastly, in Gen. xxxiv, 12, Shechem promises a matthan, or ” gift,” corresponding with the Babylonian nudunnu—i.e. } a marriage settlement. It seems, therefore, that all the ordinances of Baby- THE LAWS OF MOSES 127 Ionian marriage were recognized in Israel, although the bride-price was the only one that received any ‘•! great amount of attention. 1 These resemblances should be decisive. In the comparison of the Hebrew Book of the Covenant if; – with the Babylonian Code the resemblances are simply overwhelming. Out of thirty-two ordinances twenty-one are in accord with the Babylonian, most being practically identical, and the others being i quite in the Babylonian spirit. The inference is, therefore, that the Hammurabi Code must have been the imme- | Mate or remote progenitor of the Hebrew legal system. For the sake of simplicity we have so far regarded the Book of the Covenant as though it were a homogeneous composition; but it must be evident to every attentive student that it is nothing of the kind. The differences of style observable in it have I been investigated by several eminent critics, whose conclusions have been summarized by Professor G. F. 1 Moore. 1 For our purpose, however, it will be sufficient to indicate merely a few of the peculiarities I j. of the “ Book.” The way in which chapter xxi commences would lead one to expect a carefullydigested corpus of law. First we have stated the hypothetical case of the purchase of a Hebrew slave, and then comes an orderly consideration of the various contingencies arising therefrom. But this complete and methodical treatment is not maintained. The laws are mixed confusedly together, so that xxi, 22-5, 1 See his article “ Exodus (Book) ’* in the Encyclopedia Biblica, edited by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, vol. ii (London ; 1901). 128 THE LAWS OF MOSES has become inserted in the middle of a section dealing with an entirely different subject (verses 20, 21, and 26, 27), and after xxii, 17, the ordinances become a mere jumble. In fact, these three chapters of Exodus look more like the wreck of a code than an orderly statement of one. There is also some difference in the way in which the several laws are stated. The greater part are put hypothetically, as in the Code of Hammurabi (for the Babylonian shumma amelu, “if a man,” answers pretty closely to the Hebrew “ and if a man”), but in other instances they are categorical. Thus xxii, 18, commences “ thou shalt not,” and xxii, 19, “ whosoever lieth,” in an entirely different style to the hypothetically stated enactments. Even these latter are stated variably^some being addressed to the pronoun of the second person, and others (in the style of the Babylonian Code) being referred to the third person. Thus xxii, 25, “ If thou lend money,” should be contrasted with xxii, 1, “ If a man shall steal an ox.” A further peculiarity in these two hypothetics is that in the one God is repre- sented as speaking directly, while in the other he is referred to as a third party. Thus xx, 25, “ If thou make me an altar of stone”; but in xxi, 6, “his master shall bring him unto God” If, now, we separate the sections which speak of the third person, in the Babylonian style, we shall find they consist of the following : xxi, 1-11, 14, 18-36; xxii, 1-17; and these are the passages that agree best with the Code of Hammurabi! It is evident, therefore, that the verses in question are fragments of an early Hebrew book of laws which was derived from the Babylonian THE LAWS OF MOSES 129 I Code. The fragments are preceded and introduced 1 by the words, “ And these the mishpatim which thou I shalt set before them/’ The word mishpatim, “ judgments/* answers to the Babylonian dinani. HamI murabi calls his Code Dinani mesharim, “ judgments of justice ** ; the Hebrew legislator calls the old 1 Hebrew Code mishpatim, “ judgments ** ; and the I Psalmist speaks of the “ judgments of justice/* just like the Babylonian (Ps. cxix, 7, 62, 164); so that the technical phrases are practically identical. ! The discovery of the Code of Hammurabi, therefore, enables us to place the criticism of the Book of the Covenant upon a fresh and sound basis. It is now perfectly clear that the compiler of the “ book ** adopted such of the older laws as suited his purpose, and added to them sundry regulations of a ritual character, together with precepts of the kind that have been popular with moralists of all ages, from the counsels of Ptah-hotep 1 (3500 b.c.) to the copybooks of the twentieth century. The science of jurisprudence must have been at a very low ebb in Palestine when such a compilation as the Book of the Covenant was possible. The laws themselves are treated as quite subordinate, and the interest of the compiler centres in theological matters, such as the proper methods of sacrifice and the regulation of the periodic festivals. In the later systems of Pentateuchal legis- lation this tendency is progressively increased. The I Book of Deuteronomy cannot conceal its entire deI ‘ pendence upon the Book of the Covenant for its legal 1 M. Philippe Virey, “ The Precepts of Ptah-hotep : the Oldest Book in the World Records of the Past, new series, vol. iii, p. 16. 130 THE LAWS OF MOSES matter ; and the additions made are merely religious and sermonistic. Even Canon Driver sums up the characteristics of the later codes as follows 1 : — “ From a literary point of view, Deuteronomy (disregarding the few short passages belonging to P, and the two poems in chs. 32, 33) consists of a code of laws ac- companied byhortatory introductions and comments/’ “We come next to the Law of Holiness (H) (Lv. 17-26). This consists substantially of an older body of laws, which have been arranged by a later editor in a parenetic setting, the whole thus formed being afterwards incorporated in P, with additions and modifications, designed for the purpose of harmonizing it more completely with the system and spirit of P. . . . The original nucleus of H, when compared with the Book of the Covenant, will be seen to deal very much less fully with civil and criminal law. The only regulations relating to criminal law are those in 2417~5U , Those in ch. 25 might be classed as belonging formally to civil law, but they are regarded more properly as expressions of religious or humanitarian principle.” “ The legislation of the Priests’ Code properly so called (P) is confined almost entirely to ceremonial observances, especially those relating to sacrifice and purification/’ In other words, the successive codes of the Pentateuch display greater and greater sacerdotalism as time goes on. It was entirely owing to the influence of the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi that the religi- ous system of the Old Testament was cast into a legal form at all. The Hebrew language itself bears witness 1 Article ” Law ” in the Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings, vol. iii (Edinburgh; 1900), THE LAWS OF MOSES 131 to the knowledge of codes of law engraved upon stone, like the pillar found by M. de Morgan at Susa. 1 The Israelites did not preserve all the Babylonian laws ; some were inapplicable, others implied a more advanced state of civilization and morality than was to be found in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The military regulations (§§ 26-41) did not obtain in Israel, because, as far as we know, the kings had no bodies of feudal vassals settled upon crown lands, although they did have bands of foreign mercenaries in their pay (2 Sam. xx, 7). Every able-bodied Israelite was expected to serve as a soldier, and to appear fully armed whenever called out by general levy (1 Sam. xi, 7). The land regulations (§§ 42-56) are not represented in the Pentateuchal legislation, although there were large landholders (Is. v, 8) who must have farmed out their estates ; and there was some amount of irrigation, though, of course, not on the scale practised in the valley of the Euphrates. §§ 60-6 have also dis- appeared from Hebrew jurisprudence, with the exception of the apparent reminiscence in Lev. xix, 23-5, of which we have already spoken. The Jews of the Old Testament were not a mercantile race, hence §§ 100-7 were unnecessary. Agriculture was the staple industry, and all commerce was in the hands of the Phoenicians ) Isaiah xxiii, 8, even using the word “ Canaanite ” as a synonym for merchant. The most noteworthy omission, perhaps, is in re- gard to the laws of inheritance. The provisions of the Hammurabi Code seem very complete and very equitable; but the Hebrew laws are just the reverse. 1 Article ” Law ‘* in the Dictionary of the Bible. 132 THE LAWS OF MOSES We merely learn that Israelitish sons divided the paternal possessions equally among themselves, except that the eldest-born took a double share (Deut. xxi, 15-7). Daughters inherited only upon failure of sons ; and if there were neither sons nor daughters, then the brother of the deceased succeeded (Num. xxvii, 4-11). In any case, the widow had no claim on the estate. In early times, at any rate, she was herself considered part of the property of the deceased, and dealt with accordingly ; as was the custom among the heathen Arabs down to the advent of Muhammad (2 Sam. xvi, 21; iii, 7), and the tenth commandment enumerates the wife together with the house, the ox, the ass, and the other property of one’s neighbour. Even the Book of the Covenant has no provision for the widow and the orphan—they are merely recommended to mercy {.Bxod. xxii, 22), like the Ger or stranger; and we may see by the frequent prophetical denunciations that the condition of the widow and the fatherless was a standing grievance in Israel. A comparison of Babylonian law with Hebrew custom will show how far the Jews had fallen below the moral standard of the subjects of Hammurabi. Adoption, which occupies such a large place in the Code (§§ 185-93), is not referred to in the Jewish law, but is replaced by the curious provision of the Levirate, which treats the wife as a mere child-bearing machine (Deut. xxv, 5-10). The Navigation Laws (§§ 234-40) were, of course, useless to the Israelites, who were not a maritime people. And the scales of fees and wages would be unenforceable out of Babylonia itself. As already indicated, the additions of the Hebrew THE LAWS OF MOSES 133 legislators were almost entirely of a theological character. The basic ideas of the Hammurabi Code are civil right and solid justice; and, considering the times and the circumstances, these are very well realized by the Code. The king makes much of his devotion to the gods and the blessings they have bestowed upon him ; but theology is rigidly excluded from the Code itself. The deities are only called in to decide by the Ordeal in cases where human insight fails (§§ 2 and 132), or to guarantee an oath where human evidence is wanting. In the Pentateuch, on the other hand, the theological interest is paramount. The principle of religious persecution is introduced from the very first, being inculcated even in the Book of the Covenant ; whereas religious persecution was entirely unknown in Babylonia, not only in the Code of Hammurabi, but throughout the whole range of cuneiform literature, as far as we are acquainted with it at present. Num. xxxi, 17-24, is a typical instance of the ideal Pentateuchal combination of bloodthirstiness and ceremonial zeal; and one of the objects of the completed Torah is the establishment of a theological reign of terror. The same penalty is prescribed for petty infractions of ritual as for the gravest crimes ; and the Priests 3 Code is a wearisome litany of “ that soul shall be cut off from his people.” Unauthorized compounding of oil or incense is punishable with death (Exod. xxx, 33, 38), so is neglect of the Passover {Num. ix, 13), Sabbath-breaking {Exod. xxxv, 2), or even doing “ aught with an high hand ” {Num. xv, 30). The fierce and senseless intolerance of the Laws of Moses forms a significant contrast to the judicial dignity of the Laws of Hammurabi. Appendix A BABYLONIAN WEIGHTS, MEASURES 4ND VALUES Although Babylonian metrology is still a difficult subject, its elements have been worked out by Fr Thureau-Dangin, in his “ L ’U, Le Qa, et La Mine’ leur mesure, et leur rapport,” in the Journal Asiatique tome xiii (Paris; 190.9),- p. 79;’ and the following tables are now generally accepted, although it will be understood that the English equivalents are merely approximate, and are not intended to be exact 1 Cubit = 18 inches 1 Gan =18 feet = square feet = 8 < „ = 36 square yards = 16 acres = I pint = 3i bushels 1 Troy grain 12 cubits 1 She 3 she = 1 Gin 60 gin = 1 Sar 1800 sar = 1 Gan iQa 300 qa = 1 Gur . 1 grain _ * * 180 grains = 1 Shekel == 180 „ 60 shekels = 1 Mina = 22J oz. Troy 60 mina == 1 Talent = 92* lb. Avoirdupoise Taking pure silver at 5s. 5d. per oz., the values would work out as follows ; — 1 S ra ^n ~ Half a farthing 1 Shekel = 2s. 3d. 1 Mina = £6 15s. 1 Talent == ^405 The value of money was very great, and prices were correspondingly low in Babylonia. There is an in- ? . ‘ x 34 ‘ MEASURES AND VALUES *35 scription of Sin-gashid, king of Erech, lauding the years of abundance which attended his prosperous reign, when a man could go into the public markets and for one shekel of silver (2s. 3d.) he could purchase 9I bushels of wheat s or barley, or 13 lbs. of wool, or 11 lbs. of copper, or 10 quarts of vegetable oil (oil of sesame). Those prices, however, were quite exceptional ; and the days of Hammurabi were neither so cheap nor so prosperous. Monsieur Ed. Cuq, in his Fret a interet (Paris; 1918), and Dr. B. Meissner, in his Babylonien uni AssyHen (Heidelberg ; 1920), have collected together the current prices shown in the contract tablets of the period of Hammurabi; and we are thus able to set out the following table of average values, which will give a better idea of the economic position of Babylonia at the time when the Code was first promulgated : — Com (wheat or barley) … Oil (oil of sesame) . Toddy (fermented juice of dates) Sheep’s wool Goat’s hair Copper Iron Draught ox, for ploughing A cow Aram A sheep A lamb … … … Male or female slave Mantle (the ordinary garment) House (covering 36 sq. yds.) House, with land it stands on Agricultural land … … yd. a bushel 4d. a pint |d. a quart 4d. a lb. Slightly cheaper gd. a lb. 12s. a lb. 18s. 6d. 18s. 3s. 4d. 2S. 3d. 5j ^ >> Enlil-bani „ 24 „ Zambia „ 3 „ ****** ft 5 f > ****** } ) 4 f> Sin-magir „ 11 „ Damiq-ilishu, his son ,, 23 ,, (Nisin conquered by Rim-Sin, of Larsa) The succession of the kings of Larsa has been estab- lished from a cuneiform tablet, acquired some years ago by the University of Yale, New Haven, U.S.A. (See Miscellaneous Inscriptions of the Yale Babylonian Collection, by Albert T. Clay [Oxford University Press, London; 1915], p. 30.) This tablet was found at Senkereh, the site of the ancient Babylonian city of Larsa, and appears to have been written in the twelfth year of Samsu-iluna, king of Babylon ; — The Dynasty of Larsa. B.C. 2367 Napianum reigned 21 years 2346 Emisu 28 „ 2318 Samum if 35 a 2283 Zabaya if 9 « 2274 Gungunum L it 27 „ 2247 Abi-sare . 11 „ 2236 Sumu-ilu 29 „ 2207 Nur-Immer if 16 „ 2191 Sin-idinnam I it – ; W 7 » 2184 Sin-iribam a . 2 „ 2182 Sin-iqisham 6 „ 143 DYNASTIC LISTS B.c. 2177 Sili-Immer reigned x year 2165 Warad-Sin ,, 12 years 2153 Rim-Sin „ 6x „ 2092 (Larsa conquered by Hammurabi, of Babylon) For the list of the kings of Babylon, see Dr. L. W. King, History of Babylon (London; 1915). The First Dynasty of Babylon. b.c. 2225 Sumu-abum reigned 14 years 22×1 Sumu-la-ilum „ 36 2175 Zabium, his son „ 14 2161 Apil-Sin, his son „ 18 ’’ 2143 Sin-muballit, his son „ 20 2123 Hammurabi, his son „ 43 2080 Samsu-iluna, his son „ 38 2042 Abi-eshuh, his son „ 28 2014 Ammi-ditana, his son ,, 37 ” 1977 Ammi-zaduga, his son „ 21 ” 1956 Samsu-ditana, his son ,, 31 ” 1925 (Samsu-ditana defeated and slain by the Hittites) Appendix D EARLIER SUMERIAN LAW CODES When the great Code of Hammurabi was discovered, it was recognized at once that the king had founded his legislation upon the customary law of the period and there was little doubt that this law had been derived from the Sumerians. The earliest known contract-tablets are in the Sumerian language, and there are many records which are evidently iude- j EARLIER SUMERIAN LAW CODES 143 ments, or written decisions, given by judges. Thus a considerable body of case-law must have grown ;] up, and the next step would be to codify it. In 1915 Dr. Albert T. Clay and Dr. Henry F. Lutz were fortunate enough to discover two important fragments of an ancient Sumerian Code of Laws among the tablets in the Yale Collection and the Museum at j Philadelphia. The date of these copies is somewhat uncertain, but they are ascribed with much prob- | ability to the Dynasty of Ur (2465-2347 b.c.). By | their language and their character they must be considerably earlier than Hammurabi, and we may | be confident that they were part of the material he employed for drawing up his own Code. These dis- coveries have been discussed by Professor Stephen Langdon in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1920), p. 489, under the title “ The Sumerian Law Code compared with the Code of Hammurabi.” Professor Langdon arranges the sections as follows : — 1. If a man to a man for planting a garden with trees gave vacant land (and) this vacant land in planting with trees he finished not, to the gardener who did the planting, in his share of it, the (part of the) vacant land which was neglected shall be assigned. I C/. Hammurabi Code, § 61. 2. If (a man) the garden of a man takes over and f pollinates it not, but neglects it, he shall pay ten J shekels of silver. Cf. H. C., § 65. * 3. If a man in the garden of a man has cut wood, half a mina of silver he shall pay. Cf. H. C., § 59. 4. If a man’s house is beside vacant land of a man which is neglected and the owner of the house to the owner of the vacant land “ Thy vacant is neglected; 144 EARLIER SUMERIAN LAW CODES in order to seclude my house strengthen thou thy house ” said, and the words concerning the agree- ment be established, the owner of the vacant land to the owner of the house for whatsoever he lost shall indemnify- Cf H. C., § 71. 5. If a female slave or a male slave from a freeman in a city escape, and in the house of a freeman for one month take up abode and he (or she) be con- firmed (as the owner’s), slave for slave he shall give. If he have no slave, twenty-five shekels of silver he shall pay. Cf H. C., §§ 15, 16, 19. 6. If the slave of a freeman against his master con- cerning his servitude has brought complaint, and to his owner his servitude twice be confirmed upon his forehead shall one incise a mark. Cf. H. C., § 282. 7. If there be a malady, there shall be a gift of the king. Not shall he be left destitute. 8. If there be a malady, and of his own free will he come to a freeman, that freeman shall not reject him, but to the place of his desire he shall cause him to go. 9. If a man against a man for a deed which was not done, for a matter which he knew not, has brought accusation, and that man has failed to prove it, as to the matter which he accused him of, let him bear the penalty. Cf. H. C., §§ 3, 4, n, 126. 10. If the owner of a house or the mistress of a house the burden of taxation on a house has abandoned and has taken himself off, and another man has borne it and for three years he has not ejected him, the man who has borne the burden of taxation of the house shall take that house. The owner of the house shall not protest. Cf. H. C., § 30. EARLIER SUMERIAN LAW CODES 145 11. If the owner of a house . . . (remainder missing). 12. If a second wife he has married, and she has borne him a son, the dowry which from her father’s house she brought shall be her son’s. The son of the wife who was first chosen and the son of the second wife, the property of their father equally shall divide. Cf H. C., § 167. 13. If to a man the wife whom he married bore him a son and that son lived, and a handmaid to her master also bore a son, and the father to the handmaid and her sons gave them their freedom/the son of the handmaid with the son of her master shall not divide the house. Cf H. C., §§ 170, 171. 14. If his wife, the one first chosen, has died, and after the death of his wife his handmaid he took. A son to her master she bore, son like son his house shall enjoy. Cf. H. C., §§ 170, 171. 15. If to a freeman his wife bore a son not, and a hierodule in the highway bore him a son, to that hierodule sustenance in grain, oil, and wool he shall give. To the son of the hierodule whom she bore to him “ He is his son ” (he shall say). As long as his wife live, the hierodule with the wife who was first chosen in the house shall not take up her abode. Cf H. C., §§ 144-7. 16. If a man the wife who was first chosen of a man turned his eye upon, and he was taken in her bosom, not shall she be sent forth from the house. His wife, the wife of his … whom he has married (that is) the second wife, the wife who was first chosen shall support. Cf H, C, §§ 156, 148. 17. If a son-in-law to the house of his father- in-law brought (a tribute) and the marriage gift 146 EARLIER SUMERIAN LAW CODES gave, and then . . . (remainder missing). Cf H. C., §§ 159-61. 18. If a man jostled the daughter of a freeman and that which was in her interior he caused to fall, he shall pay ten shekels of silver. Cf. H. C., §§ 209-13. 19. If a man smote the daughter of a freeman and that which was in her interior he caused to fall, onethird of a mina of silver he shall pay. Cf. H. §§ 209-13. 20. If a man who was sent upon a commission in crossing a river allowed a ship to be lost, until he has raised the ship her rent and the decrease in value to its owner he shall pay. Cf. H. C., §§ 236-8, 240. 21. If an adopted child to his father and his mother “ Not my father, not my mother ” has said, of house, field, garden, slaves, and property shall be he disin- herited, and that adopted child for his full price shall he sell. And if his father and his mother “ Not our son ” said to him, they shall be deprived of utensils and house. Cf. H. C., §§ 185-93. 22. If to an adopted son his father and his mother ” Not our son” (said), from house and city shall they be compelled to go. 23. If (a man) the daughter of a freeman in the street took for a bride, and her father and her mother knew it not, “ I . . . her ” to her father and mother he shall say. Her father and her mother unto wife- hood shall give her to him. 24. If (a man) the daughter of a freeman from the street took for a bride, and her father and her mother knew of it, he who took her for a bride shall be seized and judged. In the house of god he shall . . . 25. If an ox-herd allows a lion to devour (an ox), EARLIER SUMERIAN LAW CODES 147 I a substitute of equal value to the owner shall he I present. Cf. H. C., §§ 244, 266, 267. 26. If an ox-herd allow an ox to be lost, ox for ox (to its owner shall he restore). Cf. H. C., §§ 245, 267. Some half-dozen precepts have long been known as * f The Sumerian Family Laws/’ They were recovered from an exercise-tablet, which appears to have been employed in teaching the Sumerian language; but most probably they were taken from some ancient Code : — 1. If a son says to his father, “ Thou are not my father/’ they shall brand him, and fetter him, and sell him as a slave for silver. Cf. H. C., §§ 192, 226. 2. If a son says to his mother “ Thou art not my mother/’ his face they shall brand, from the city they shall banish him, from the house they shall drive him. 3. If a father says to his son * Thou art not my son,” he shall leave house and goods. 4. If a mother says to her son ” Thou art not my son,” house and goods shall she forfeit. 5. If a wife hate her husband, and says u Thou art not my husband,” into the river they shall throw her, Cf. H. C., §§ 142, 143. 6. If a husband says to his wife ” Thou art not my wife,” half a mina of silver shall he weigh out to her. Cf. H. C., §§ i37~40- 7. If a man hire a slave, and he dies, or is rendered useless, or is caused to run away, or is caused to rebel, or is made ill, then for every day his hand shall measure out half a qa of com. Cf. H, C., §§ 243-8, i99> 252. INDEX TO CODE (The Figures refer to the Sections of the Code, pp. 16-51.) Absconder, 136 Act of God, 249, 266 Adad (God), 45, 48 Adoption, 185-93 Adultery, 129, 133 Artisan, 188, 274 Ass, 8, 224, 225, 244, 269 Assault, 195-2 14 Assignment for debt, 38, 39, 1 5* Banishment, 154 Bigamy, 133-6, 144, 145, 148 Boat-builder, 234, 235 Boatman, 236-9. Boats, 8, 234-40, 275-7 Branding, 127, 226, 227 Breach of promise, 159-61 Breasts, amputation of, 194 Bribery, 4 Bride-price, 138, 139, 159-61, 163, 164, 166 Brigandage, 22-4 Bucket, 260 Builder, 228-33, 274 Bull, 250-2 Burial in the house, 21, 227 Burning, 25, no, 157 Capital punishment, 1-3, 6- 11, 14-16, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 109, 130, 143, 153, 155, 157, 227, 229 Captives, 27, 28, 32, 133“5 Cargo boat, 240, 277 Carpenter, 274 Cattle-doctor, 224, 225 Collision, 241 Compensation, 23, 42, 43, 54- 7, 62, 63, 113, 219, 220, 225, 232, 245-8, 263, 267 Concubinage, 137, 144, 145, 183, 184 Conjugal rights, 142 Consecrated woman, 181 Conspiracy, 109 Cow, 243 Cruising boat, 240, 276 Curse, 1 Damage, 120, 232, 245-8 Date orchard, 59-66 Debt, 38, 39, 48-52, 66, 90-7, 113, 115, 119, 151, 152 Deposit, 122, 127 Desertion, 133, 136, 193 Disinheritance, 158, 168, 169, 191 Distraint, 113-16, 120, 151,241 Divorce, 137-41, 148 Doctor, 206, 215-21 Doorkeeper, 187 Dowry, 137, 138, 142, 149, 162-4, 167, 171&-66, 1 78- 84 Drink, 1 08-11 Drought, 48 Drowning, 109, 129, 133, 143, 155 Ear, amputation of, 205, 282 Elders, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 96, 122 Enclosure, 41 Enfranchisement, 117, 119, 171a 148 INDEX TO CODE 149 Enslavement of free persons* X4* 54* x 15-17* 141 Epilepsy, 278 Exile, 154 Eye, 193, 196, 215, 218, 220 Fallow, 43 False witness, 3, 4 Farming, 42-56, 59-65, 253-6 Fees, 206, 215-17, 221-4 Fiefs. See “ Military law ” Fines, 8, 12, 24, 57, 58, 112, 114, 1×6, 156, 160, 161, 203, 204, 207-9, 21 1-1 4, 220, 225, 241, 247, 248, 251, 255, 259, 260 Fire, 25 Flogging, 202 Flood, 45, 46, 48, 53, 55, 56 Flooding, 53, 55, 56 Forfeiture, 35, 37, 113, 159, x 77 Foster-mother, 194 Fraud, 265 Freeman, 8, 196, 197, 203, 215, 221 Fugitive slaves, 15-20 Gift, 150, 165, 171, 172 God, before, 8, 23, 106, 107, 120, 126 Goring, 250-2 Great house, 6, 8, 15, 16, 18, 32, X09, 187 Handicraft, 188, 189 Hands, amputation of, 195, 218, 226 Harbouring, 16, 19, 20, 109 Harrow, 260 Herdsmen, 258, 261-7 Highway robbery, 22 Hierodule, 178-80, 187, 192, 193 Hire, 242-9, 268-72. See also “ Wages ” Homicide, 24, 153 Horticulture, 59-66 House, 71, 228 House-breaking, 21, 125 Husband. See “ Marriage ” Illegal distraint, 113, 114 Illicit sales, 7 Impalement, 153 Inalienability, 37 Incest, 154-8 Inheritance, 165-7, X73, 174, 176a, ijbb; 178-82 Interest, 48-51, 90-5 Irrigation, 53-6 Judge, 5, 9, 13, 127, 167, 168, 172a, 1 77 Kidnapping, 14 Labourer, 257, 273 Lawsuits, 3, 4 Leather-worker, 274 Legitimation, 170, 1710, 190 Linen-weaver, 274 Lion, 244, 266 Loans, 49-52, 90-102 Loss by enemy, 103 Lost property, 9-13 Maintenance, 133-5, 13 7# 148 Manslaughter, 116, 207, 208 Marriage, 38, 127-36, 141-53, 166, 175-7, 183-4 Metayer tenure, 253-6 Military law, 26-41 Minors, 7, 14, 29, 177 Miscarriage, 209-14 “ Misfortune of the King,” 27, 28 Murder, 24, 153 Negligence, 42-4, 53, 55, 56, 61-3, 65, 264 Nurse, 194 Oath, 9, 20, 23, 103, 120, 126, 131, 240, 249 150 INDEX TO CODE Ordeal, 2, 132 Ox, 8, 224, 225, 241-9, 262-8 Pardon, 129 Partnership, 100 Paternity, 170, 171 a Pedlars, 10 1-7 Perjury, 3, 4 Pig, 8 Plebeian, 8, 15, 16, 140, 175, 176#, 198, 201, 204, 208, 211, 216, 219, 222 Potter, 274 Priestess, no, 127, 137, 144- 6, 178-82 Ransom, 32 Rape, 130, 156 Rebels, 109 Receiving stolen goods, 6, 7, 10 Reclaiming land, 44, 63 Rent, 45, 46 Receipts, 104-5 Repudiation, 192, 282 Retailer, 101-7 Retaliation (lex talionis), 4, 13, 1 16, 196, 197, 200, 210, 219, 230, 231 Reward, 17 Settlement, marriage, 150, 1716, 172a, ijzb Servitor, 187, 192, 193 Shepherds, 57, 58, 261-7 Sheep, 8, 35, 57-8, 261-7 Ships. See ” Boats ” Sickness, 148, 278 Slander, 11 , 12, 127, 132, 161 Slave, 15-20, 1 1 8, 175, 176, 199, 205, 217, 219, 220, 223, 226, 227, 231, 252, 278-82 female, 15-17, 1×8, 119, 141, 144, 146, 147, 170, ijia, 213, 214, 278-81 Soldier, 26-41 Sorcery, 1, 2 Spell, 2 Stolen property. See “ Lost property ” Stonemason, 274 Storm, 45, 48 Substitution, 26, 33 Sub-tenancy, 47 Suspicion, 13 1, 132 Tablet, 7, 37, 48, 104, 105, 122, 128, 150, 165, 178, 179 Temple maiden, 181 Temple, 6, 8, 32 Theft, 6, 8-14, 25 Tongue, amputation of, 192 Trader, 40, 49, 90-107, 116, 118, 1×9, 152 Trespass, 57, 58 Tumour, 215, 218, 220 Wages, 257, 258, 261, 273, 274 Wagon, 271, 272 Warehousing, 120-6 Water-wheel, 240, 259 “ Way of the King,” 26, 32, 33 Widow, 1716-4, 177 Wife. See ** Marriage ” Wineseller, 108-10 Witchcraft, x, 2 Witness, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 122 GENERAL INDEX Abraham, 125, 136-9 Adad, 15, 22, 55, 74 Adoption, 104-9, 132 JEneid, 113 Agriculture, 6, 73-6, 8x, 125, 131 Amraphel, 136-9 ‘ . . . Anglo-Saxon, 64 Arioch, 137 Avenger, 113 Babylon, 4, 8-1 1, 13, 15, 140, 142 Barley, 73, x 35 Beer, 73, 85, 86 Bigamy, 97 Boats, in Bonner, A., 64 Bread, 73 Bride-price, 87, 90, 123, 126 Brigands, 70, 84 Candolle, de, 6 Caravans, 84 Chedorlaomer, 136, 138 Clay, Albert T., 106, 14 1, 143 Columns of Inscription, 57 Consecrated woman, 101 ,109 Cook, Stanley A., 88, 102 Copper, 135 Coracle, 1×2 Corn, oil, and wool, 40, 109 Covenant, Book of, 115, 118, 123, 124, 127, 129, 133 Creation, x 1 6 Cuq, Ed., 78, 81, xi2, 135 Daiches, Dr. Sami,, 72 Date-palm, 6, 73-6 Delitzsch, Dr. Fr., 105, 117 Deuteronomy, 115, 130 Disinheritance, 100 Distraint, 67, 86, 87, 120, 124 Divorce, 98, 104 Doctor, 68, no Doorkeeper, 106 Dowry, 87, 89-95, 105, 126 Drinking saloon, 103 Driver, Dr. S. R., 115, 130 Eden, Garden of, 5 Erasure on pillar, 2, 25, 77-8 Estates of Babylonia, 63-7 Estates of Israel, 118-19 Farmer, 73-6, 131 Fiefs, 70-72 Fragments of Code, 77-8 Freeman, 59, 63-5 Garment, 135, 136 Ger, 118-19, 124 Goring ox, 121 Gray, Prof. C. D., 60 Hammurabi, 4-12 Handicrafts, 108, iio-xi Hehn, V., 7 Herodotus, 6, 85, 93-6, 105 Hierodule, iox, 102, 106 Hilprecht, Prof. H. V., 140 Hittites, 4, 142 Holy sister, iox, 102-3, 106 Homicide, 70, 1 12-13, *21 Houses, 77, 135, 136 Inheritance, 92, 99, 100, 131 Interest, 79-83 Iron, 136 Irrigation, 75, 13 x Jastrow, Dr. M., 58 Johns, Dr. C. H. W., 2, 102, 138 Josephus, X03 152 GENERAL INDEX Kabyles, 88, 89 King, Dr. L. W., 12, 140, 142 Kugler, Dr. Fr. X., 140 Langdon, Dr. S., 60, 143 Larsa, 8-1 1, 14, 137, 140, *4*, 142 Lenormant, Fr., 137 Loans without interest, 83 Lutz, Dr. Hy. F., 143 Lyon, Prof. D. G., 101, 102, 104 Manumission, 67, 108, 120 Marriage, 87-99, 104, *26 Measures, 134 Meissner, Dr. B., 58, 99, no, 135 Mercer, Dr. S. A., 68 Military service, 70-72, 131 Money-lending, 75-6, 78-84 Moore, Prof. G. F., 127 Moses, 1 14, 1 17 Murder, 70, 1 12-13, 121 Nabonidus, 97, 106-7 Navigation, in, 132 Nippur, 9, 13, 61, 78, 104, 140 Nisin, 8, 9, 14, 140 Nursing, 109 Oath, 67-8, 122, 133 Oil, 73, no, 135 Ordeal, 67, 97, 125, 133 Ox, 87, 121, 128, 135 Patrician, 63, 64 Pedlars, 83, 84 Pinches, Dr. Th. G., 96, 139 Plebeian, 63-6 Poebel, Dr. Amo, 78, 105 Prices, 75, in, 135 Priestesses, 72, 97, 101-8 Priests’ Code, 115, 130, 133 Ptah-hotep, 129 Raft, 112 Rim-Sin, 8-1 1, 137, 142 Scheil, Prof. V., I, 57, 59, 71, y2> 77> 85 Schrader, Dr. Eb.,’ 138 Semitic idioms, 62-3 Servitor, 106 Sesame, 73, 135 Settlement, marriage, 87, 94, 95 126 Shamash, 54-5, 59, 60, 83 Shearing, no Sheep, 6, 76, no, 135 Shutruk-Nahunte, 2, 77 Sippara, 1, 14, 61 Slave, 58, 66-7, 86-7, 120-21, 135 Smith, Prof. W. R., 88, 115, 116 Soldiers, 71-2, 13 1 Sorcery, 68-9, 123 Sumerian laws, 60, 142-7 Sumerians, 4-8 Sumu-la-ilu, n, 16 Susa, 1, 78, 131 Tablets, cuneiform, 7, 57, 78, 79 Temple maiden, 101 Theft, 58, 69-70, 122 Theophrastus, 6, 76 Thureau-Dangin, Fr., 134 Toddy, 73, 74, 85, 86, 135 Trader, 72, 75, 83, 84 Ungnad, Prof. A., 58, 71, 78, 106 Values, 134-6 Virey, Philippe, 129 Virginity, 96, 97, 102, 123 Vulture Stele, 71 Warad-Sin, 8, 9, 137, 142 Wedding, 98-9 Weights and measures, 134-6 Wheat, 6, 7, 73, 135 Winckler, Dr. H., 71 Wine-shops, 85, 103 Women in religion, 10 1-7 Wool, 109, no, 135