Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters Part 19

(M434) A guarantee was also given against the _pakiranu_. This is literally "the claimant." What claim he had is not stated. When the slave was pledged, this might be a creditor to whom he had previously been pledged. But it covers all claims on the slave.(432)

(M435) Another indemnity is the _arad arrutu_, or in the case of female slaves, the _amat arrutu_. This was the status of an _arad arri_, or _amat arri_, king's man or maid. The king, or state, had a right to the services of certain slaves. How long this was for, how it was discharged, and how a private person could give a guarantee against it, we do not exactly know. It may have been limited to slaves taken in war; it probably consisted in forced service; it may have been for a limited period, so that the guarantee amounted to an a.s.surance that it was over. But it is possible that it would be compounded for, or a subst.i.tute provided. At any rate the seller held the buyer indemnified against this claim.(433)

(M436) There was also a guarantee against _marbanutu_, the status of a _mar banu_, or "son of an ancestor." The difficulty which this raised was that, if a man was a scion of a n.o.ble family, he might be redeemed by it.

The same result would follow from his being adopted. Hence some consider _mar banu_ to mean "adopted son." But it does not always mean that. We have no good example of a slave being redeemed on this ground. But we know that they sometimes laid claim to be free men. This would of course involve a loss and at any rate a trouble to the owner. But we have not yet very full information on the point.

(M437) Finally there is mentioned a claim called _uanutu_. This occurs in Persian times only(434) and may be the status of a _uanu_, _i.e._, a Susian, or one of the conquering race. Such it may have been illegal to buy or hold in slavery. But in a.s.syrian times an official in the service of the royal house is called _uanu_. We do not yet know what his duties were, but it may be that this official was one who could be called up for service at any time and therefore was undesirable as a slave.

(M438) The _ab.u.t.tu_ which the Code(435) contemplates a mistress putting on an insolent maid and so reducing her to slavery, or which the phrase-books contemplate a master laying upon a slave, or which an adoptive parent may set on a rebellious adopted son before selling him into servitude,(436) has usually been taken to be a fetter. But in the case of a man, who being sold as a slave, had escaped and was claimed by the levy-master, we find the latter saying, _ellita ab.u.t.taka gullubat_, "thy _ab.u.t.tu_ is clearly branded," or tattooed. Hence it may only be a mark.

(M439) There is frequent mention in early times of a mark upon slaves. The Code(437) talks of marking a slave, but in a way that is difficult to understand. The verb usually rendered "brand" has been shown by Professor P. Jensen(438) to include incised marks. Hence the penalty which was once rendered "shear his front hair" is thought to mean "brand his forehead."

The Code fixes a severe penalty for the putting of an indelible mark on a slave without his owner's consent. This could hardly be enforced for merely giving the slave a bald forehead, like the Hebrew _peot_, or like a "tonsure." The mark borne on the forehead by Cain, or by the "sealed" in the Apocalypse, is far more to the point as a parallel. The slaves also wore little clay tablets with the name of their owner inscribed upon them.

There are a number of these preserved in the Louvre. On one now in the British Museum we have this inscription: "Of the woman ?ipa, who is in the hands of Sin-eresh. Sebat, eleventh year of Merodach-baladan, King of Babylon."(439) How these were attached to the slave is not very clear. But they must have been anything but an indelible mark. In the later Babylonian times we have(440) a slave marked by a sign on his ears and a white mark in his eye. Both may denote natural marks.(441) A more definite example is a slave "whose right hand has written upon it the name of Ina-Esagil-lilbur";(442) and another "on whose left hand was written the name of Meskitu."(443) These were the names of the owners, not of the slaves themselves. This renders it probable that the branding and the like was always an incised mark, a species of tattoo, which of course was indelible. That the same person who tattooed men should brand animals, or even shear them, is not an insuperable objection. But there is no reason to suppose that the brander ever was a sheep-shearer.

(M440) In respect to the names of slaves we may regard them with some interest as helping to determine the sources from which slaves were recruited. Some bear good Babylonian names, and perhaps when the father's name is also Babylonian we may conclude that they had been born free, but were either sold into slavery by the head of the family, or, having once been adopted, had been repudiated and reduced to slavery again, or had been sold for debt. We have examples of all such cases. A father and mother sold their son;(444) a mother who had adopted two girls repudiated them again;(445) a brother gave a younger brother as a pledge.(446)

(M441) When the slave's name is not Babylonian or a.s.syrian, a foreign nationality is nearly certain. These names are very valuable when they can be a.s.signed to their nationalities, as confirming the historical claims of the kings to conquest. Sometimes they are actual gentile names, as Mi?irai, "Egyptian," Tubalai, "man from Tubal." But many may have been directly purchased abroad and sold to Babylonians. A great many foreign slaves doubtless received native names. Thus an Egyptian woman was called Nana-ittia.(447) Some of the names of slaves are true Babylonian, but of a rare and odd form, which has caused some to imagine them to be foreign.

But this is not necessary. Servants are often renamed after the families to which they belong, and finally become known by names which were never theirs. Masters seem sometimes to have given their own names to slaves.

Their names are often contracted,(448) and some even appear to have had two.(449)

(M442) The slaves were not only captives taken in war, but were bought abroad, and not a few were reduced to that condition from being freeborn citizens. Slavery awaited the rebellious child or the contentious wife.

But it was not allowed by the Code for a man to sell his maid outright, who had borne him children. And if he sold his wife or child to pay a debt, the buyer could not keep them beyond a certain time. But in all periods parents sold their children, and there does not seem to be any clause demanding any future release.

(M443) The slave had private property which was secured to him. He paid a sort of rent for it. This was an annual fixed sum called his _mandattu_, the same word as for the tribute of a prince to his overlord. In the case of a female slave this was twelve shekels _per annum_. Further, he paid a percentage on his profits.(450) The slave might hold another slave as pledge, lend money, and enter into business relations with another slave even of the same house. He might borrow money of another slave. Hence he was very free to do business. But when he entered into business relations with another master's slave, or a free man, he sometimes met with a difficulty. He seemingly could not enforce his own rights against a free man. At any rate, we find that in such cases his master a.s.sumed the liability and pleaded for him. In fact, the master had to acknowledge his undertakings, though he did not guarantee them. Subject to this protection from his master, the slave was free to engage in commerce. He lent to free men, entered into partners.h.i.+p, and owned a scribe.

(M444) Here is an example ill.u.s.trating one of the above points.(451) S had taken a loan of L. His master, A, became aware of it and guaranteed its repayment. He then put S into L's hands as his pledge to pay it off. Now, A died, and his son, B, sells S to C, as part of his own property. But L still holds possession of S. C demands S from L. L says "Not until my money is paid off. If C will do this he may have S. But until he can prove that it has been done he cannot have S." The proof probably lay in B's hands, if he had preserved it from his father A's records. Delay is granted for C to produce the proof that S has worked off the debt. It is clear that the evidence of S was not admitted on this point.

(M445) That in the case of some slaves their value to their master consisted in their _mandattu_ is clear from the fact when a master sold a slave and did not at once hand him over, the seller had to pay a proportional amount of this fee to the buyer.(452) Of course, in transferring a slave to another owner, the seller could not separate him from his property. That was his own. A slave who had acquired a fair amount of wealth, or was earning well in trade, would produce a higher income to his master and sell for more. What was sold then, was an interest, the master's, in his slave's work. Hence prices varied very much. We are not always able to see what was the reason of the high price, but it was evident then to those who made the bargain. An average price in the later Babylonian era seems to have been twenty shekels, the interest on which at the usual twenty per cent. would be four shekels. This, then, was the annual value of a slave above his keep. If the keep amounted to about eight shekels _per annum_, that gives the value of a slave's work as twelve shekels yearly. This is what an unskilled slave was worth to his master. If, then, a man married a slave-girl, he ought to pay her master about twelve shekels a year for his loss of her services. Of course, the master retained his right over her, but it seems to have been a tacit understanding that he could not sell her away from her husband. So really what he sold was, after all, only a right to income from her husband of twelve shekels a year. The children were also his born slaves, if the father was his slave. We do not know how matters would be arranged if the man was slave to one master, the wife to another. Probably this was provided against by the master giving his slave a wife from his own maids, or buying a slave-girl as wife for him.

(M446) It occasionally happens that we can trace the history of a particular slave for some time. Thus, Bariki-ilu was pledged for twenty-eight shekels to A?inuri, in the thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadrezzar.(453) In the next year we find him in the possession of Piru, his wife Gaga, and a cousin Ziria. What they gave for him does not appear. But they now sold him for twenty-three shekels to Nabu-zer-ukin.

He must have fled from his new master, for four years later, the same three people pledged him.(454) But he seems to have been unsatisfactory as a pledge. For next, we find that Gaga's daughter (Piru having probably died), being about to be married to Iddin-aplu, this slave was set down as part of her marriage-portion. She gave him over to her husband and his son. In their possession he remained awhile, but on the death of his mistress, was handed over to the great banker, Itti-Marduk-bala?u. These events, extending from the thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadrezzar to the seventh year of Nabonidus, were all put in evidence when Bariki-ilu tried later to prove that he was a free man. He pretended to be the adopted son of Bel-rimani. He had to confess that he had twice run away from his master and had been many days in hiding. Then he was afraid and pretended to have been an adopted son. This, if proved, would have freed him. But he confessed that it was a pretence, and had to return to his servitude. The case was decided in the tenth year of Nabonidus.

(M447) It seems clear that when a slave ran away to his old owners, they did not always deliver him up again to the man who bought him of them.

They probably had to return the purchase-money. The buyer probably would not accept him again.

(M448) One feature which the later Babylonian contracts show us for the first time, but which probably was always in force, is the apprenticing of slaves to a trade. Instances of this are fairly numerous. The person to whom the slave was apprenticed was usually a slave himself. The teacher was bound to teach the trade thoroughly. The owner of the slave gave him up to the teacher for a fixed term of years, differing for different trades. He had to furnish a daily allowance of food and a regular supply of clothing. At the end of the term, the slave might remain with his teacher on payment of a fixed _mandattu_ or income to the owner. Penalties were fixed for neglecting to teach him properly. The trades named are weaving, five years' term;(455) baking, a year and a quarter;(456) stone-cutting, four years;(457) fulling, six years;(458) besides others not yet recognized.

(M449) The teacher had no fee, but only the apprentice's work for his trouble. The owner was therefore bound to allow the apprentice to remain a fair time.

(M450) A question of considerable interest which needs to be worked out is the relative number of slaves in the population. In early times the impression one gets is that they were few. Even in the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, the evidence at the disposal of Dr. Meissner in 1892 did not allow him to exceed four as the number in the possession of one man at a time. But since then further evidence is available. Thus we read of twelve slaves at once, seven males and five females, given by a father to his daughter, at Sippara.(459) In a.s.syrian times the number in an average household rarely exceeds one or two, but we have as many as thirty mentioned at one time.(460) So in later times there are generally only one or two in a household, but the number is occasionally much more.

(M451) As to the value of a slave, we have in very early times an average set down as twenty shekels, with examples as low as thirteen shekels. In the time of the Second Dynasty prices varied from as low as four and a half shekels for a maid, or ten shekels for a man, up to eighty-four shekels.(461) The Code estimates the average value of a slave as twenty shekels.(462) In a.s.syrian times the price of a single male slave varies from twenty to one hundred and thirty shekels, but the usual price is thirty shekels. A female slave could be had for as little as two and a half shekels, but might cost as much as ninety shekels. A common price was thirty shekels. In later Babylonian times also, prices vary widely, but the commonest price and usual pledge-value was twenty shekels.

XVIII. Land Tenure In Babylonia

(M452) The idea of real as opposed to personal property is common in Babylonian law; for we notice that in the Code, while certain persons may inherit from the goods of their parents, they may not inherit land, garden, or house.(463) He then had no share in his father's house; he was not one of the family. The distinction is important, for, as we shall see later, the word "house" had a wider signification than mere bricks and mortar.(464) It was the ancestral estate. Over it the family had rights.

It went back in default of heirs to the family of the last owner. We are therefore confronted with private owners.h.i.+p of land, but also with a sort of entail.

(M453) The amount of land might be increased by purchase, but there is a strong presumption that it thus became family property and did not remain at the disposal of the buyer. For if so, in the case above the law should have stated that the parent could not donate land that was family property, but might do so with what he had bought. This does not exclude the possibility of sale. Only the family had apparently the right of pre-emption.(465)

(M454) In looking back upon the primitive state of the country, its natural features must be taken into account as helping to shape the course of development. In such a low-lying country as the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, floods naturally occur every year. Every spot of land that stood above the level of the annual floods was thereby marked out for a residence. Throughout the literature of Babylonia the hill or the mountain is a refuge and a place protected by the G.o.ds. But when the floods were gone, man's great need for his land was water. Hence irrigation was synonymous with cultivation. The unclaimed land grew rank with gra.s.s and natural food for cattle, but dried up to dust in the summer. Hence the control of the flood, its diversion into desired channels, regulation, storage, and all the processes implied by ca.n.a.ls and irrigation were forced upon the inhabitants of Babylonia by stern necessity. The only alternative was to migrate with flocks and herds to higher lands when the floods came.

(M455) Settled society was ultimately founded upon the cultivation of a plain. Every eminence might become a hamlet occupied by the abodes of men, whose fields were water meadows. The meadows which grew their corn lay around the village and below its level; and beyond those which were needed to grow crops lay the pastures. But for security the cattle and sheep must come back, before the floods came, to the village, there to be folded and fed, as it seems, upon straw and also grain. The land of the village extended itself in time, as the population grew and needed more corn. More and more of the unreclaimed land beyond the cornfields was brought into cultivation and the flocks went farther afield for pasture. This continued until the pastures forming the outlying ring had met the pastures of another village.

(M456) Such is an ideal sketch of the growth of land tenure. But in historical times this simplicity had vanished. Land was owned, not merely held. It does not appear that pasture was owned, even as late as the First Dynasty of Babylon. It seems that the flocks were confided to shepherds, who were bound to bring them back from the pastures and expected to account for all they took out and for a reasonable increase in the flock from breeding. The pasture was common land; at any rate, to the sheep-owners of the same village. No one claims to buy and sell pasture land, only cultivated land, fields, gardens, and plantations, ultimately irrigated land. But unreclaimed land, that is, such as only required cultivation to make it fields and gardens, is often sold, or let, to be reclaimed. Was this a trespa.s.s on the pasture held in common? If so, it was not resented as such. We do not know yet how a man acquired a t.i.tle to such unreclaimed land. Perhaps to have brought it into cultivation sufficed originally to establish t.i.tle.

(M457) A settled hamlet soon had its temple. Some think that the G.o.d was ideally landlord of all the village land and that every t.i.tle represented simply the rental of the land from the nominal owner. We do indeed find the temples as owners of vast estates and, like monastic inst.i.tutions in the Middle Ages, letting lands and houses. To the temples poor men went for temporary accommodation for sowing, for wages at harvest-time, and for ransom from the enemy. These they had a right by custom to receive without paying interest. Undoubtedly the temples became the first centres of progressive civilization. The _patesi_, as chief-priest of the G.o.d, was the regent of the community. In process of time, as villages combined and grew into towns and districts, the _patesi_, in virtue of his town's supremacy, became the king, who, as regent of the state and representative of the G.o.ds, owned all. We know that, in later times, the king in Babylon was the adoptive son of Bel-Merodach.(466)

(M458) In historical times no such conditions prevail. Doubtless the tribal owners.h.i.+p had become theoretically transferred to the G.o.d, or to the town. That the town had a theoretical personality of its own is clear enough from the oaths sworn to confirm a sale. Men swore by the G.o.ds, the king, and also by Sippara, or Kar Sippara. But there is no indication that points to the G.o.d, or the town, or the king as having any power to intervene to prevent a sale, or to claim payment for consent. It is clear that the land was sold subject to its dues, and they were many. But the private owners.h.i.+p, subject to such reservation, was absolute. The one danger to a purchaser was that the family of the seller should claim a right of redemption and annul the sale. Against this the seller undertook to indemnify him.

(M459) Exact statements as to the rights possessed by the family to reclaim land sold by a member of the family are not to be found, but they are to be inferred with certainty from a few notices which we have.

Thus,(467) a man claimed a certain plot of land as ancestral domain which two others had sold. There are several such cases among the legal decisions of the First Dynasty of Babylon. In most of the a.s.syrian deeds of sale we have a long list of representatives of the seller, who are explicitly bound not to interfere and attempt to upset the sale.(468) Their right existed or they would not be called upon to enter into a contract nor to insist upon it.

(M460) From the point of view of the ancient Babylonian, as from that of the modern lawyer, there was a great similarity about all cla.s.ses of real property. The deeds of sale or conveyances, as well as the leases, treated them with much the same formula. It was the land which was the main consideration. It was as land, built upon indeed, but essentially as land, that the house was sold. The house is rarely described by what to modern views would be its most important features, the number of stories, rooms, conveniences, and the like. Instead its area was stated. This is remarkable, as we do not buy houses by the area. We need not suppose that the building actually covered all the land sold. In fact, we often see that it had a garden. But it was _bitu epu_, a "built-on plot" of land, according to the Babylonian conveyancer. Perhaps there was in this usage a recollection of how fast the Babylonian house of sun-dried brick sank down to a mound of clay, perhaps, too, a far-off echo of the nomad's scorn for the town-dweller, in both cases a recognition that the land was the one thing permanent, the one thing that could not "run away."

(M461) The plot of land was the _bitu_, Hebrew _beth_, represented by the Sumerian _e_. When it had the additional advantage of a house upon it, it was _bitu epu_, a "built-on plot." Gradually the edifice, in towns at least, absorbed the whole significance, and in common parlance _bitu_ meant a "house," but in legal phraseology it always retained its inclusive meaning of the plot of land. Even as late as the a.s.syrian Empire it retained some shade of a still earlier meaning, that of a plot, parcel, or share, just what it meant when the first settlers divided the land among them. Thus one might use _bitu_ of a "lot" of slaves, or of a lot of land including its slaves and cattle. That _bitu_ is to be referred to a root _banu_, "to make," may still be true, though _banu_ cannot have come to mean "build" when _bitu_ was formed from it. If _bitu_ was originally the "house," perhaps only a tent-house, then it could mean all that const.i.tuted the house, the man's house in a wider sense, as in tribe names, like Bit Adini or the phrase, "House of Israel." But _bitu_, when used of a house, does not carry with it the implication of bricks and mortar, only of a fixed site occupied for dwelling. The edifice was implied by the addition _epu_, marking the site "built upon." So a house was "landed property"; land was of various sorts, one of which is "built on land." To be accurate one must also specify the kind of building.

The field was called _e?lu_ (compare Acel-dama, "the field of blood"), denoted by the Sumerian _A-AG-GA_. The term does not denote open waste land, but a cultivated plot. Indeed, it is probable that its Sumerian name implies "irrigation." In any case it was fenced, if only by a raised ridge; it was cultivated and watched over; the birds were scared away, robbers and stray animals driven off. So much at least is expressed in as many words in the undertakings of tenants to treat a field properly. The field was also _bitu_ as land, usually "_bitu_, so much _e?lu_."

The garden was reckoned as land, but here a fuller specification was needed. For a plot of land, a garden, _kiru_ was not exact enough. It was usual to designate further of what sort it was, whether vegetable garden, orchard, or palm-grove. The scribe would even add "planted with such and such a crop." The term might include vineyards. In many cases the actual number of bushes, or fruit-trees, or vine-stocks, would be named. But it was always primarily land, and as such _bitu_, with the qualifications enumerated.

(M462) For land measures there were two systems in use, one purely areal, the other with a reference to the average yield. In the former case the scale of measures was discovered and formulated by Dr. G. Reisner, in the _Sitzungsberichte Berliner Akademie_, 1897, p. 417 f., and is completely known. In this scale _1 GAN = 1,800 SAR_, _1 SAR = 60 GIN_, _1 GIN = 180 E_. We do not know how these words _GAN_, _SAR_, _GIN_, _E_ were read; they may be ideograms or Sumerian words. There was also a very large measure of area, _3,600 GAN_, perhaps called a _karu_. Mr. Thureau-Dangin has further shown that the _SAR_ was the square of the measure _GAR-DU_, which seems at one time to have measured _12 U_. The _U_ is often taken to be a cubit, but seems at this time to have been nine hundred and ninety millimetres, which is sometimes called "a double cubit." On these suppositions the _SAR_ would be a square, each side measuring about twenty-two yards, about one-tenth of an acre, or four ares on the metrical system. But it is certain that both in early times and during the First Dynasty of Babylon the _GAR_ was only _12 U_, and the _U_, if a cubit, would not be much over eighteen inches. This would make the _SAR_ a square of about eighteen feet on each side. The fact that a _SAR_ was a fairly common size for a house seems rather against the smaller area. What is yet wanted is some cuneiform statement of the size or area of something which can be exactly identified and measured. With further exploration this is almost sure to be found.(469)

(M463) The other system applied to land the names of measures of capacity used for measuring crops. We read of so many _GUR_ and _?A_ of land, where _1 GUR = 300 ?A_, as shown by Dr. Reisner. We may guess that a _GUR_ of land was so called because it took a _GUR_ of corn to sow it, or because it yielded a _GUR_ of corn as an average harvest. These are mere guesses and we must remain in ignorance until further evidence connects a _GUR_ of land on one side with its length and breadth, or some other relation between the _GUR_ and the _GAN_ can be deduced. Then we shall want to know the size of the _GUR_ of corn, of which at present we have no knowledge.

But already in Susa a broken pot has been found with its original contents marked upon it. When others are found, from which an approximate estimate of contents can be made, and an inscription read giving the capacity, we shall be able to make a definite statement. At present the data are insufficient and what the metrologists write is only ingenious speculation.

(M464) A piece of land had, so to speak, an individuality of its own. Once marked out, and that probably from time immemorial, it was rarely divided.

It seems probable that corn-land at any rate was divided into long, narrow strips. But the plots became gradually of all sizes and shapes, as the many plans of estates show. The lengths of the sides are usually given on such plans, and much labor has been expended with small result on reconciling the given dimensions with the area ascribed to the plot. But it is certain that these were often recorded merely for purposes of identification. The area of the field was well known, and its average crop also, without any need of resort to calculations.

(M465) These plots often bear their owner's name, and that long after he had pa.s.sed away. The boundary-stones of the field were sacred. Not a few were inscribed with some sort of history of the plot. Especially was this the case when the land was granted to fresh owners, by sale, or charter.

No inconsiderable portion of what we know of history is derived from inscribed boundary-stones. They are the oldest monuments and rarely deeply buried. Hence they are easy to find. They have even been brought to London, as s.h.i.+p's ballast, in times before they could be read. They would be invaluable, if found _in situ_, for a modern survey of the country and a reconstruction of its ancient history. As a rule they are splendidly preserved.

(M466) (M467) In ancient days great importance was attached to their preservation. The kings taxed their powers of cursing in order to terrify men from removing their neighbor's landmark. The dangers to the stone contemplated were its removal to another place, its being thrown into the water, or into the fire, its being built into a wall,(470) being buried in the dust, placed where it cannot be seen, put in a house of darkness,(471) erased and overwritten with other records.(472) Akin to the crime of encroaching upon old landmarks was that of building upon or otherwise encroaching on the highway. To do this might subject the builder to the danger of being hanged, as a warning on a gallows erected above his own house.(473)

(M468) That the land was sold subject to certain territorial obligations, we can glean from many hints. One of the most important is that, when a favorite, or well-deserving official, had acquired a large estate, the king by charter granted him an immunity from these obligations. These charters were often inscribed on large blocks of stone or water-worn pebbles of great size, and seem to have been set up as boundary-stones.

Some were reproduced from tablets written on clay.(474) They are very numerous and in some periods of the history are the only monuments that have reached us. A glance through any history of Babylonia will show the reader how much depends on them. But here our only concern is with the light they throw on land tenure and its conditions. One of the points which at once becomes clear is that, although the king was representative of the G.o.d and t.i.tular head of all the tribes, he could not appropriate land just where he chose. Manistusu, King of Kish, when he was seeking to acquire a fine estate to present to his son, Mesilim, had to buy land at what seems to have been an average price. He paid for the land in corn at three and one-third _GUR_ of corn per _GAN_, the _GUR_ being worth one shekel of silver. This was the price. But, as was usual later in private purchases, a present to the former owner was given. The list of these presents is most interesting,-silver and copper vessels and rich vestments being the chief items. Of great importance is the reference to the leading men of each hamlet as sellers. The king's own land was a definite area, so definite as to be cited as a boundary.(475)

(M469) A celebrated pa.s.sage in Sargon's cylinder(476) says, "according to the interpretation of my name, Sharru-kinu, righteous king, which bade me observe right and justice, repel the impious, not oppress the weak; as the great G.o.ds had bidden me, I gave money for the pieces of land, of each city; according to written contracts, in silver and bronze, to their owners, in order to do no injustice; and to those who would not take money,(477) a field for a field, where they preferred, I gave." That this was no idle boast is proved from the tablet which records how Sargon, in the year B.C. 713, having taken possession of some lands in Maganuba to form part of his new city of Dur-Sargon, found that he was displacing an old endowment given by Adadi-nirari to the G.o.d Ashur. It was held by a family descended from the original recipients. Sargon increased their holding and charged it with an increased monthly offering to the temple.(478) He gave "field for field," but also added largely to the endowments. He acted much the same in Babylonia, where the Suti had encroached upon the lands of the people. He drove out the invaders, restored the lands, but laid them under obligations, _kidinutu_, making them render a monthly due to the temples, as before.

(M470) On the other hand, we find that the kings granted large grants of land to temples and private persons. From what source these grants were made does not appear. Probably from his own personal property. The property so presented was free of imposts. But we may not a.s.sume that the king was always the poorer. The beneficiary may have bought the land and presented it to the king, to be received back free of imposts in perpetuity.

Thus, n.a.z.imaruttash(479) presents a large estate to Merodach, and another to Kashakti-Shugab, his servant. Kurigalzu(480) granted an estate to E?ir-Marduk for his conduct in a war against a.s.syria, and Bitiliashu confirmed it. A coppersmith who fled from the land of ?anigalbat made a fine specimen of his work for Bitiliashu, and the king rewarded him with a grant of land.(481) Adadi-shum-u?ur made another grant of land to an unknown servant of his.(482) Melis.h.i.+?u made a grant of land to his son, Merodach-baladan I.,(483) and granted it exemption from all imposts.

Another grant he made to a servant of his.(484) So when Shamu and Shamua, his son, two priests of Eria in Elam, fled from their own king and took refuge with Nebuchadrezzar I., he espoused their cause, plundered Elam, brought back their G.o.d, Eria, to Babylon, and they having taken the hands of Bel, the king granted them an estate in Babylonia and freed it from imposts.(485) Nabu-aplu-iddina granted an estate to a namesake of his, which, however, seems to have been claimed as ancestral property.(486) Melis.h.i.+?u granted lands to ?asardu, a servant of his.(487) Merodach-baladan I. granted lands to Marduk-zakir-shumi.(488) Marduk-nadin-a?i granted Adadi-zer-i?isha, for his services against a.s.syria, lands in the district of Bit-Ada, which seem to have been ancestral domains of one Ada.(489) Some fragments of clay copies of similar grants by Adadi-nirari,(490) Tiglath-pileser III.,(491) Ashurbanipal,(492) and Ashur-e?il-ilani(493) are preserved in the British Museum's Collections from Nineveh. They all appear to record grants to favorite officials, who had deserved well of the king.

(M471) The king also appears as not only confirming grants made by predecessors, but as restoring ancestral property, or temple endowments, which had come into other hands, on suit of the legal descendants of the original owners. Thus, certain land which had come into the possession of Tarim-ana-ilishu and Ur-belit-muballi?at-mituti, was claimed by Marduk-kudur-u?ur in the reigns of Adadi-shum-iddina and Adadi-nadin-a?i, and finally granted him in perpetuity by Melis.h.i.+?u.(494) The land which Gulkishar, King of the Sea Land, gave to a G.o.ddess had remained in her possession 696 years, until, in the time of Nebuchadrezzar I., the Governor of Bit Sin-magir had secularized it. Bel-nadin-apli restored it.(495)