LITMIR.BIZ

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were expended in buying fifty casks of beer, besides other things, and upon which she was to pay interest. Apparently she wanted to set up an inn or drinking-shop; the fact that the money was lent to her by her master proves that she must have been engaged in business on her own account. In other contracts we find the slave taking a mortgage and trading in onions and grain or employing his money in usury. In one case a slave borrows as much as 14 manehs 49 shekels, or £138 3s., from a member of the Egibi firm. In another case it is a considerable quantity of grain in addition to 12 shekels of silver that is borrowed from the slave by two other persons, with a promise that the grain shall be repaid the following month and the money a year later. The contract is drawn up in the usual way, the borrowers, who, like the witnesses, are free-born citizens, giving the creditor a security and assuming a common responsibility for the debt. The grain, however, was to be repaid in the house of the slave's master; it seems evident, therefore, that the slave had no private house of his own. The slave, nevertheless, could own a house or [pg 073] receive it in payment of a debt. This is illustrated by an interesting contract in which reference is made to Ustanni, the Tatnai of the Book of Ezra, who is called “the governor of Ebir-nâri,” “the other side of the river.” The contract is as follows:

      “Two manehs of silver lent by Kurrulâ, the slave of Ustanni, the governor of Babylon and Ebir-nâri, to Merodach-sum-ibni, the son of Sula, the son of Epes-ilu. The house of the latter, which is by the side of the road of the god Bagarus, is Kurrulâ's security. No one else has any prior claim to it. The house is not to be let or interest taken upon the loan.” Then come the names of five free-born witnesses, and the document is dated at Babylon in the third year of Darius. The terms of the contract are precisely the same as those exacted by Cambyses, when he was crown-prince, from a certain Iddin-Nebo, to whom he had lent money through the agency of his secretary, receiving a house as security for the debt.

      In some instances the slave was merely the confidential agent of his master, to whom therefore all or most of the profits went. Thus a deed dated in the ninth year of Cyrus describes a field situated opposite the gate of Zamama at Babylon, which had been assigned by “the judges” to a lady named Ê-Saggil-belit, and afterward mortgaged by her to a slave of Itti-Merodach-baladhu, one of the members of the Egibi firm. The lady, however, still wanted money, and accordingly proposed to Itti-Merodach-baladhu that if he would make her a “present” of 10 shekels she would hand over to him her title-deeds. This was done, and the field passed into the possession of [pg 074] Itti-Merodach-baladhu, with whom the mortgage had really been contracted.

      In spite of the privileges possessed by the Babylonian slave, he was nevertheless a chattel, like the rest of his master's property. He could constitute the dowry of a wife, could take the place of interest on a debt or of the debt itself, and could be hired out to another, the wages he earned going into the pocket of his master. In the age of Khammurabi we find two brothers hiring the services of two slaves, one of whom belonged to their father and the other to their mother, for ten days. The slaves were wanted for harvest work, and it was agreed that a gur (or 180 qas) of grain should be paid them. This, of course, ultimately went to their owners. In the reign of Cambyses a man and his wife, having borrowed 80 shekels, gave a slave as security for the repayment of the loan; the terms of the contract are the same as if the security had been a house. On another occasion a slave is security for only part of a debt which amounted to a maneh and twenty shekels, interest being paid upon the shekels. His service was regarded as equivalent to the interest upon the maneh.

      When a slave was sold the seller guaranteed that he was not disobedient, that he had not been adopted by a free citizen, that there was no prior claim to him, and that he had not been impressed into the royal service, or, in the case of female slaves, been a concubine of the king. Purchasers had to be on their guard on all these points. Strict honesty was not always the rule in the Babylonian commercial world, and a case which came before the judges in the early [pg 075] part of the reign of Nabonidos shows that ladies were capable of sharp practice as well as men. The judicial record states that a certain “Belit-litu gave the following evidence before the judges of Nabonidos, King of Babylon: ‘In the month Ab, in the first year of Nergal-sharezer, King of Babylon, I sold my slave, Bazuzu, for thirty-five shekels of silver to Nebo-akhi-iddin, the son of Sulâ, the descendant of Egibi; he has pretended that I owed him a debt, and so has not paid me the money.’ The judges heard the charge, and caused Nebo-akhi-iddin to be summoned and to appear before them. Nebo-akhi-iddin produced the contract which he had made with Belit-litu; he proved that she had received the money and convinced the judges. And Ziria, Nebo-sum-lisir and Edillu gave (further) evidence before the judges that Belit-litu, their mother, had received the silver. The judges deliberated and condemned Belit-litu to (pay) fifty-five shekels (by way of fine), the highest fine that could be inflicted on her, and then gave it to Nebo-akhi-iddin.”

      The prices fetched by slaves varied naturally. We have seen that in the Abrahamic age 20 shekels (£3) were given for a white slave from the North, the same price as that for which Joseph was sold. In the reign of Ammi-zadok 4½ shekels only were paid for a female slave. In later times prices were considerably higher, though under Nebuchadnezzar we hear of a slave given as part of a dowry who was valued at 30 shekels, and of a female slave and her infant child whose cost was only 19 shekels. In the first year of Nergal-sharezer a slave-merchant of [pg 076] Harran sold three slaves for 45 shekels, while a little later 32 shekels were given for a female slave. The same sum was given for a slave who was advanced in years, while a slave girl four years of age only was sold for 19 shekels. In the sixth year of Cambyses an Egyptian and her child three months old, whom the Babylonian Iddin-Nebo had “taken, with his bow,” was sold by him for 2 manehs or 120 shekels, a bond for 240 gurs of dates being handed over to him as security for the payment of the sum. The Egyptian, it may be noted, received a Babylonian name before being put up for auction. In the same reign we hear of 3 manehs being paid for two slaves, of a maneh for a single slave, and of 7 manehs 56 shekels for three female slaves. This would be at the rate of 2 manehs 38 shekels or £23 14s. for each. On the whole, however, the average price seems to have been about 30 shekels. This, at any rate, was the case among the Israelites, not only in the Mosaic period (Exod. xxi. 32) but also in the time of the Maccabees (II. Macc. viii. 9, 10).

      The fact that slaves sometimes ran away from their masters, like Barachiel, who pretended to be a free citizen, and that in contracts for their sale their obedience is expressly guaranteed, proves that they were not always content with their lot. Indeed, it is not strange that it should have been so. They were merely chattels, subject to the caprices and tyranny of those who owned them, and their lives were as little valued as that of an ox. Thus in the fortieth year of Nebuchadnezzar a judgment was delivered that, if it could be proved by witnesses that a certain [pg 077] Idikhi-ilu had murdered the slave of one of the Arameans settled in the town of Pekod, he was to be fined a maneh of silver; that was all the slave's life was worth in the eyes of the law, and even that was paid to the master to compensate him for the loss of his property. Sometimes the name of the slave was changed; as we have seen, the captive Egyptian woman received a Babylonian name, and a contract of the time of Khammurabi, relating to the female slave of a Babylonian lady, who had been given to her by her husband, and who, it is stipulated, shall not be taken from her by his sons after his death, mentions that the name of the slave had been changed. In this case, however, the reason seems to have been that the girl was adopted by her mistress, though the adoption was not carried out in legal form and was therefore technically invalid. The contract accordingly describes her by her proper name of Mutibasti, but adds that “she is called Zabini, the daughter of Saddasu,” her mistress.

      That the law should nevertheless have regarded the slave as a person, and as such possessed of definite rights, appears strange. But Babylonian law started from the principle of individual responsibility and individual possession of property, and since the slave was a human being and could, moreover, hold property of his own, it necessarily seemed to place him more and more on a footing of equality with the free-born citizen. The causes which brought about the legal emancipation of women worked in the same direction in favor of the slave. Hence the power he had of purchasing his freedom out of his own earnings and [pg 078] of being adopted into a citizen's family. Hence, too, the claim of the law to interfere between the slave-owner and his property.

      A slave, in fact, could even act as a witness in court, his testimony being put

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