CHAPTER X.
The Babylonian and Assyrian Compared.
To understand the Babylonian, we must take into consideration both the nature of his country and the origin of his race. Apart from these two important factors, the marked differences between himself and his Assyrian brother would not be clear.
We have found that Babylonia was an alluvial plain, sloping gently to the Persian Gulf, and made fertile by the annual overflow and deposits of two rivers. As in Egypt, so here remarkable yields of grain rewarded the sower if he but supplied necessary moisture by maintaining a system of well-regulated canals. Regarding the origin of the Babylonians, we found that they sprang from a union of Semitics with the earlier Turanian settlers of the country, receiving later infusion of blood from the Kassites and Elamites. This intermingling of races and peoples resulted in a nation whose characteristics differed widely from the purer Semitic stock that peopled Assyria.
"The Babylonian was a stout, thick-set man, somewhat short, with straight nose, wide nostrils, and square face. The Assyrian, on the other hand, was tall and muscular, his nose was slightly hooked, his lips were full, his eyes dark and piercing. His head and face showed an abundance of black curly hair....
"The Babylonian was essentially an irrigator and cultivator of the ground. The cuneiform texts are full of references to the gardens of Babylonia, and the canals by which they were watered. It was a land which brought forth abundantly all that was entrusted to its bosom.... But the fear of floods and the reclamation of the marsh lands demanded constant care and labor, the result being that the country population of Babylonia was, like the country population of Egypt, an industrious peasantry, wholly devoted to agricultural work, and disinclined to war and military operations. In the towns, where the Semitic element was stronger, a considerable amount of trade and commerce was carried on, and the cities on the sea-coast built ships and sent their merchantmen to distant lands....
"The character of the Assyrian was altogether different from that of the Babylonian. He was a warrior, a trader, and an administrator. The peaceful pursuits of the agricultural population of Babylonia suited him but little. His two passions were fighting and trading. But his wars, at all events in the later days of the Assyrian Empire, were conducted with a commercial object.... It was to destroy the trade of the Phœnician cities and to divert it into Assyrian hands, that the Assyrian kings marched their armies to the west; it was to secure the chief highways of commerce that campaigns were made into the heart of Arabia and Assyrian satraps were appointed in the cities of Syria. The Assyrian was indeed irresistible as a soldier, but the motive that inspired him was as much the interest of the trader as the desire for conquest."[1]
Side by side with the Babylonian's farming concerns, grew his love for study and his development of the peaceful arts. An elementary education was general in Babylonia. As industry and commerce brought wealth and created thus a leisure class, education and learning flourished in Babylonian cities. Schools grew into prominence, and in the realm of astronomy and certain of the sciences, some advance was made by which the Greeks later profited. Quite the reverse was true in Assyria. A feverish desire for commercial gain and for military conquest prevented progress in the arts of peace. Learning was confined to a few—professional scribes supplied secretaries for the state and even wrote private letters for private citizens. When the luxuries of the ancient world could be won as tribute, the Assyrian scorned to produce them for himself. With blood unmixed with any peace-loving people, he retained the characteristics of his earlier Arabian home. He left the cultivation of the country to slaves and dwelt in cities, when war and trade left him intermittent periods at home.
Both Babylonian and Assyrian were religious, but here again we find differences due to environment. The Babylonian, inheriting the conjuring and magic of the earlier Chaldean, possessed a religion which held him in constant dread of demons. The greatest aid and solace his religion afforded was to assist him in driving away foes which assailed him at every turn. The Assyrian on the contrary, showed the same proud bearing in his religious concerns as in other aspects of life. Asshur was his mighty God, strong in battle and unequaled in courage. Firm in his conviction that Asshur would give him victory, he went forth, like his Hebrew brother, to overcome all others and destroy other gods which offended the true God.
In origin and traditions alike, the Assyrian and the Hebrew in early times present many similarities, and the religion of the one is comparable at many points with that of the other.
Houses.
It is supposed that in earliest times the dwellers in the Euphrates valley built their huts of reeds which grew in profusion along the river and the canals. These in time were replaced by huts of sun-dried brick. We have already learned that the low level plains of Babylonia afforded little or no stone for building purposes. Oven-dried brick was the most substantial building material known and this was so costly, on account of the scarcity of fuel, that only the temples, kings' palaces, and homes of the wealthy were made of it. The great majority of houses then, were constructed of clay mud, shaped in bricks and dried in the sun.
The more pretentious dwellings of nobles and kings were placed on artificially constructed heights—huge piles of brickwork, in order to raise them above the gnats and the malaria-breeding fogs of the marshes. The huts of the poor were located wherever opportunity offered. While these contained but one or two rooms with small apertures in the clay walls for windows, and had no floor save the ground, the houses of the wealthy were frequently several stories high, the upper floors being reached by outside stairways. The use of the arch was known in Babylonia from 4000 B.C., a perfect keystone example having been found at Nippur by the University of Pennsylvania expedition. Windows were furnished with tapestries to exclude the storms and intense heat of noonday. Flat roofs supplied a place for the women to perform many household duties, or, if these were performed by slaves elsewhere, they sat here to embroider their tapestries and to chat with their friends. Here too, on hot nights, mattresses were thrown down for the hours of sleep.
Wherever possible a garden surrounded the house. The pride of the Babylonian, as of the Egyptian, was his carefully tended garden, whether it was a tiny plot of land or a vast overhanging terrace like that of Babylon's queen.
Streets were narrow and exceedingly dirty, for into them all refuse and rubbish from the houses accumulated. We learn that sometimes the entire street would be filled up to the very doors of the dwellings, and then, instead of clearing them out, an upper story was added to the houses, new doors provided, and the occupants started anew on a fresh elevation.
In homes of the wealthy the furniture was simple, and in the huts of the poor it was scanty indeed. Chairs, stools, and tables were in use; a mat often constituted the bed, although pictures of most uncomfortable looking bedsteads have been preserved, these being possessed only by the wealthy.
The Assyrians who went from Babylonia into their northern land, took with them the habits and customs there acquired. While stone was plentiful, they used it only for foundations, or for the less important portion of their buildings, continuing to make mud brick for the rest, as they had done before. While hills and elevations were now available on every hand, they still erected huge piles of brick or stone and crowned these by their buildings. The Assyrian blood, unmixed with other tribes or peoples, produced no ingenuity, no inventive genius. The Assyrian remained an imitator—never a creator. For this reason, we find close similarity between the houses of the two countries.
Certain features which became inseparable with later architecture had their beginnings in Babylonia. In early times the roof which covered the mud hut was supported by dried palm stems; gradually a more substantial support was substituted, and in this way the column had its origin and was adopted and improved upon by the Greeks. Again, interior house decoration may be traced back to these Babylonian houses built of brick. In houses of the well-to-do, the unsightly bricks were covered by a coating of stucco and upon this were painted various scenes and ornamentations. In Assyria, slabs of soft lime-stone were used instead of the stucco, and figures of horses and men, hunting scenes and battles, were carved in bas-relief upon them. Indeed much of our knowledge concerning the life of the people has been gained from a study of the reliefs discovered in buried palaces.
Regarding the daily lives of those who dwelt within these mud brick houses, we have less detailed information than concerning the ancient Egyptian. Fewer scenes of ordinary life were painted in the Tigris-Euphrates valleys, and whatever was entrusted to the clay stood far greater chance of being destroyed than that committed to Egyptian stone.
Family Life.
In considering the family life, the position accorded to woman and the marriage laws and regulations are of first importance.
In early times in Babylonia, a man received a dowry with his wife. Polygamy was not infrequent but a strong check was placed upon it by requiring the husband, in case of divorce, to return the wife's dowry to her and allow her to return home or maintain her own establishment. The income from the dowry was enjoyed by both husband and wife, but it remained the portion of the wife and could be willed according to her pleasure. In case of a woman's second marriage, her first dowry belonged to her, subject to the claim of her children for one-half of its value.
In both Babylonia and Assyria married women enjoyed many liberties. They might carry on business enterprises, borrow or loan, manage their own property and dispose of it at their will. They could seek justice in the courts, and if they belonged to the middle classes, could come and go at pleasure. The women of noble families were more carefully guarded, and seldom appeared unattended in public.
Girls who were not provided with dowries might be purchased and so become superior slaves of their husbands. Children might be sold by their parents and brothers might sell their sisters, but in these countries, slaves were not despised as inferiors and inhumanly treated. They were often adopted into families, and since those of noble birth were not infrequently taken captives in war, the slave might be superior to the owner. However, this last was not so common in Mesopotamia as it was later in Rome. The fact which alone assured slaves of good treatment was that there was generally no race difference to engender feeling between slave and master. Indeed one case is cited in those days of quickly reversed fortunes, where the slave in a few years became the master and his former owner became his property!
Marriage was both a civil and a religious ceremony, and the contract was signed in the presence of a priest. In a code of Babylonian laws compiled about 2250 B.C., a law provided that "If a man has taken a wife and has not executed a marriage-contract, that woman is not a wife." Another provided for one who is helpless: "If a man has married a wife and a disease has seized her, if he is determined to marry a second wife, he shall marry her. He shall not divorce the wife whom the disease has seized. In the home they made together she shall dwell and he shall maintain her as long as she lives."[2]
Both sons and daughters could inherit property, and according to Babylonian law, whosoever possessed property, could will it, or dispose of it, with certain well established restrictions. In case there were no children to inherit an estate, it was a common practice to adopt them. Thus families were prevented from dying out.
Children were cared for, sent to school, taught trades or professions, and probably a certain amount of family life was enjoyed while they were growing up. The rights of each member of the family were definitely recognized by law. Home life as we today understand the phrase, was unknown in antiquity.
We can contrast the condition in Babylonia, where the individual, instead of the family, was recognized by the law to that in Rome of a later time, when the family was the unit of the state, and the pater familias managed all family affairs without state interference or restriction.
[1] Sayce: Social Life Among the Assyrians and Babylonians, 18.
[2] Johns: Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters, 56, 58.