II. 'Two talents of bronze, the property of Istar of Arbela, which Mannu-ki-Arbela gives to the goddess in the month Ab, in the presence of Samas-akhi-erba; if they are given, interest shall be paid on them at three per cent. (Dated) the eleventh day of Sivan, in the eponymy of Bamba (b.c. 676), before the witnesses: Istar-bab-esses, Kua, Sarru-ikbi, Dumku-pani-sarri, and Nebo-bilua.'
III. 'Four manehs of silver, according to the standard of Carchemish, which Neriglissor, in the presence of Nebo-sum-iddin, son of Nebo-rahim-baladhi, the superintendent of the Guards at Dur-Sargon (Khorsabad), lends out at five shekels of silver per month interest. (Dated) the twenty-sixth day of the month of Iyyar, in the eponymy of Gabbaru (b.c. 667). The witnesses are: Nebo-pal-iddin, Nebo-nirar, the holder of the two pens, Akhu-ramu of the same office, Assur-danin-sarri of the same office, Disi the astronomer, Samas-igir-sumeli (?), Sin-kasid-kala, the executioner, and Merodach ... the astronomer.'
IV. 'The nail-mark of Sar-ludari, the nail-mark of Atar-suru, the nail-mark of the woman Amat-Suhla, the wife of Bel-dur, belonging to the third regiment, owners of the house which is sold. [Then follow four nail-marks.] The whole house, with its woodwork and its doors, situated in the city of Nineveh, adjoining the houses of Mannu-ki-akhi and El-kiya, near the markets (?), has been sold, and Tsil-Assur, the astronomer, an Egyptian, has received it for one maneh of silver, according to the royal standard (£9), in the presence of Sar-ludari, Atar-suru, and Amat-suhla, the wife of Bel-dur. The full price has been paid. This house has been bought. Withdrawal from the contract and agreement is forbidden. Whoever shall act fraudulently (?) at any time, or from among these men who have sworn to the contract and agreement with Tsil-Assur, shall be fined ten manehs of silver (£90). The witnesses are: Susanku-khatnanis, Kharmaza, the captain; Rasuh, the pilot; Nebo-dur-sanin, the foreign traveller; Kharmaza, the chief pilot; Sin-sar-utsur and Zedekiah. (Dated) the sixteenth day of Sivan, in the eponymy of Zaza (b.c. 692), the Governor of Arpad. In the presence of Samas-yukin-akhi, Latturu, and Nebo-sum-utsur.'
V. 'The seal of (Dagon-melech) the master of the slaves.—Imannu, the woman U ... and Melech-ur [Melchior], three persons, have been sold, and thou, O Enuma-ili, the holder of the highplaces which have been erected at the entrance to Dur-Sargon, hast received them from Dagon-melech for three manehs of silver (£27) according to the standard of Carchemish. The full price hast thou paid. These slaves have been bought and taken. Withdrawal from the contract and agreement is forbidden. Whoever shall act fraudulently (?) at any time, and shall deceive and injure me (?), whether Dagon-melech or his brothers, or the sons of his brothers, whether small or great, who have sworn to the contract and agreement on behalf of Enuma-ili, his sons and grandsons, shall pay ... (manehs) of silver, and one maneh of gold to Istar of Arbela, and shall return the price to the owners with ten per cent. interest. Then he will be quit of his contract and agreement, and will not have bought. The witnesses (are): Adda the astronomer, Akhu-irame the astronomer, Pakakha [Pekah] the chief of the ..., Nadbi-Yahu [Nadabiah] the principal ... Bel-sime-ani, Bin-dikiri, Khim-Istar, and Tabni the astronomer, the recipient of the document. (Dated) the twentieth day of Ab, in the eponymy of Mannu-ki-Assur-lih' (b.c. 709).
It will be noticed that the Israelitish witnesses to the last deed of sale, Pekah and Nadabiah, hold public offices, though the exact nature of them is at present unknown. We may conclude from this that some of the Samaritan captives were allowed to live in Nineveh, and so far from being in a condition of slavery were able to be in the service of the state. Among the earliest known examples of Israelitish or Jewish writing are seals which probably belong to a period anterior to the Babylonish Exile, and have been found at Diarbekr and other places in the neighbourhood of the Tigris and Euphrates. It is also possible that the great banking firm of Egibi, which flourished at Babylon from the time of Sennacherib and Esar-haddon to that of Darius and Xerxes, and carried on business transactions as extensive as those of the Rothschilds of to-day, was of Israelitish origin. At all events the name Egibi is not Babylonian, while it is a very exact Babylonian transcript of the Biblical name Jacob.
The contract tablets throw a good deal of light upon Assyrian law. In its main outlines it did not differ much from our own. Precedents and previous decisions seem to have been held in as high estimation as among our own lawyers. The king was the supreme court of appeal, and copies exist of private petitions preferred to him on a variety of matters. Judges were appointed under the king, and prisons were established in the towns. An old Babylonian code of moral precepts addressed to princes denounces the ruler who listens to the evil advice of his courtiers, and does not deliver judgment 'according to the statutes,' 'the law-book,' and 'the writing of the god Ea.' The earliest existing code of laws is one which goes back to the Accadian epoch, and contains an express enactment for protecting the slave against his master. How far it was made the basis of subsequent Semitic legislation it is difficult to say; in one respect, at all events, it differed considerably from the law which followed it. This was in the position it assigned to women. Among the Accadians, the woman was the equal of man; in fact, she ranked before the husband in matters relating to the family; whereas among the Semites she was degraded to a very inferior rank. It is curious to find the Semitic translator of an Accadian text invariably changing the order in which the words for man and woman, male and female occur in the original. In the Accadian the order is 'woman and man,' in the Assyro-Babylonian translation, 'man and woman.'
The high-roads were placed under the charge of commissioners, and in Babylonia, where brick-making was an important occupation, the brick-yards as well. Certain of the taxes, which were raised alike from citizens and aliens, were devoted to the maintenance of them. Unfortunately we know but little at present of the precise way in which the taxes were levied, and the principle on which they were distributed among the various classes of the population. In Babylonia, however, the tenant does not seem to have paid much to the government, since we are told of him that after handing over one-third of the produce of an estate to his landlord, he might keep the rest of it for himself. There is no hint that any portion of it was distrained for the state.
As in modern Turkey, the imperial exchequer after the time of Tiglath-Pileser II was supplied by fixed contributions from the separate provinces and large towns. Thus Nineveh itself was assessed at thirty talents. The best way, however, of giving an idea of the assessment is by a translation of the few fragments of the assessment lists of the Second Empire which have been preserved to us.
I. 'To be expended on linen cloths. Fifty (talents)
Thirty talents. The tribute of Nineveh. Ten talents for firewood (?).
Twenty talents of Assyria, from the same city, for the equipment of the fleet.
Ten talents of Assyria, a fresh assessment. In all (from Assyria) 274 talents.
Twenty talents for the harem of the palace. Expended on linen cloths.
Five talents. The tribute of Calah. To be expended on firewood (?).
Four talents of Assyria, from the same city. Thirty talents for the highlands.
Ten talents from the city of Enil, for the lowlands.
... talents from the city of Nisibis. Twenty talents for 600....
( ... talents) from the city of Alikhu, for 600 dresses.
( ... talents) for six vestures of linen. Three talents for epâ.
( ... talents ...) for keeping the gates in repair.
( ... talents) for the tax-gatherer. Two talents from the city of Alikhu.
( ... talents) for chariots and for wheels.
( ... talents) for the astronomer. Three talents for women's robes.
( ... talents) for the throne of the palace in the middle of the city. Two talents for gala dresses.
( ... talents) for the throne of the palace (in the middle of the city). Two talents ten manehs 500 shekels).
... in the city of Assur ... again.
... the city of Kalzu, [7] two talents (for) three conduits.
( ... talents) from the city of Enil, for the persons of the overseers.
(Assessment of) the country of Assyria; two talents for the house of the tax-gatherer; two talents for the right side (of the house); five talents for the completion (of the assessment).
( ... talents) from the nobles, and two talents from the librarians, for firewood (?) each year.
To be expended on linen cloths: ten talents from the land of Risu.
(For) the servants of the palace and the people of Nineveh.
... (for) seats, five talents from their attendants (Levied) every year from the lowlands.
The payment to be made by the tax-gatherer: two talents for the male and female spinners.
(For) the house of the Master of the Singers: one talent for their coverings.
Also for the house of the singing men themselves.
... for the keep of the war-chariot. In all 190 talents ten manehs.
... manehs for his awning. To be expended in full.
... manehs for the broad streets of the public road: seven talents ten manehs besides.
Forty manehs and a shekel and (?) a sleeved dress; twenty-two talents for wood.
At six per cent. on each shekel let him put out the money at triple interest.
Two talents without the linen. Fifteen talents ten manehs for the same personage.
Three talents ten manehs for the custom-house. Thirty talents ten manehs on (?) slaves.
Two manehs for wine-presses. The money to be put out at double interest.
For rods: one talent (levied on) the north side (of the city). In all, twenty-two talents to be invested.
Altogether thirty talents twenty-one manehs out of fifty-three talents.
In the presence of the princes the money raised on the slaves to be invested.
[Here follows the endorsement of the tax-collectors:]
We receive no bribes: we give what we take.'
II. 'Thirty talents (are annually received) from Arpad.
One hundred talents from Carchemish.
Thirty talents from the city of the Kuans. [8]
Fifteen talents from Megiddo.
Fifteen talents from Mannutsuate.
... talents from Zemar (Gen. x. 18).
... talents from Hadrach (Zech. ix. 1).
... talents to be put out at interest; fifty talents to be melted into bronze.
It is weighed in the presence of the princes.
(The tribute) of Damascus, Arpad, Carchemish, Kue, Tsubud, Zemar, and Meon-Zemar.'
In spite of the fragmentary character of these lists, and the difficulty of understanding them perfectly in consequence of their brevity and the omission of prepositions, we may nevertheless glean from them a fair idea of the method in which the imperial exchequer of Assyria was replenished, and the objects to which the taxes and tribute were devoted. A considerable amount must have gone to the great army of officials by whom the Second Empire was administered. 'The great king,' it was true, was autocratic like the Russian Czar, but like the Russian Czar he was also controlled by a bureaucracy which managed the government under him. In military matters alone he was supreme, though even here two commanders-in-chief stood at his side, ready to take his place in the command of the troops whenever age or disinclination detained him at home. The lists of Assyrian officials which we possess are very lengthy, and their titles seem almost endless. At the head came the two commanders-in-chief, the Turtannu or Tartan of the right, and the Turtannu of the left, doubtless so called from their position on the right and left of the king. Next to them were the Chamberlain or superintendent of the singing men and women, and then after five other officials whose posts are obscure, the 'Rab-sak' or 'Rab-shakeh.' His title means literally 'chief of the princes,' and he corresponded to the Vizier or Prime Minister of the Turkish Empire. Among other public offices we may notice that of the astronomer, who was supported by the state like the rest, and who ranked immediately after the 'superintendent of the camel-stables.' The latter again was inferior in rank to the 'captain of the watch,' 'the captain of fifty,' 'the overseer of the vineyards,' and 'the overseer of the quays.'
Such, then, was the constitution of the great Assyrian Empire, which first endeavoured to organise Western Asia into a single homogeneous whole, and in effecting its purpose cared neither for justice nor for humanity. Nineveh was 'full of lies and robbery,' but it was God's instrument in chastising His chosen people, and in preparing the way for the ages that were to come, and for a while, therefore, it was allowed to 'make the earth empty' and 'waste.' But the day came when its work was accomplished, and the measure of its iniquity was full. Nineveh, 'the bloody city,' fell, never to rise again and the doom pronounced by Nahum was fulfilled. For centuries the very site of the imperial city remained unknown, and the traveller and historian alike put the vain question: 'Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid?'
