Complexity of the evidence regarding slavery
His status was, however, a complex of seeming inconsistencies. Yet it was so well understood that we rarely get any hints as to the exact details. It is only by collecting a vast mass of statements as to what actually occurred [pg 169] that we can deduce some idea of the actual facts. Professor Oppert in his tract, La Condition des Esclaves à Babylone, Comptes Rendues, 1888, pp. 11 ff.; and Dr. B. Meissner, in his dissertation, De Servitute Babylonico-Assyriaca, have gathered together the chief facts to be gleaned from the scattered hints in the contracts. Professor Kohler and Dr. Peiser discussed the question thoroughly in their Aus Babylonische Rechtsleben. Many articles discussing the contracts, and most of the histories touch upon the subject. We shall come back to it later under the head of Sales of Slaves. It is very difficult to disentangle facts from the mass of scattered hints, often consisting of no more than a word or two in a long document.
Its very early existence
The institution of slavery dates back to the earliest times. We cannot in any way attempt to date its rise.
Already in the stele of Manistusu we find a slave-girl used as part of the price of land and worth thirteen shekels;[412] while nine other slaves, male and female, are reckoned for one-third of a mina apiece. This remained a fair average price for a slave in Babylonia down to the time of the Persian conquest. For the variations, see later under Sales of Slaves.[413] The Code shows that the slave was not free to contract except by power of attorney,[414] and that it was penal to seduce him from his master's service,[415] or to harbor him when fugitive.[416] It fixes a reward for his recapture,[417] makes it penal to retain a recaptured slave,[418] and deals with his re-escape.[419] It shows that he was subject to the “levy.”[420] It also determines the position of a slave-woman who bears children to her master,[421] or of a slave who marries a free woman.[422] In each case the children are free. It fixes the fees to be paid by the slave's master for his cure,[423] deals [pg 170] with injuries done to a slave,[424] damages being paid to his master;[425] enacts that if captured and sold abroad he must be freed, if re-patriated,[426] and a native of Babylonia, otherwise he returned to his master.
Sale of slaves
By far the greatest number of references to the slave condition occur in documents relating to the sale of slaves. These may be summarized here. One peculiarity always marked the sale of a slave, it was not so irrevocable as that of a house or field. For a slave might not be all he seemed. He might be diseased, or subject to fits, he might have vices of disposition, especially a tendency to run away. A female slave might be defective in what constituted her chief attraction. Hence there was usually a stipulation that if the buyer had a legitimate cause of complaint he could return his purchase and have his money back. In fact, an undisclosed defect would invalidate the sale. These defects might be physical, inherent, contingent, or legal.
Diseases regarded as just cause for a repudiation of the contract to buy a slave
There seems to have been a dreaded disease called the bennu. Professor Jensen[427] has shown how largely it bulks in the literature, and what dire effects are ascribed to it. But it was not the only severe disease from which men suffered then. It is associated with several others as bad. Hence in legal documents we may take it as a typical example of a serious disease, which would so detract from the value of a slave that the purchaser would not keep him. It is evident that it was something that the purchaser could not detect at sight. Perhaps it was a disease which took some time to show itself. It is mentioned in the Code and in the sales of slaves of the First Dynasty of Babylon. It also occurs in Assyrian deeds of sale, down to the end of the seventh century b.c. The Code and the contemporary contracts allow one month within which a plea could be raised that the slave had the bennu. The purchaser could [pg 171] then return him and have his money back. In the Assyrian deeds one hundred days is allowed.
In the Assyrian deeds ṣibtu is also allowed a hundred days. This is often associated with bennu in the mythological texts as equally dreaded. It affected the hands or the mouth. We may render it “seizure,” and think of some form of “paralysis.”