Some cities claimed for their citizens a right of exemption from “the levy.” In Sargon's time, we find that cities like Asshur had been subjected by Shalmaneser IV. to this service, and Sargon restored their rights. He freed them from dikûtu mâti, šisîtu nagiri, and miksu kâri.[517] The city had not known the ilku dupsikku. Later, we find an officer, Tâb-ṣil-ešarra,[518] complaining that, when he was desirous of doing some repairs to the queen's palace in Asshur, of which city he was šaknu, Sargon's freeing of the city had rendered the ilku of the city unavailable to him.[519]
In the so-called “Tablet of warnings to kings against injustice,”[520] the cities of Borsippa, Nippur, and Babylon are freed from dupsikku and šisîtu nâgiri. This was drawn up in the time of Ashurbânipal, but whether it was original with him is not clear. At any rate, later, under Cambyses and Darius, these cities were again subject to the “levy.”
Classes subject to the levy
This obligation to perform forced labor, or serve in the army, fell on the agricultural population primarily. Indeed, it seems that the men who discharged it might be called upon to do field labor, and it was an aggravation of the insults put upon the old capital Asshur, that its citizens were set to do field labor.[521] On all country estates, there were a number of serfs, glebae adscripti, sold with the estate, but not away from it. These, as the Ḥarran census shows, often had land of their own. But they were bound to till the soil for the owner. They included the irrišu, or [pg 203]
Service at the royal weaving establishments
irrigator, the husbandman in charge of date-plantations, gardens, or vineyards. From these were drawn the men who served in the army as “king's men,” and on public works. They seem to have been liable to five or six terms of service, season's work probably, or campaigns, and then were free. At any rate, the heads of families seem to be free. The daughters as well as sons were subject to service, probably to repair to the great weaving houses in the towns. We read of these weaving establishments from early times. M. Thureau-Dangin has called attention to their occurrence in the Telloh tablets of the Second Dynasty of Ur.[522]
The amounts of wool assigned to different cities to work up are the subject of many tablets.[523] In the great cities, the temples or the palaces were the home of this industry; but quantities of stuff were served out under bond to private establishments to be worked up and returned or paid for. The work on these industries constituted the amat šarrûti, or obligation to serve as “king's handmaid.” It lay also upon slaves. It is doubtful whether the obligation included domestic service. From the second Babylonian Empire we have a host of tablets relating to these weaving accounts. They will be found fully discussed by Dr. Zehnpfund in his Weberrechnungen.[524]
Obligations of slave to the state
The married slave, even in the city, usually lived in his own house. His children were born to slavery, but were usually not separated in early life from their parents. They entered their master's service, and might be sold when grown up. They might learn a trade and so earn a living, paying a fixed sum to their master. They might become agricultural laborers, and so attain a fixity of tenure as serfs. But on all these subject classes, slaves, whether [pg 204] domestic or living out, serfs, and artisans, there lay the obligation to do forced work for the king. After a certain number of terms of service, they were exempt.
Public obligations