The importance of status is a well-known characteristic of certain ancient Codes, and is often commented upon as a feature of special interest.
The Code recognizes three grades of society by dealing with them in separate legislation. They are called the amêlu, the mushkênu, and the wardu. Etymology, analogy with other society, and above all an attentive consideration of their treatment in the Code have made their meaning clear. But almost every attempt to translate these words has failed to convey exactly the true position.
The amêlu was evidently a man of the predominant class, the aristocracy, probably men of the conquering race, Amorites and those admitted by intermarriage, adoption, or other custom to the same status. We may compare their position with that of the Normans in England.
In the Tell-el-Amarna tablets amêlu is still used as an official title, the word is akin to the early Arabic ’ulu, ulai, and may be rendered ‘noble’. In accordance with this usage, in Babylonia, the king or his minister is often addressed in letters of the First Dynasty Period, in courteous phrase as the amêlu sha Marduk uballitsu, or ‘the amêlu to whom may Marduk grant life’. The king was thus regarded as the First Gentleman of Babylonia. Often amêlu has to be rendered ‘official’. But even in Hammurabi’s time, it was extended like our words Sir or Esquire to mark every person of position, not otherwise titled. It was accorded to many professions, even to craftsmen and artisans; but was as respectful as our Mr. Dean or Mr. Archdeacon, survivals of Magister or Master. Even in the Code it might denote ‘a man’ simply, and cover the second grade where the law recognized no difference of rank or status. When the law says, ‘if a man accuse a man,’ it uses amêlu for ‘man’. Hence we may render amêlu by ‘gentleman’ when he is contrasted with other grades, but ‘man’ simply when no reference to grade is contemplated.
When on military service, the amêlu was an ‘officer’, having under him smaller or greater bands of commoners, slaves, or tributaries.
He was often a person of wealth, as well as position and birth, but might be poor, through misfortune, debt, or misconduct. For the most part he was of the Amorite stock, though so many bear genuine old Semitic Babylonian names that we may assume that old families of wealth and position from among the conquered had been admitted to the ranks of the amêlu, doubtless through intermarriage. The amêlu dwelt often in a mansion or palace, literally great house, êkallu, the Hebrew hekal. Such palaces are mentioned as being built for men who certainly were not kings, nor even princes of royal stock. Hence, we may observe in passing, the slave of the palace (§§ 175-6) is not necessarily ‘slave of the king’. The city governor usually had his palace or mansion.
We may conveniently render amêlu by ‘patrician’; and even without implying all that that term would mean in ancient Rome, we see traces of a close analogy in the way in which foreigners attached themselves to the family of the amêlu to obtain privileges of citizenship.
The class which has given most trouble to realize was called the mushkênu. Professor Scheil, followed by Dareste, Journal des Savans, rendered the ideographic signs used in the Code, Mash-en-kak, by ‘noble’, not recognizing the Babylonian rendering first pointed out in print by Professor Zimmern[14] as mushkênu, but already known to me and underlying my first translations. The word mushkênu passed into Hebrew as miskên, and later into modern languages—Italian meschino, meschinello, Portuguese mesquinho, French mesquin—naturally, with modifications of meaning. Its derivation suggests the meaning of ‘suppliant’, from kânu, ‘to bow,’ and points to a position of inferiority, if not dependence. It had already been recognized that he was less fined for misdeeds, which evidently suggested the rendering ‘noble’. But as it turns out, Hammurabi was more severe in his punishment of the aristocracy than of the poorer or inferior class. On the other hand, while the proud patrician insisted on exact retaliation for his injuries, ‘eye for eye’, ‘tooth for tooth’, ‘limb for limb’, the mushkênu’s injuries were assessed for pecuniary compensation. He was expected to accept a less primitive award, pointing to a more civilized state. The difference in treatment suggests difference of race. They may well have been the subject race, common people without rights of citizenship. There was a quarter in Sippara, the mushkênutu, where this people dwelt apart from the houses, with their gardens and broad streets, occupied by the patricians. This also points in the same direction. We know that the guilds each occupied its own quarter, as in many mediaeval cities, but these had already won, or never lost, the right to rank as amêlu.
The mushkênu was not necessarily poor, for (§ 15) he had slaves and goods. The earliest copy of the Code sometimes gives amêlu where the later reads mushkênu. Müller had called him an Armenstiftler, but there is no trace of his receiving a pension. Kohler, Peiser, and Ungnad call him Ministerial, but adduce no evidence that he had any special relation to government or clergy. Hommel thought him a dependant of the priests, comparing the Hebrew Cohen.
The word, as Mr. Combe has shown in Babyloniaca,[15] is found in Arabic—masâkîn, used of those who are not sâdèh (plural sayyid) descendants of the Prophet; nor mashayikh, ‘nobles’, affiliated to the family of the Prophet; nor gabâyil, ‘secular nobles’; but including the ‘labourers’, ‘workers’, ‘merchants’, ‘schoolmasters’, ‘sycophants’, and ‘mendicants’. They are unable to carry arms, have no organization, and are entirely under the domination of the nobles. They cannot in any case change their condition. This seems to have been their exact position in ancient Babylonia also, at any rate in somewhat later times.