Servants were not only hired from their masters and themselves, but also from their fathers, mothers, brothers, and whoever else might have charge of them. There are also lists of workmen hired for various purposes in batches. Those who went about doing reaping seem to have been of various nationalities, and interesting names are on that account found in the lists from time to time.
In all probability the towns at that early period resembled closely those of the Semitic East at the present day, the streets being as a rule narrow (from the necessity of obtaining protection from the excessive heat of the sun during the hot season) and exceedingly dirty. This is shown by the excavations at Niffer, where, at the earliest period, when the street in question was constructed, the houses were entered by going up a few steps. Later on, in consequence of the accumulations, the footpath became level with the floor of the house, and, at a later period still, a [pg 189] little staircase had to be built leading down into the building. As may easily be imagined, the conditions in which the ancient Babylonians lived were in the highest degree insanitary, and such as would probably not be tolerated for a day in Europe at the present time.
Judging from the remains of private houses which have been found, these buildings were not by any means large. In fact, they must have contained only a few small rooms. Where, however, there was space—as, for example, when the house was built in the middle of a field—the rooms were probably moderately large, and more numerous. They were of either unburnt or burnt brick, and the roofs were supported by beams. The floors seem to have been generally the bare earth.
Many lists of the furniture of these dwelling-places are extant, and allow us to estimate to a certain extent the amount of comfort which their inhabitants enjoyed. They reclined upon couches, and sometimes—perhaps often—it happened that the owner of the house possessed several of these articles of furniture. Apparently, too, it was their custom to sit upon chairs, and not upon the ground, as they do in the East at the present day, and have done for many centuries. Various vessels, of wood, earthenware, and copper, were also to be found there, together with measures of different kinds,[31] implements needed in the trade of the owner, and certain objects of stone. In some cases things of precious stone are referred to, a circumstance which points to a considerable amount of prosperity on the part of the owner of the house and its contents.
As will be seen farther on, when Babylonian life of a later period comes to be treated of, the leasehold system, with all its disadvantages, was in full force, and there is just the possibility that it was already in use during the time of the dynasty of Babylon. Even at this early date the question of party walls was an important one, as the tablet of Šamaš-în-mâtim and Êrišti-Aa, daughter of Zililum, shows. They were to set up the dividing wall (gušuru, apparently palings) aḫum mala aḫim, lit. “brother as much as brother,” i.e. one as much as the other. They managed things differently in ancient Babylonia, and if this was the usual arrangement, it must have given rise to endless disputes.
It is probable that, before the time of Ḫammurabi, the ancient Babylonians had no code of laws in the true sense of the term. All the legal decisions known seem to have been decided on their merits by the judges who tried the cases, and in such actions in which the judges could not come to a decision, the matter seems to have been referred to the king, whose word was, to all appearance, final. Naturally an enormous responsibility rested on the judges on account of this, but they were not entirely without help in the matter of deciding difficult and unusual questions. Lists of precedents were kept, and to these, in all probability, they constantly referred—indeed, the tablets of legal precedents were held in such high esteem, that copies of them were kept in the libraries of Assyria, and in Babylonia also, in all probability, until long after the destruction of the Assyrian power, notwithstanding that legal use and wont had by that time somewhat changed. One or two examples of these legal precedents may here be quoted to show their nature:—
“If a son say to his father, ‘Thou art not my father,’ they may shave him, put him in fetters, and sell him for silver.
“If a son say to his mother, ‘Thou art not my mother,’ they may shave off his hair, lead him round the city, and drive him forth from the house.
“If a wife hate her husband, and say to him, ‘Thou art not my husband,’ they may throw her into the river.
“If a husband say to his wife, ‘Thou art not my wife,’ he shall pay her half a mana of silver.