Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters Part 4

(M61)

VII. If a man has hired a slave and he dies, is lost, has fled, has been incapacitated, or has fallen sick, he shall measure out 10 _?A_ of corn _per diem_ as his wages.

Here the Sumerian text differs from the Semitic. In the former the employer is said to "cause" the slave to suffer these detriments, in the latter he is said to come by them. The verb rendered "lost" is used in that sense in the later Code of ?ammurabi. What is the exact sense of the verb rendered "has been incapacitated" is not clear. Professor Hommel(60) renders _durchbrennen_, Delitzsch(61) renders _weichen, entweichen, oder zu arbeiten aufh.o.r.en_. But it is clear that the employer is to pay a daily fine for injury done to the slave, or for loss to his owner, caused or connived at by him. The slave's refusal to work could not be made the ground for fining him. If anyone paid for that it would be the owner. The employer pays for his work, but is bound to keep him safe and treat him reasonably well and return him in good condition to his owner. In later times the owner often took the risk of death and flight, but then he probably charged more hire. At any rate it is clear that the owner is not named in this law.

It is not profitable to discuss these mere fragments of a code. The most interesting thing is their existence. We may one day recover the Code in full. These are not retranslations into Sumerian, by learned scribes, of late laws. For exactly these words and phrases occur in the contracts of the First Dynasty of Babylon, before and after the Code of ?ammurabi, which deals with the same cases, but in different words. In fact, this Sumerian Code is quoted, as the later Code was quoted, in doc.u.ments which embody the sworn agreement of the parties to observe the section of the Code applying to their case. This is indeed the characteristic of the early contracts: after indicating the particulars of the case, an oath is added to the effect that the parties will abide by the law concerning it.

Even where no reference is made to a law, it is because either no law had been promulgated on the point, or because the law was understood too well to need mention. Later this law-abiding spirit was less in evidence and the contract became a private undertaking to carry out mutual engagements.

But even then it was a.s.sumed that a law existed which would hold the parties to the terms of an engagement voluntarily contracted.

II. The Code Of ?ammurabi

(M62) -- 1. If a man has accused another of laying a _nertu_ (death spell?) upon him, but has not proved it, he shall be put to death.

-- 2. If a man has accused another of laying a _kipu_ (spell) upon him, but has not proved it, the accused shall go to the sacred river, he shall plunge into the sacred river, and if the sacred river shall conquer him, he that accused him shall take possession of his house. If the sacred river shall show his innocence and he is saved, his accuser shall be put to death. He that plunged into the sacred river shall appropriate the house of him that accused him.

(M63) -- 3. If a man has borne false witness in a trial, or has not established the statement that he has made, if that case be a capital trial, that man shall be put to death.

(M64) -- 4. If he has borne false witness in a civil law case, he shall pay the damages in that suit.

(M65) -- 5. If a judge has given a verdict, rendered a decision, granted a written judgment, and afterward has altered his judgment, that judge shall be prosecuted for altering the judgment he gave and shall pay twelvefold the penalty laid down in that judgment. Further, he shall be publicly expelled from his judgment-seat and shall not return nor take his seat with the judges at a trial.

(M66) -- 6. If a man has stolen goods from a temple, or house, he shall be put to death; and he that has received the stolen property from him shall be put to death.

(M67) -- 7. If a man has bought or received on deposit from a minor or a slave, either silver, gold, male or female slave, ox, a.s.s, or sheep, or anything else, except by consent of elders, or power of attorney, he shall be put to death for theft.

(M68) -- 8. If a patrician has stolen ox, sheep, a.s.s, pig, or ship, whether from a temple, or a house, he shall pay thirtyfold. If he be a plebeian, he shall return tenfold. If the thief cannot pay, he shall be put to death.

(M69) -- 9. If a man has lost property and some of it be detected in the possession of another, and the holder has said, "A man sold it to me, I bought it in the presence of witnesses"; and if the claimant has said, "I can bring witnesses who know it to be property lost by me"; then the alleged buyer on his part shall produce the man who sold it to him and the witnesses before whom he bought it; the claimant shall on his part produce the witnesses who know it to be his lost property. The judge shall examine their pleas. The witnesses to the sale and the witnesses who identify the lost property shall state on oath what they know. Such a seller is the thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost property shall recover his lost property. The buyer shall recoup himself from the seller's estate.

-- 10. If the alleged buyer on his part has not produced the seller or the witnesses before whom the sale took place, but the owner of the lost property on his part has produced the witnesses who identify it as his, then the [pretended] buyer is the thief; he shall be put to death. The owner of the lost property shall take his lost property.

-- 11. If, on the other hand, the claimant of the lost property has not brought the witnesses that know his lost property, he has been guilty of slander, he has stirred up strife, he shall be put to death.

-- 12. If the seller has in the meantime died, the buyer shall take from his estate fivefold the value sued for.

(M70) -- 13. If a man has not his witnesses at hand, the judge shall set him a fixed time not exceeding six months, and if within six months he has not produced his witnesses, the man has lied; he shall bear the penalty of the suit.

(M71) -- 14. If a man has stolen a child, he shall be put to death.

(M72) -- 15. If a man has induced either a male or female slave from the house of a patrician, or plebeian, to leave the city, he shall be put to death.

(M73) -- 16. If a man has harbored in his house a male or female slave from a patrician's or plebeian's house, and has not caused the fugitive to leave on the demand of the officer over the slaves condemned to public forced labor, that householder shall be put to death.

(M74) -- 17. If a man has caught either a male or female runaway slave in the open field and has brought him back to his owner, the owner of the slave shall give him two shekels of silver.

-- 18. If such a slave will not name his owner, his captor shall bring him to the palace, where he shall be examined as to his past and returned to his owner.

-- 19. If the captor has secreted that slave in his house and afterward that slave has been caught in his possession, he shall be put to death.

-- 20. If the slave has fled from the hands of his captor, the latter shall swear to the owner of the slave and he shall be free from blame.

(M75) -- 21. If a man has broken into a house he shall be killed before the breach and buried there.

(M76) -- 22. If a man has committed highway robbery and has been caught, that man shall be put to death.

-- 23. If the highwayman has not been caught, the man that has been robbed shall state on oath what he has lost and the city or district governor in whose territory or district the robbery took place shall restore to him what he has lost.

-- 24. If a life [has been lost], the city or district governor shall pay one mina of silver to the deceased's relatives.

(M77) -- 25. If a fire has broken out in a man's house and one who has come to put it out has coveted the property of the householder and appropriated any of it, that man shall be cast into the self-same fire.

(M78) -- 26. If a levy-master, or warrant-officer, who has been detailed on the king's service, has not gone, or has hired a subst.i.tute in his place, that levy-master, or warrant-officer, shall be put to death and the hired subst.i.tute shall take his office.

-- 27. If a levy-master, or warrant-officer, has been a.s.signed to garrison duty, and in his absence his field and garden have been given to another who has carried on his duty, when the absentee has returned and regained his city, his field and garden shall be given back to him and he shall resume his duty.

(M79) -- 28. If a levy-master, or warrant-officer, has been a.s.signed to garrison duty, and has a son able to carry on his official duty, the field and garden shall be given to him and he shall carry on his father's duty.

-- 29. If the son be a child and is not able to carry on his father's duty, one-third of the field and garden shall be given to his mother to educate him.

(M80) -- 30. If such an official has neglected the care of his field, garden, or house, and let them go to waste, and if another has taken his field, garden, or house, in his absence, and carried on the duty for three years, if the absentee has returned and would cultivate his field, garden, or house, it shall not be given him; he who has taken it and carried on the duty connected with it shall continue to do so.

-- 31. If for one year only he has let things go to waste and he has returned, his field, garden, and house shall be given him, and he himself shall carry on his duty.

(M81) -- 32. If such an official has been a.s.signed to the king's service (and captured by the enemy) and has been ransomed by a merchant and helped to regain his city, if he has had means in his house to pay his ransom, he himself shall do so. If he has not had means of his own, he shall be ransomed by the temple treasury. If there has not been means in the temple treasury of his city, the state will ransom him. His field, garden, or house shall not be given for his ransom.

(M82) -- 33. If either a governor or a prefect has appropriated to his own use the corvee, or has accepted and sent on the king's service a hired subst.i.tute in his place, that governor, or prefect, shall be put to death.

(M83) -- 34. If either a governor, or a prefect, has appropriated the property of a levy-master, has hired him out, has robbed him by high-handedness at a trial, has taken the salary which the king gave to him, that governor, or prefect, shall be put to death.

(M84) -- 35. If a man has bought from a levy-master the sheep, or oxen, which the king gave him, he shall lose his money.

-- 36. The field, garden, or house, of a levy-master, warrant-officer, or tributary shall not be sold.

-- 37. If a man has bought field, garden, or house, of a levy-master, a warrant-officer, or tributary, his t.i.tle-deed shall be destroyed and he shall lose his money. He shall return the field, garden, or house to its owner.

(M85) -- 38. A levy-master, warrant-officer, or tributary, shall not bequeath anything from the field, garden, or house of his benefice to his wife or daughter, nor shall he give it for his debt.

-- 39. From the field, garden, or house which he has bought and acquired, he shall make bequests to his wife, or daughter, or shall a.s.sign for his debt.

(M86) -- 40. A votary, merchant, or resident alien may sell his field, garden, or house, and the buyer shall discharge the public service connected with the field, garden, or house that he has bought.

(M87) -- 41. If a man has given property in exchange for the field, garden, or house, of a levy-master, warrant-officer, or tributary, such an official shall return to his field, garden, or house, and he shall appropriate the property given in exchange.