 Section 32 of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 by Gaston Maspero. Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. Chapter 3. Caldean Civilization, Part 5. Yet in spite of their seemingly arbitrary character, this mass of strokes had its source and actual hieroglyphics. As in the origin of the Egyptian script, the earliest writers had begun by drawing on stone or clay the outline of the object of which they desired to convey the idea. But whereas in Egypt the artistic temperament of the race and the increasing skill of the sculptors had by decrees brought the drawing of each sign to such perfection that it became a miniature portrait of the being or object to be reproduced, in Caldea on the contrary the signs became degraded from their original forms on account of the difficulty experienced in copying them with the stylus on the clay tablets. They lost their original vertical position and were placed horizontally, retaining finally but the very faintest resemblance to the original model. For instance, the Caldean conception of the sky was that of a vault divided into eight segments by diameters running from the four cardinal points and from their principal subdivisions. The external circle was soon omitted, the transverse line alone remaining, which again was simplified into a kind of irregular cross. The figure of a man standing, indicated by the lines resembling his contour, was placed on its side and reduced little by little till it came to be merely a series of ill-balanced lines. We may still recognize in it the five fingers and palm of a human hand, but who would guess at the first glance that one of them stands for the foot which the scribes strobe to place beside each character the special hieroglyph from which it had been derived. Several fragments of these still exist, a study of which seems to show that the Assyrian scribes of a more recent period were at times as much puzzled as we are ourselves when they strove to get at the principles of their own script. They had come to look on it as nothing more than a system of arbitrary combinations, whose original form had passed all the more readily into oblivion, because it had been borrowed from a foreign race, who as far as they were concerned had ceased to have a separate existence. The script had been invented by the Sumerians in the very earliest times, and even they may have brought it in an elemental condition from their distant fatherland. The first articulate sounds which, being attached to the hieroglyphs, gave to each an unalterable pronunciation were words in the Sumerian tongue. Subsequently, when the natural progress of human thought led the Chaldeans to replace, as in Egypt, the majority of the signs representing ideas by those representing sounds, the syllabic values which were developed side by side with the idiographic values were purely Sumerian. One symbol, throughout all its forms, designates in the first place the sky, then the god of the sky, and finally the concept of divinity in general. In its first two senses it is read Ana, but in the last it becomes Dingir, dim-air, and though it never lost its double force, it was soon separated from the ideas which it evoked, to be used merely to denote all the syllable an wherever it occurred, even in cases where it had no connection with the sky or heavenly things. The same process was applied to other signs with similar results. After having merely denoted ideas, they came to stand for the sounds corresponding to them, and then passed on to be mere syllables, complex syllables in which several consonants may be distinguished, or simple syllables composed of only one consonant and one vowel or vice-versa. The Egyptians had carried this system still further, and in many cases had kept only one part of the syllable, namely a mute consonant. They detached, for example, the final U from Pu and Bu, and gave only the values B and P to the human leg J and the mot Q. The peoples of the Euphrates stopped halfway, and admitted actual letters for the vowel sounds A, I, and U only. Their system remained a syllabary interspaced with ideograms, but excluded an alphabet. It was eminently wanting in simplicity, but taken as a whole it would not have presented as many difficulties as the script of the Egyptians, had it not been forced, at a very early period, to adapt itself to the excenduities of a language for which it had not been made. When it came to be appropriated by the Semites, the ideographs, which up till then had been read in Sumerian, did not lose the sounds which they possessed in that tongue, but borrowed others from the new language. For example, God was called Illu, and Heaven called Shami, when encountered in inscriptions by the Semites were read Illu when the context showed the sense to be God, and Shami when the character evidently meant Heaven. They added these two vocables to the preceding ana, an, dingur, dimmer, but they did not stop there. They confounded the picture of the star with that of the sky, and sometimes attributed to it the pronunciation kakabu, and the meaning of star. The same process was applied to all the groups, and the Semitic values being added to the Sumerian, the scribes soon found themselves in possession of a double set of syllables, both simple and compound. This multiplicity of sounds, this polyphonic character attached to their signs, became a cause of embarrassment even to them. For instance, one symbol when found in the body of a word stood for the syllables high or hot, mid, mit, till, or ziz. As an ideogram it was used for a score of different concepts, that of Lord or Master, Inu, Bilu, that of Blood, Damu, for a sentence, Pagru, Shalamtu, for the feeble or oppressed, Katu, Nagpu, as the hollow and the spring, Nakbu, for the state of old age, Labaru, of dying, Matu, of killing, Mitu, of opening, Pitu, besides other meanings. Several phonetic complements were added to it. It was preceded by ideograms which determined the sense in which it was to be read, but which, like the Egyptian determinatives, were not pronounced, and in this manner they succeeded in limiting the number of mistakes which it was possible to make. With a final symbol it would always mean Bilu, the Master, but with an initial symbol it denoted the gods Bel or Ia. With a symbol which indicated a man it would be the corpse, Pagru and Shalamtu. With the symbol prefixed it meant Matanu, the plague or death and so on. In spite of these restrictions and explanations the obscurity of the meaning was so great that in many cases the scribes ran the risk of being unable to make out certain words and understand certain passages. Many of the values occurred but rarely and remained unknown to those who did not take the trouble to make a careful study of the syllabary in its history. It became necessary to draw up tables for their use, in which all the signs were classified and arranged, with their meanings and phonetic transcriptions. These signs occupied one column, and in three or four corresponding columns would be found first, the name assigned to it, secondly the spelling, in syllables, of the phonetic values which the signs expressed, thirdly the Sumerian and Assyrian words which they served to render, and sometimes glosses which completed the explanation. Even this is far from exhausting the matter. Several of these dictionaries went back to a very early date, and tradition ascribes to Sargon of Agade the merit of having them drawn up, or of having collected them in his palace. The number of them naturally increased in the course of centuries. In the later times of the Assyrian Empire they were so numerous as to form nearly one-fourth of the works in the library at Nineveh, under Assurbanipal. Other tablets contained dictionaries of archaic or obsolete terms, grammatical paradigms, extracts from law or ancient hymns, analyzed sentence by sentence, and often word by word, interlinear glosses, collections of Sumerian formulas translated into Semitic speech, a child's guide, in fact, which the savants of those times consulted with as much advantage as those of our own day have done, and which must have saved them from many a blunder. When once accustomed to the difficulties and intricacies of their calling the scribes were never at a standstill. The stylus was plied in Chaldea no less assiduously than was the Calamus in Egypt, and the indestructible clay, which the Caldeans were as a rule content to use, proved a better medium in the long ground than the more refined material employed by their rivals. The baked or merely dried clay tablets have withstood the assaults of time in surprising quantities, while the majority of papyri have disappeared without leaving a trace behind. If at Babylon we rarely meet with those representations, which we find everywhere in the tombs of Saqqara or Giza, of the people themselves and their families, their occupations, amusements, and daily intercourse, we possess, on the other hand, that of which the ruins of Memphis have furnished us but scanty instances up to the present time, namely judicial documents regulating the mutual relations of the people and conferring a legal sanction on the various events of their lives, whether it were a question of buying lands or contracting a marriage, of a loan on interest or the sale of slaves, the scribe was called in with his soft tablets to engross the necessary agreement. In this he would insert as many details as possible, the day of the month, the year of the reigning sovereign, and at times, to be still more precise, an allusion to some important event which had just taken place, and a memorial of which was inserted in official annals, such as the taking of a town, the defeat of a neighboring king, the dedication of a temple, the building of a wall or fortress, the opening of a canal, or the ravages of an inundation. The names of the witnesses and magistrates before whom the act was confirmed were also added to those of the contracting parties. The method of sanctioning it was curious. An indentation was made with a fingernail on one of the sides of the tablet, and this mark, followed or preceded by the mention of a name, Nail of Zabudamek, Nail of Abzih, took the place of our more or less complicated sign-manuals. In later times only the buyer and witnesses approved by Nailmark, while the seller appended his seal, an inscription incised above the impress indicating the position of the signatory. Every one of any importance possessed a seal, which he wore attached to his wrist or hung round his neck by a cord. He scarcely ever allowed it to be separated from his person during his lifetime, and after death it was placed with him in the tomb in order to prevent any improper use being made of it. It was usually a cylinder, sometimes a truncated cone with a convex base, either of marble, red or green jasper, agate, charnelian, onyx or rock crystal, but rarely of metal. Engraved upon it an intaglio was an emblem or subject chosen by the owner, such as a single figure of a god or goddess, an act of adoration, a sacrifice, or an episode in the story of Gilgamesh, followed sometimes by the inscription of a name and title. The cylinder was rolled, or in the case of the cone, merely pressed on the clay, in the space reserved for it. In several localities the contracting parties had recourse to a very ingenious procedure to prevent the agreements being altered or added to by unscrupulous persons. When the document had been impressed on the tablet it was enveloped in a second coating of clay, upon which an exact copy of the original was made, the latter thus becoming inaccessible to forgers. If by chance, in course of time, any disagreement should take place, and an alteration of the visible text should be suspected, the outer envelope was broken in the presence of witnesses, and a comparison was made to see if the exterior corresponded exactly with the interior version. Families thus had their private archives, to which additions were rapidly made by every generation. Every household thus accumulated not only the evidences of its own history, but to some extent that of other families with whom they had formed alliances, or had business or friendly relations. The Constitution of the Family was of a complex character. It would appear that the people of each city were divided into clans, all of whose members claimed to be descended from a common ancestor, who had flourished at a more or less remote period. The members of each clan were by no means all in the same social position, some having gone down in the world, others having raised themselves, and amongst them we find many different callings. From agricultural laborers to scribes, and from merchants to artisans. No mutual tie existed among the majority of these members except the remembrance of their common origin, perhaps also a common religion, and eventual rites of succession or claims upon what belonged to each one individually. The branches which had become gradually separated from the parent stock, and which taken altogether form the clan, possessed each, on the contrary, a very strict organization. It is possible that, at the outset, the woman occupied the more important position. But at an early date the man became the head of the family, and around him were ranged the wives, children, servants, and slaves, all of whom had their various duties and privileges. He offered the household worship to the gods of his race, in accordance with special rites which had come down to him from his father. He made, at the tombs of his ancestors, at such times as were customary, the offerings and prayers which assured their repose in the other world, and his powers were as extensive and civil as in religious matters. He had absolute authority over all the members of his household, and anything undertaken by them without his consent was held invalid in the eyes of the law. His sons could not marry unless he had duly authorized them to do so. For this purpose he appeared before the magistrate with the future couple, and the projected union could not be held as an actual marriage, until he had affixed his seal or made his nail-mark on the contract tablet. It amounted, in fact, to a formal deed of sale, and the parents of the girl parted with her only in exchange for a proportionate gift from the bridegroom. One girl would be valued at a silver shekel by weight, while another was worth Amina, another much less. The handing over of the price was accompanied with a solemn solemnity. When the young man possessed no property as yet of his own, his family advanced him the sum needed for the purchase. On her side the maiden did not enter upon her new life empty-handed. Her father, or in the case of his death the head of the family at the time being, provided her with a dowry suited to her social position, which was often augmented considerably by presence from her grandmother, aunts, and cousins. The dowry would consist of a carefully marked-out field of corn, a grove of date-palms, a house in the town, a trousseau, furniture, slaves, or ready money. Of which there would be three copies at least, two being given by the scribe to the contracting parties, while the third would be deposited in the hands of the magistrate. When the bride and bridegroom both belonged to the same class, or were possessed of equal fortunes, the relatives of the woman could extract an oath from the man that he would abstain from taking a second wife during her lifetime. A special article of the marriage agreement permitted the woman to go free should the husband break his faith, and bound him to pay an indemnity as a compensation for the insult he had offered her. This engagement on the part of the man, however, did not affect his relations with his female servants. In Caldea, as in Egypt, and indeed in the whole of the ancient world, they were always completely at the mercy of their purchaser, and the permission to treat them as he would had become so much of a custom that the begetting of children by their master was desired rather than otherwise. The complaints of the despised slave, who had not been taken into her master's favour, formed one of the themes of popular poetry at a very early period. When the contract tablet was finally sealed, one of the witnesses, who was required to be a free man, joined the hands of the young couple. Nothing then remained to be done but to invite the blessing of the gods, and to end the day by a feast, which would unite both families and their guests. The evil spirits, however, always in quest of an easy prey, were liable to find their way into the nuptial chamber, favoured by the confusion inseparable from all household rejoicing. Prudence demanded that their attempts should be frustrated, and that the newly married couple should be protected from their attacks. The companions of the bridegroom took possession of him, and hand to hand and foot to foot, formed as it were a rampart round him with their bodies, and carried him off solemnly to his expectant bride. He then again repeated the words which he had said in the morning, I am the son of a prince, gold and silver shall fill thy bosom, thou even thou shalt be my wife, I myself will be thy husband. And he continued, as the fruits borne by an orchard, so great shall be the abundance which I shall pour out upon this woman. The priest then called down upon him benedictions from on high. Therefore, O ye gods, all that is bad and all that is not good in this man, drive it far from him and give him strength. As for thee, O man, exhibit thy manhood that this woman may be thy wife, thou, O woman, give that which makes thy womanhood that this man may be thy husband. On the following morning a thanksgiving sacrifice celebrated the completion of the marriage, and by purifying the new household drove from it the host of evil spirits. The woman, once bound, could only escape from the sovereign power of her husband by death or divorce. But divorce for her was rather a trial to which she submitted than a right of which she could freely make use. Her husband could repudiate her at will without any complicated ceremonies. It was enough for him to say, Thou art not my wife, and to restore to her a sum of money equaling in value the dowry he had received from her. He then sent her back to her father, with a letter informing him of the dissolution of the conjugal tie. But if in a moment of weariness or anger she hurled the fatal formulae at him, Thou are not my husband, her fate was sealed, she was thrown into the river and drowned. The adulteress was also punished with death, but with death by the sword, and when the use of iron became widespread the blade was to be of that metal. Another ancient custom only spared the criminal to devote her to a life of infamy. The outraged husband stripped her of her fleecy garments, giving her merely the loincloth in its place, which left her half naked, and then turned her out of the house into the street, where she was at the mercy of the first passer-by. Women of noble or wealthy families found in their fortune a certain protection from the abuse of marital authority. The property which they brought with them by their marriage contract remained at their own disposal. They had the entire management of it. They farmed it out, they sold it, they spent the income from it as they liked, without interference from any one. The man enjoyed the comforts which it procured, but could not touch it, and his hold upon it was so slight that his creditors could not lay their hands on it. If by his own act he divorced his wife, he not only lost all benefit from her property, but he was obliged to make her an allowance or to pay her an indemnity. At his death the widow succeeded to these, without prejudice to what she was entitled by her marriage contract or the will of the deceased. The woman with a dowry, therefore, became more or less emancipated by virtue of her money. As her departure deprived the household of as much as and sometimes more than she had brought into it, every care was taken that she should have no cause to retire from it, and that no pretext should be given to her parents for her recall to her old home. Her wealth thus obtained for her the consideration in fair treatment which the law had at the outset denied to her. When, however, the wife was poor, she had to bear without complaint the whole burden of her inferior position. Her parents had no other resource than to ask the highest possible price for her, according to the rank in which they lived, or in virtue of the personal quality she was supposed to possess, and this amount, paid into their hands when they delivered her over to the husband, formed, if not an actual dowry for her, at least a provision for her in case of repudiation or widowhood. She was not, however, any less the slave of her husband, a privileged slave it is true, and one whom he could not sell like his other slaves, but of whom he could easily rid himself when her first youth was passed, or when she ceased to please him. CALDIAN CIVILIZATION PART VII In many cases the fiction of purchase was set aside, and mutual consent took the place of all other formalities, marriage then becoming merely cohabitation, terminating at will. The consent of the father was not required for this irregular union, and many a son contracted a marriage after this fashion, unknown to his relatives, with some young girl either in his own or in an inferior station. But the law refused to allow her any title except that of concubine, and forced her to wear a distinctive mark, perhaps that of servitude, namely the representation of an olive in some valuable stone or in terracotta, bearing her own and her husband's name, with the date of their union, which she kept hung round her neck by a cord. Whether they were legitimate wives or not, the women of the lower and middle classes enjoyed as much independence as did the Egyptian women of a similar rank. As all the household cares fell to their share it was necessary that they should be free to go about at all hours of the day, and they could be seen in the streets and the markets, with bare feet, their head and face uncovered, wearing their linen loincloth or their long draped garment of hairy texture. Their whole life was expended in a ceaseless toil for their husbands and children. Night and morning they went to fetch water from the public well or the river, they bruised the corn, made the bread, spun, wove, and clothed the entire household in spite of the frequent demands of maternity. The Chaldean women of wealth or noble birth, whose civil status gave them a higher position, did not enjoy so much freedom. They were scarcely affected by the cares of daily life, and if they did any work within their houses it was more from a natural instinct, a sense of duty, or to relieve the tedium of their existence, than from constraint or necessity. But the exigencies of their rank reduced them to the state of prisoners. All the luxuries and comforts which money could procure were lavished on them, or they obtained them for themselves, but all the while they were obliged to remain shut in the harem within their own houses. When they went out it was only to visit their female friends or their relatives, to go to some temple or festival, and on such occasions they were surrounded with servants, eunuchs, and pages whose seared ranks shut out the external world. There was no lack of children in these houses when the man had several mistresses, either simultaneously or successively. Maternity was before all things a woman's first duty. Should she delay in bearing children, or should anything happen to them, she was considered as a curse or possessed, and she was banished from the family whilst her presence should be a source of danger to it. In spite of this many households remained childless, either because a clause inserted in the contract prevented the dismissal of the wife if barren, or because the children had died when the father was stricken in years, and there was little hope of further offspring. In such places adoption filled the gaps left by nature, and furnished the family with desired heirs. For this purpose some chance orphan might be brought into the household, one of those poor little creatures consigned by their mothers to the river, as in the case of Chargani, according to the ancient legend, or who had been exposed at the crossroads to excite the pity of passers-by, like the foundling whose story is given us in an old ballon. He who had neither father nor mother, he who knew not his father or mother, but whose earliest memory is of a well, whose entry into the world was in the street, his benefactor snatched him from the jaws of dogs, and took him from the beaks of ravens. He seized the seal before witnesses, and he marked him on the sole of the foot with the seal of the witness, and he entrusted him to a nurse, and for three years provided the nurse with flour, oil, and clothing. When the weaning was accomplished, he appointed him to be his child, he brought him up to be his child, he inscribed him as his child, and he gave him the education of a scribe. The rites of adoption in these cases did not differ from those attendant upon birth. On both occasions the newly born infant was shown to witnesses, and it was marked on the soles of its feet to establish its identity. Its registration in the family archives did not take place until these precautions had been observed, and children adopted in this manner were regarded dense forward in the eyes of the world as the legitimate heirs of the family. People desiring to adopt a child usually made inquiries among their acquaintances, or poor friends, or cousins who might consent to give up one of their sons, in the hope of securing a better future for him. When he happened to be a minor, the real father and mother, or in the case of the death of one, the surviving parent, appeared before the scribe, and relinquished all their rites in favor of the adopting parents. The latter, in accepting this act of renunciation, promised thenceforth to treat the child as if he were of their own flesh and blood, and often settled upon him at the same time a certain sum chargeable on their own patrimony. When the adopted son was of age, his consent to the agreement was required in addition to that of his parents. The adoption was sometimes prompted by an interested motive, and not merely the desire for posterity or its semblance. Labour was expensive, slaves were scarce, and children, by working for their father, took the place of hired servants, and were content like them with food and clothing. The adoption of adults was, therefore, most frequent in ancient times. The introduction of a person into a fresh household severed the ties which bound him to the old one. He became a stranger to those who had borne him. He had no filial obligations to discharge to them, nor had he any right to whatever property they might possess, unless indeed any unforeseen circumstance prevented the carrying out of the agreement, and legally obliged him to return to the status of his birth. In return he undertook all the duties and enjoyed the privileges of his new position. He owed to his adopted parents the same amount of work, obedience, and respect that he would have given to his natural parents. He shared in their condition whether for good or ill, and he inherited their possessions. Provision was made for him in case of his repudiation by those who had adopted him, and they had to make him compensation. He received the portion which would have accrued to him after their death, and he left them. Families appeared to have been fairly united, in spite of the elasticity of the laws which governed them, and of the diverse elements of which they were sometimes composed. No doubt polygamy and frequent divorce exercised here as elsewhere a deleterious influence. The harems of Babylon were constantly the scenes of endless intrigues and quarrels among the women and children of varied condition and different parentage who filled them. Among the people of the middle classes, where restricted means necessarily prevented a man having many wives, the course of family life appears to have been as calm and affectionate as in Egypt, under the unquestioned supremacy of the father, and in the event of his early death, the widow, and later the son or son-in-law took the direction of affairs. Should quarrels arise and reach the point of bringing about a complete rupture between parents and children, the law intervened. Not to reconcile them, but to repress any violence of which either side might be guilty towards the other. It was reckoned as a misdemeanor for any father or mother to disown a child, and they were punished by being kept shut up in their own house, as long doubtless as they persisted in disowning it. But it was a crime and a son, even if he were an adopted son, to renounce his parents, and he was punished severely. If he had said to his father, Thou art not my father, the latter marked him with a conspicuous sign and sold him in the market. If he had said to his mother, As for thee, Thou art not my mother, he was similarly branded and led through the streets or along the roads, where with hue and cry he was driven from the town and province. The slaves were numerous, but distributed in unequal proportion among the various classes of the population. Whilst in the palace they might be found literally in crowds, it was rare among the middle classes to meet with any family possessing more than two or three at a time. They were drawn partly from foreign races, prisoners who had been wounded and carried from the field of battle, or fugitives who had fallen into the hands of the victors after defeat, or Elamides or Goutis who had been surprised in their own villages during some expedition, not to mention people of every category carried off by the Bedouin during their raids in distant parts, such as Syria or Egypt, whom they were continually bringing for sale to Babylon and Uru, and indeed to all those cities to which they had easy access. The kings, the vice-gerents, the temple administration, and the feudal lords provided employment for vast numbers in the construction of their buildings or in the cultivation of their domains. The work was hard and the mortality great, but gaps were soon filled up by the influx of fresh gangs. The survivors intermarried, and their children, brought up to speak the Chaldean tongue and conforming to the customs of the country, became assimilated to the ruling race. They formed, beneath the superior native, semi-and Sumerian population, an inferior servile class, spread alike throughout the towns and country, who were continually reinforced by individuals of the native race, such as foundlings, women and children sold by father or husband, debtors deprived by creditors of their liberty, and criminals judiciously condemned. The law took no individual account of them, but counted them by heads as so many cattle. They belonged to their respective masters in the same fashion as did the beasts of his flock or the trees of his garden, and their life or death was dependent upon his will, though the exercise of his rights was naturally restrained by interest and custom. He could use them as pledges or for payment of a debt, could exchange them or sell them in the market. The price of a slave never rose very high, a woman might be bought for four and a half shekels of silver by weight, and the value of a male adult fluctuated between ten shekels and the third of Amina. The bill of sale was inscribed on clay and given to the purchaser at the time of payment. The tablets which were the vouchers of the rights of the former proprietor were then broken, and the transfer was completed. The master seldom ill-treated his slaves, except in cases of reiterated disobedience, rebellion, or flight. He could arrest his runaway slaves wherever he could lay his hands upon them. He could shackle their ankles, better their wrists, and whip them mercilessly. As a rule he permitted them to marry and bring up a family. He apprenticed their children, and as soon as they knew a trade he set them up in business in his own name, allowing them a share in the profits. The more intelligent among them were trained to be clerks or stewards. They were taught to read, write, and calculate, the essential accomplishment of a skillful scribe. They were appointed as superintendents over their former comrades, or overseers of the administration of property, and they ended by becoming confidential servants in the household. The savings which they had accumulated in their earlier years furnished them with the means of procuring some few consolations. They could hire themselves out for wages, and could even acquire slaves who would go out to work for them, in the same way as they themselves had been a source of income to their proprietors. If they followed a lucrative profession and were successful in it, their savings sometimes permitted them to buy their own freedom, and if they were married to pay the ransom of their wife and children. At times their master, desirous of rewarding long and faithful service, liberated them of his own accord without waiting till they had saved up the necessary money or goods for their enfranchisement. In such cases they remained his dependents, and continued in his service as free men, to perform the services they had formerly rendered as slaves. They then enjoyed the same rights and advantages as the old native race. They could leave legacies, inherit property, claim legal rights, and acquire and possess houses and lands. Their sons could make good matches among the daughters of the middle classes, according to their education and fortune. When they were intelligent, active, and industrious, there was nothing to prevent them from rising to the highest offices about the person of the sovereign. CHAPTER III. CALDIAN CIVILIZATION PART VIII If we knew more of the internal history of the great Caldean cities, we should no doubt come to see what an important part the servile element played in them. And could we trace it back for a few generations? We should probably discover that there were few great families who did not reckon a slave or freedman among their ancestors. It would be interesting to follow this people, made up of such complex elements, in all their daily work and recreation, as we are able to do in the case of contemporary Egyptians, but the monuments which might furnish us with the necessary materials are scarce, and the positive information to be gleaned from them amounts to but little. We are tolerably safe, however, in supposing the more wealthy cities to have been, as a whole, very similar in appearance to those existing at the present day in the regions which as yet have been scarcely touched by the advent of European civilization. Senuous, narrow, muddy streets, littered with domestic refuse and organic detritus, in which flocks of ravens and wandering packs of dogs perform with more or less efficiency the duties of sanitary officers. Whole quarters of the town composed of huts made of reeds and puddled clay. Low houses of crude brick surmounted perhaps even in those times with the conical domes we find later on the Assyrian bas-reliefs, crowded and noisy bazaars where each trade is located in its special lanes and blind alleys. Ent and desolate spaces occupied by palaces and gardens, in which the private life of the wealthy was concealed from public gaze, and looking down upon this medley of individual dwellings, the palaces and temples with their ziggurats crowned with gilded and painted sanctuaries. In the ruins of Eru, Iridu, and Uruk, the remains of houses belonging doubtless to well-to-do families have been brought to light. They are built of fine bricks, whose courses are cemented together with a thin layer of bitumen. But they are lighted only internally by small apertures pierced at irregular distances in the upper part of the walls. The low arched doorway, closed by a heavy two-leaved door, leads into a blind passage, which opens as a rule on the courtyard in the center of the building. In the interior may still be distinguished the small oblong rooms, sometimes vaulted, sometimes rubed with a flat ceiling supported by trunks of palm trees. The walls are often of a considerable thickness, in which are found narrow niches here and there. The majority of the rooms were merely store chambers, and contained the family provisions and treasures. Others served as living rooms, and were provided with furniture. The latter, in the houses of the richer citizens no less than in those of the people, was of a very simple kind, and was mostly composed of chairs and stools, similar to those in the royal palaces. The bedrooms contained the linen chests and the beds with their thin mattresses, coverings, and cushions, and perhaps wooden headrests, resembling those found in Africa. But the caldeans slept mostly on mat spread on the ground. An oven for baking occupied a corner of the courtyard, side by side with the stones for grinding the corn. The ashes on the hearth were always aglow, and if by chance the fire went out, the fire-stick was always at hand to relight it, as in Egypt. The kitchen utensils and household pottery comprised a few large copper pans and earthenware pots rounded at the base, dishes, water and wine jars, and heavy plates of courseware. Metal had not as yet superseded stone, and in the same house we meet with bronze axes and hammers side by side with the same implements in cut flint, besides knives, scrapers, and mace heads. At the present day the women of the country of the Euphrates spend a great part of their time on the roofs of their dwellings. They install themselves there in the morning till they are driven away by the heat. As soon as the sun gets low in the heavens they return to their post, and either pass the day on neighboring roofs while they bake, cook, wash, and dry the linen, or if they have slaves to attend to such menial occupations they sow and embroider in the open air. They come down into the interior of the house during the hottest hours of the day. In most of the wealthy houses the coolest room is one below the level of the courtyard into which but little light can penetrate. It is paved with plaques of polished chipson which resemble our finest gray and white marble, and the walls are covered with a coat of delicate plastering smooth to the touch and agreeable to the eye. This is watered several times during the day in hot weather, and the evaporation from it cools the air. The few ruined habitations which have as yet been explored seem to bear witness to a considerable similarity between the requirements and customs of ancient times and those of today. Like the modern women of Baghdad and Mosul the Caldean women of old preferred an existence in the open air in spite of its publicity to a seclusion within stuffy rooms or narrow courts. The heat of the sun, cold rain and illness obliged them at times to seek a refuge within four walls, but as soon as they could conveniently escape from them they climbed up onto their roof to pass the greater part of their time there. Many families of the lower and middle classes owned the houses which they occupied. They constituted a patrimony which the owners made every effort to preserve intact through all reverses of fortune. The head of the family bequeathed it to his widow or his eldest son, or left it undivided to his heirs, in the assurance no doubt that one of them would buy up the rights of the others. The remainder of his goods, farms, gardens, corn lands, slaves, furniture, and jewels were divided among the brothers or natural descendants, from the mouth to the gold. That is to say, from the moment of announcing the beginning of the business to that when each one received his share. In order to invest this act with greater solemnity it took place usually in the presence of a priest. Those interested repaired to the temple, to the gate of the god. They placed the whole of the inheritance in the hands of the chosen arbitrator and demanded of him to divide it justly. Or the eldest brother perhaps anticipated the apportionment, and the priest had merely to sanction the result, or settle the differences which might arise among the lawful recipients in the course of the operation. When this was accomplished the legates had to declare themselves satisfied. And when no further claims arose they had to sign an agreement before the priestly arbitrator that they would henceforth refrain from all quarreling on the subject, and that they would never make a complaint one against the other. By dint of these continual redistributions from one generation to another the largest fortunes soon became dispersed, the individual shares became smaller and smaller, and scarcely suffice to keep a family, so that the slightest reverse obliged the possessor to have recourse to usurers. The Chaldeans, like the Egyptians, were unacquainted with the use of money, but from the earliest times the employment of precious metals for the purpose of exchange was practiced among them to an enormous extent. Though copper and gold were both used, silver was the principal medium in these transactions, and formed the standard value of all purchasable objects. It was never cut into flat rings or twists of wire, as was the case with the Egyptian tabnu. It was melted into small, unstamped ingots, which were passed from hand to hand by weight, being tested in the scales at each transaction. To weigh was in the ordinary language the equivalent for payment in metal, whereas to measure denoted the payment was ingrain. The ingots for exchange were therefore designated by the name of the weights to which they corresponded. The lowest unit was a shekel, weighing on an average nearly half an ounce, sixty shekels making a mina, and sixty minas a talent. It is a question whether the Chaldeans possessed in early times, as did the Assyrians of a later period, two kinds of shekels and minas, one heavy and the other light. Whether the loan were in metal, grain, or any other substance, the interest was very high. A very ancient law fixed it in certain cases at twelve drahtmas per mina, per annum. That is to say, at twenty-five percent. And more recent texts show us that, when raised to twenty-five percent, it did not appear to them abnormal. The commerce of the chief cities was almost entirely concentrated in the temples. The large quantities of metals and cereals constantly brought to the guide, either as part of the fixed temple revenue, or as daily offerings, accumulated so rapidly that they would have overflown the storehouses had not a means been devised of utilizing them quickly. The priests treated them as articles of commerce and made a profit out of them. Every bargain necessitated the calling in of a public scribe. The bill, drawn up before witnesses on a clay tablet, enumerated the sums paid out, the names of the parties, the rate per cent, the date of repayment, and sometimes a penal clause in the event of fraud or insolvency. The tablet remained in the possession of the creditor until the debt had been completely discharged. The borrower often gave as a pledge either slaves, a field, or a house, or certain of his friends would pledge on his behalf their own personal fortune. At times he would pay by the labour of his own hands the interest which he would otherwise have been unable to meet. And the stipulation was previously made in the contract of the number of days of corvée which he should periodically fulfil for his creditor. If in spite of all this the debtor was unable to procure the necessary funds to meet his engagements, the principal became augmented by a fixed sum, for instance one-third, and continued to increase at this rate until the total value of the amount reached that of the security. The slave, the field, or the house, then ceased to belong to their foremaster, subject to a right of redemption, of which he was rarely able to avail himself for lack of means. CHAPTER III CALDIAN CIVILIZATION PART IX The small tradesmen, or free workmen, who by some accident had become involved in debt, seldom escaped this progressive impoverishment except by strenuous efforts and incessant labour. For in commerce it is true entailed considerable risk, but the chances of acquiring wealth were so great that many individuals launched upon it in preference to more sure but less lucrative undertakings. They would set off alone, or in companies, for Elam, or the northern regions, for Syria, or even for so distant a country as Egypt, and they would bring back in their caravans all that was accounted precious in those lands. Overland routes were not free from dangers. Not only were nomad tribes and professional bandits constantly hovering round the traveller, and obliging him to exercise ceaseless vigilance, but the inhabitants of the villages through which he passed, the local lords and the kings of the countries which he traversed, had no scruple in levying black mail upon him, obliging him to pay dearly for right of way through their marches or territory. There were less risks than choosing a sea-route. The Euphrates on one side, the Tigris, the Ulai, and the Uqnu on the other, ran through a country peopled with a rich industrial population, among whom Caldean merchandise was easily and profitably sold, or exchange for commodities which would command a good prize at the end of the voyage. The vessels genera were kelex or kufas, but the latter were of immense size. Several individuals, as a rule, would club together to hire one of these boats and freight it with a suitable cargo. The body of the boat was very light, being made of oissier or willow covered with skins sewn together. A layer of straw was spread on the bottom, on which were piled the bales or chests, which were again protected by a rough thatch of straw. The crew was composed of two oarsmen at least, and sometimes a few donkeys. The merchants then pursued their way upstream till they had disposed of their cargo, and taken in a sufficient freight for their return voyage. The dangers, though apparently not so great as those by the land route, were not the less real. The boat was liable to sink, or run aground near the bank. The dwellers in the neighborhood of the river might intercept it and pillage its contents. A war might break out between two contiguous kingdoms and suspend all commerce. The merchant's career continually vacillated between servitude, death, and fortune. This carried on at home in the towns was seldom the means of enriching a man, and sometimes scarcely afforded him a means of livelihood. Rent was high for those who had not a house of their own. The lease they could expect to pay was half a silver shekel per annum, but the average price was a whole shekel. On taking possession they paid a deposit which sometimes amounted to one third of the whole sum, the remainder being due at the end of the year. The lease is lasted as a rule merely a twelve month, so sometimes they were extended for terms of greater length, such as two, three, or even eight years. The cost of repairs and of keeping the house in good condition fell usually upon the lessee, who was also allowed to build upon the land he had leased, in which case it was declared free of all charges for a period of about ten years. But the house, and as a rule, all that he had built, then reverted to the landlord. Most possessors of shops made their own goods for sale, assisted by slaves or free apprentices. Every workman taught his own trade to his children, and these in their turn would instruct theirs. Families which had an hereditary profession, or from generation to generation had gathered bands of workmen about them, formed themselves into various guilds, or to use the customary term into tribes, governed by chiefs and following specified customs. A workman belonged to the tribe of the weavers, or of the blacksmiths, or of the corn merchants, and the description of an individual would not have been considered as sufficiently exact if the designation of his tribe were not inserted after his name in addition to his paternal affiliation. The organization was like that of Egypt, but more fully developed. The various trades, moreover, were almost the same among the two peoples, exceptions being such as are readily accounted for by the differences in the nature of the soil and physical constitution of the respective countries. We do not meet on the banks of the Euphrates with those corporations of stone-cutters and marble-workers which were so numerous in the Valley of the Nile. The vast Caldean plain, in the absence of mountains or accessible quarries, would have furnished no occupation for them. The Caldeans had to go a long way in quest of the small quantities of limestone, alabaster or diorite, which they required, and which they reserved only for details of architectural decoration, for which a small number of artisans and sculptors were amply sufficient. The manufacture of bricks, on the other hand, made great progress. The crude bricks were larger than those of Egypt, and they were more enduring, composed of finer clay and better executed. The manufacture of burnt brick, too, was carried on to a degree of perfection to which Memphis or Thebes never attained. An ancient legend ascribes the invention of the bricks, and consequently the construction of the earliest cities, jointly to Sin, the eldest son of Bell, and Ninib, his brother. This event was said to have taken place in May, June, and from that time forward the third month of the year, over which the twins presided, was called Merga and Sumerian, Sumanu in the Semetic Speech, the month of brick. This was the season which was especially devoted to the process of their manufacture. The flood in the rivers, which was very great in the preceding months, then began to subside, and the clay which was deposited by the waters during the weeks of overflow, washed and refined as it was, lent itself readily to the occupation. The sun moreover gave forth sufficient heat to dry the clay blocks in a uniform and gradual manner. Later, in July and August, they would crack under the ardour of his rays, and become converted externally into a friable mass, while their interior would remain too moist to allow them to be prudently used in carefully built structures. The work of brick making was inaugurated with festivals and sacrifices to Sin, Marodak, Nibo, and all the deities who were concerned in the art of building. Further religious ceremonies were observed at intervals during the month to sanctify the progress of the work. The manufacture did not cease on the last day of the month, but was continued with more or less activity, according to the heat of the sun, and the importance of the orders received, until the return of the inundation. But the bricks intended for public buildings, temples, or palaces, could not be made outside a prescribed limit of time. The shades of colour produced naturally in the process of burning, red or yellow, grey or brown, were not pleasant to the eye, and they were accustomed, therefore, to coat the bricks with an attractive enamel which preserved them from the disintegrating effects of sun and rain. The pace was laid on on the edges or sides while the brick was in accrued state, and was incorporated with it by vitrification in the heat of the kiln. The process was known from an early date in Egypt, but was rarely employed in the decoration of buildings, while in Caldea the use of such enameled plaques was common. The substructures of palaces and the exterior walls of temples were left unadorned, but the shrines which crowned the ziggurat, the reception halls, and the headings of doors were covered with these many colour tiles. Fragments of them are found today in the ruins of the cities, and the analysis of these pieces shows the marvellous skill of the ancient workers in enamel. The shades of colour are pure and pleasant to the eye, while the material is so evenly put on and so solid that neither centuries of burial in a sodden soil, nor the wear and tear of transport, nor the exposure to the damp of our museums have succeeded in diminishing their brilliance and freshness. To get a clear idea of the industrial operations of the country, it would be necessary to see the various corporations at their work, as we are able to do, in the case of Egypt, in the scenes of the mastabows of Saqqara or of the rock chambers of Benihassan. The manufacture of stone implements gave considerable employment, and the equipment of the dead in the tombs of Uru would have been a matter of small moment, if we were able to exclude its flint implements, its knives, cleavers, scrapers, adzes, axes, and hammers. The cutting of these objects is bold, and the final touches show skill, but we rarely meet with a purity of contour and intensity of polish which distinguish similar objects among Western peoples. A few examples, it is true, are a fairly artistic shape, and bear engraved inscriptions. One of these, a flint hammer, a beautiful form, belonged to a god, probably Ayaman, and it seems to have come from a temple in which one of its owners had deposited it. It is an exception and a remarkable exception. Stone was the material of the implements of the poor, implements which were coarse in shape and cost little. If much care were given to their execution, they would come to be so costly that no one could buy them, or if sold for a moderate sum, the seller would obtain no profit from the transaction. Beyond a certain price, it was more advantageous to purchase metal implements, of copper in the early ages, afterwards of bronze, and lastly of iron. Among the metal founders and smiths, all kind of examples of these were to be found. Axes of an elegant and graceful design, hammers and knives, as well as culinary and domestic utensils, cups, cauldrons, dishes, mountings of doors and coffers, statuettes of men, bulls, monsters and gods, which could be turned to weapons of all descriptions, arrow and lance heads, swords, daggers and rounded helmets with neck-piece or visor. CHAPTER III. Some of the metal objects manufactured by the Caldeans attained large dimensions. For instance, the brazen seas which were set up before each sanctuary, either for the purpose of receiving the libations or for the prescribed rides of purification. As is often the case among half-civilized peoples, the goldsmiths worked in the precious metals with much facility and skill. We have not succeeded up to the present time in finding any of those golden images which the kings were accustomed to dedicate in the temples out of their own possessions, or the spoil obtained from the enemy. But a silver vase dedicated to Ningirsu by Atina, vice-gerent of Lagash, gives us some idea of this department of the temple furniture. It stands upright on a small square bronze pedestal with four feet. A piously expressed inscription runs round the neck, and the bowl of the vases divided horizontally into two divisions, framed above and below by twisted cordwork. Four two-headed eagles, with outspread wings and tail, occupy the lower division. They are in the act of seizing with their claws two animals, placed back to back, represented in the act of walking. The intervals between the eagles are filled up alternatively by two lions, two wild goats, and two stags. Above and close to the rise of the neck are disposed seven heifers lying down and all looking in the same direction. They are all engraved upon the flat metal, and are without relief or encrustation. The whole composition is harmoniously put together. The posture of the animals in their general form are well conceived and boldly rendered, but the details of the mane of the lions and the feathers of the eagles are reproduced with a realism and attention to minutio, which belong to the infancy of art. This single example of ancient goldsmiths work would be sufficient to prove that the early Chaldeans were not a whip behind the Egyptians in this handicraft, even if we had not the golden ornaments, the bracelets, ear, and finger rings to judge from, with which the tombs have furnished us in considerable numbers. Alongside the goldsmiths there must have been a whole army of lapidaries and gemcutters occupied in the engraving of cylinders. Numerous and delicate operations were required to metamorphose a scrap of crude rock, marble, granite, agate, onyx, green and red jasper, crystal or lapis lazuli into one of those marvelous seals which are now found by the hundreds scattered throughout the museums of Europe. They had to be rounded, reduced to the proper proportions, and polished, before the subject or legend could be engraved upon them with the burin. To drill a hole through them required great dexterity, and some of the lapidaries from a dread of breaking the cylinder either did not pierce it at all or merely bore it a shallow hole into each extremity to allow it to roll freely in its metallic mounting. The tools used in engraving were similar to those employed at the present day, but of a rougher kind. The burin, which was often nothing more than a flint point, marked out the area of the design and sketched out the figures. The saw was largely employed to cut away the depressions when these required no detailed handling, and lastly the drill either worked with the hand or in a kind of lathe, was made to indicate the joints and muscles of the individual by a series of round holes. The object thus summarily dealt with might be regarded as sufficiently worked for ordinary clients, but those who were willing to pay for them could obtain cylinders from which every mark of the tool had been adroitly removed, and where the beauty of the workmanship vied with the costliness of the material. The seal of Sargani, King Avagade, that of Mingani Sher Ali, and many others which have been picked up by chance in the excavations, are true bas-reliefs, reduced and condensed, so to speak, to the space of something like a square inch of surface, but conceived with an artistic ingenuity and executed with a boldness which modern engravers have rarely equalled and never surpassed. There are traces on them it is true, of some of the defects which disfigured the latter work of the Assyrians, heaviness of form, exaggerated prominence of muscles and hardness of outline, but there are also all the qualities which distinguish an original and forcible art. The countries of the Euphrates were renowned in classic times for the beauty of the embroidered and painted stuff which they manufactured. Nothing has come down to us of these Babylonian tissues of which the Greek and Latin writers extolled the magnificence, but we may form some idea from the statues and the figures engraved on cylinders of what the weavers and embroiderers of this ancient time were capable. The loom which they made use of differed but slightly from the horizontal loom commonly employed in the Nile Valley, and everything tends to show that their plain linen cloths were of the kind represented in the swathings and fragments of clothing still to be found in the sepical chambers of Memphis and Thebes. The manufacture of fleecy woolen garments, so much affected by men and women alike, indicates a great dexterity. When once the threads of the wolf had been stretched, those of the warp were attached to them by knots in as many parallel lines, at regular intervals, as there were rows of fringe to be displayed. On the surface of the cloth, the loops thus formed being allowed to hang down in their respective places. Sometimes these loops were retained just as they stood. Sometimes they were cut, and the ends frayed out so as to give the appearance of a shaggy texture. Most of these stuffs preserved their original white or creamy color, especially those woven at home by the women for the requirements of their own toilette, and for the ordinary uses of the household. The Caldeans, however, like many other Asiatic peoples, had a strong preference for lively colors, and the outdoor garments and gala attire of the rich were distinguished by a profusion of blue patterns on a red ground, or red upon blue, arranged in stripes, zig-zags, checks, and dots or circles. There must, therefore, have been as much occupation for dyers as there was for weavers, and it is possible that the two operations were carried out by the same bands. We know nothing of the bakers, butchers, carriers, masons, and other artisans who supplied the necessities of the cities. They were doubtless able to make two endspeed and nothing more, and if we should succeed some day in obtaining information about them, we shall probably find that their condition was as miserable as that of their Egyptian contemporaries. The course of their lives was monotonous enough, except when it was broken at prescribed intervals by the ordinary festivals in honor of the gods of the city, or by the casual suspensions of work occasioned by the triumphant return of the king from some war-like expedition, or by his inauguration of a new temple. The gaiety of the people on such occasions was the more exuberant in proportion to the undisturbed monotony or misery of the days which preceded them. As soon, for instance, as Gudiya had brought to completion in Nunu, the house of his patron Nengirsu, he felt relieved from the strain and washed his hands. For seven days no grain was brushed in the corn, the maid was the equal of her mistress, the servant walked in the same rank as his master, the strong and the weak rested side by side in the city. The world seemed topsy-turvy, as during the Roman Saturnalia. The classes mingled together, and the inferiors were probably accustomed to abuse the unusual license which they momentarily enjoyed. When the festival was over social distinctions reasserted themselves, and each one fell back into his accustomed position. Life was not so pleasant in Kaldia as in Egypt. The innumerable promissory notes, the receded accounts, the contracts of sale and purchase, these cunningly drawn-up deeds which have been deciphered by the Hundred, revealed to us a people greedy of gain, exacting, litigious, of artisans in Egypt. This is taken from a source belonging to the Twelve or possibly the Thirteenth Dynasty. We may assume, from the fact that the two civilizations were about on the same level, that the information supplied in this respect by the Egyptian monuments is generally applicable to the condition of Kaldian workmen of the same period. The Kaldians were almost exclusively absorbed by material concerns. The climate, too, variable and oppressive in summer and winter alike, imposed upon the Kaldian painful exactions, and obliged him to work with an energy of which the majority of Egyptians would not have felt themselves capable. The Kaldian, suffering greater and more prolonged hardships, earned more doubtless, but was not on this account the happier. However lucrative his calling might be, it was not sufficiently so to supply him always with domestic necessities, and both tradespeople and operatives were obliged to run into debt to supplement their straightened means. When they had once fallen into the hands of the usurer, the exorbitant interest which they had to pay kept them a long time in his power. If, when the bill fell due, there was nothing to meet it, it had to be renewed under still more disastrous conditions. As the pledge given was usually the homestead, or the slave who assisted in the trade, or the garden which supplied food for the family, the mortgager was reduced to the extreme of misery if he could not satisfy his creditors. This plague of usury was not moreover confined to the towns, it raged with equal violence in the country, and the farmers also became its victims. If, theoretically, the earth belonged to the gods, and under them to the kings, the latter had made and continued daily to make, such large concessions of it to their vassals, that the greater part of the domains were always in the hands of the nobles or private individuals. These could dispose of their landed property at pleasure, farm it out, sell it, or distribute it among their heirs and friends. CHAPTER III. CALDIAN CIVILIZATION PART XI. They paid, on account of it, a tax which varied at different epics, but which was always burdensome. But when they had once satisfied this exaction, and paid the dues which the temples might claim on behalf of the gods, neither the state, nor any individual, had the right to interfere in their administration of it, or put any restrictions upon them. Some proprietors cultivated their lands themselves, the poor by their own labor, the rich by the aid of some trustworthy slave, whom they interested in the success of his farming, by assigning him a certain percentage on the net return. Sometimes the lands were leased out in whole or in part to free peasants, who relieved the proprietors of all the worry and risks of managing it themselves. A survey of the area of each state had been made at an early age, and the lots into which it had been divided were registered on clay tablets, containing the name of the proprietor, as well as those of his neighbors, together with such indications of the features of the land, dykes, canals, rivers and buildings as would serve to define its boundaries. Rough plans accompanied the description, and in the most complicated instances interpreted it to the eye. This survey was frequently repeated, and enabled the sovereign to arrange his scheme of taxation on a solid basis, and to calculate the product of it without material error. Gardens and groves of date palms, together with large regions devoted to rough attempts at vegetable culture, were often to be met with, especially in the neighborhood of towns. These paid their contributions to the state, as well as the owner's rent in kind, in fruit, vegetables, and fresh or dried dates. The best soil was reserved for the growth of wheat and other cereals, and its extent was measured in terms of corn. Corn was also the standard in which the revenue was reckoned, both in public and private contracts. Such and such a field required about fifty litres of seed to the aurora. Another needed sixty-two, or seventy-five, according to the fertility of the land and its locality. Landed property was placed under the guardianship of the gods, and its transfer or session was accompanied by formalities of a half-religious, half-magical character. The party-giving delivery of it called down upon the head of any one who would dare in the future to dispute the validity of the deed, implications of which the text was inserted on a portion of the surface of an egg-shaped nodule, a flint, basalt, or other hard stone. These little monuments display on their cone-shaped end a series of figures, sometimes arranged in two parallel divisions, sometimes scattered over the surface, which represent the deities invoked to watch over the sanctity of the contract. It was a kind of representation in miniature of the aspect which the heavens presented to the Caltians. The disks of the sun and moon, together with Venus Ashtar, are the prominent elements in the scene. The zodiacal figures, or the symbols employed to represent them, are arranged in an apparent orbit around these, such as the scorpion, the bird, the dog, the thunderbolt of Raman, the mace, the horned monsters, half hidden by the temples they guard, and the enormous dragon who embraces in his folds half the entire firmament. If ever, in the course of days, any one of the brothers, children, family, men or women, slaves or servants of the house, or any governor or functionary whatsoever, arises an intense to steal this field, and remove this landmark, either to make a gift of it to a god, or to assign it to a competitor, or to appropriate it to himself. If he modifies the area of it, the limits and the landmark, if he divides it into portions, and if he says, the field has no owner, since there has been no donation of it. If from the dread of the terrible implications would protect this stela and the field, he sends a fool, a deaf or blind person, a wicked wretch, an idiot, a stranger, or an ignorant one, and should cause this stela to be taken away, and should throw it into the water, cover it with dust, mutilate it by scratching it with a stone, burn it in the fire and destroy it, or write anything else upon it, or carry it away to a place where it will be no longer seen. This man, may Anu, Bel, Ia, the exalted lady, the great gods, cast upon him looks a wrath, may they destroy his strength, may they exterminate his race. All the immortals are associated in this excommunication, and each one promises in his turn the aid of his power. Meridoc, by whose spells the sick are restored, will inflict upon the guilty one a dropsy which no incantation can cure. Shamash, the supreme judge, will send forth against him one of his inexorable judgments. Sin, the inhabitant of the brilliant heavens, will cover him with leprosy as with a garment. Adar, the warrior, will break his weapons, and Zamama, the king of stripes, will not stand by him on the field of battle. Iaman will let loose his tempest upon his fields, and will overwhelm them. The whole band of the invisibles hold themselves ready to defend the rites of the proprietor against all attacks. In no part of the ancient world was the sacred character property so forcibly laid down, or the possession of the soil more firmly secured by religion. In instruments of agriculture and modes of cultivation, Caldea was no better off than Egypt. The rapidity with which the river rose in the spring, and its variable subsistence from year to year, furnished little indismant to the Caldeans to entrust to it the work of watering their lands. On the contrary, they were compelled to protect themselves from it, and to keep at a distance the volume of waters it brought down. Each property, whether of square, triangular, or any other shape, was surrounded with a continuous earth-built barrier which bounded it on every side, and served at the same time as a rampart against the inundation. Rows of Shadoofs installed along the banks of the canals or streams provided for the irrigation of the lands. The fields were laid out like a chessboard, and the squares, separated from each other by earthen ridges, formed as it were so many basins. When the elevation of the ground arrested the flow of the waters, these were collected into reservoirs, once by the use of other Shadoofs that were raised to a higher level. The plow was nothing more than an obliquely placed matak, whose handle was lengthened in order to harness oxen to it. Whilst the plowmen pressed heavily on the handle, two attendants kept incessantly goading the beets, or urging them forward with voice and whip, and a third scattered the seed in the furrow. A considerable capital was needed to ensure success in agricultural undertakings. Contracts were made for three years, and stipulated that payments should be made partly in metal and partly in the products of the soil. The farmer paid a small sum when entering into possession, and the remainder of the debt was gradually liquidated at the end of each of twelve months, the payment being in silver one year, and in corn the two following. The rent varied according to the quality of the soil and the facilities which it afforded for cultivation. A field, for instance, of three bushels was made to pay nine hundred measures, while another of ten bushels had only eighteen hundred to pay. In many instances the peasant preferred to take the proprietor into partnership, the latter in such case providing all the expenses of cultivation, on the understanding that he should receive two-thirds of the gross product. The tenant was obliged to administer the estate as a careful householder during the term of his lease. He was to maintain the buildings and implements in good repair, to see that the hedges were kept up, to keep the Shadoofs in working order, and to secure the good condition of the water courses. He had rarely enough slaves to manage the business with profit. Those he had purchased were sufficient, with the aid of his wives and children, to carry on ordinary operations. But when any pressure arose, especially at harvest time, he had to seek elsewhere the additional laborers he required. The temples were the chief source of the supply of these. The majority of the supplementary laborers were free men who were hired out by their family, or engaged themselves for a fixed term, during which they were subject to a sort of slavery, the conditions of which were determined by law. The workmen renounced his liberty for fifteen days, or a month, or for a whole year. He disposed, so to speak, of a portion of his life to the provisional master of his choice, and if he did not enter upon his work at the day agreed upon, or if he showed himself inactive in the duties assigned to him, he was liable to severe punishment. He received in exchange for his labor his food, lodging, and clothing, and if an accident should occur to him during the term of his service, the law granted him an indemnity in proportion to the injury he had sustained. His average wage was from four to six shekels of silver per annum. He was also entitled by custom to another shekel in the form of a retaining fee, and he could claim his pay, which was given to him mostly in corn, in monthly installments, if his agreement were for a considerable time, and daily if it were for a short period. The mercenary never fell into the condition of the ordinary serf. He retained his rights as a man, and possessed in the person of the patron for whom he labored, or whom he himself had selected, a defender of his interests. When he came to the end of his engagement, he returned to his family, and resumed his ordinary occupation until the next occasion. Many of the farmers in a small way earned thus, in a few weeks, sufficient means to supplement their own modest personal income. Others sought out more permanent occupations, and hired themselves out as regular farm servants. The lands which neither the rise of the river nor the irrigation system could reach, so far as to render fit for agriculture, were reserved for the pasture of the flocks in the springtime, when they were covered with rich grass. The presence of lions in the neighborhood, however, obliged the husbandmen to take precautions for the safety of their flocks. They constructed provisional enclosures into which the animals were driven every evening, when the pastures were too far off to allow the flocks being brought back to the sheepfold. The chase was a favorite pastime among them, and few days passed without the hunters bringing back with him a young gazelle caught in a trap, or a hare killed by an arrow. These formed substantial additions to the larder, for the caldeans do not seem to have kept about them, as the Egyptians did, such tamed animals as cranes or herons, gazelles or deer. They contented themselves with the useful species, oxen, asses, sheep, and goats. Some of the ancient monuments, cylinders, and clay tablets reproduced in a rough manner scenes from pastoral life. The door of the fold opens, and we see a flock of goats sallying forth to the cracking of the herdsman's whip. When they reach the pasture they scatter over the meadows, and while the shepherd keeps his eye upon them, he plays upon his reed to the delight of his dog. In the meantime the farm people are engaged in the careful preparation of the evening meal. Two individuals on opposite sides of the hearth watch the pot boiling between them, while a baker makes his dough into round cakes. CHAPTER III CALDEAN CIVILIZATION PART XII Sometimes a quarrel breaks out among the comrades, and leads to a stand-up fight with the fists. Or a lion, perhaps, in quest of a meal, surprises and kills one of the bulls. The shepherd runs up, his axe in his hand, to contend bravely with the marauder for the possession of his beast. The shepherd was accustomed to provide himself with assistance in the shape of enormous dogs, who had no more hesitation in attacking beasts of prey than they had in pursuing gain. In these combats the natural courage of the shepherd was stimulated by interest, for he was personally responsible for the safety of his flock, if a lion should find an entrance into one of the enclosures. Fishing was not so much a pastime as a source of livelihood, for fish occupied a high place in the middle of fair of the common folk. Caught by the line, net, or trap, it was dried in the sun, smoked, or salted. The chase was essentially the pastime of the great noble, the pursuit of the lion and the bear in the wooded covers, or the marshy thickets of the river bank, the pursuit of the gazelle, the ostrich, and bus-starred on the elevated plains or rocky table-lands of the desert. The onager of Mesopotamia is a very beautiful animal, with its gray, glossy coat and its lively and rapid action. If it is disturbed it gives forth a cry, kicks up its heels and dashes off. When at a safe distance it stops, turns round and faces its pursuer. As soon as he approaches it starts off again, stops, and takes to its heels again, continuing this procedure as long as it is followed. The Caldeas found it difficult to catch by the aid of dogs, but they could bring it down by arrows, or perhaps catch it alive by a stratagem. A running noose was thrown round its neck, and two men held the ends of the ropes. The animal struggled, made a rush, and attempted to bite, but its efforts tended only to tighten the noose still more firmly, and it at length gave in half-strangled. After alternating struggles and suffocating paroxysms, it became somewhat calmer and it allowed itself to be led. It was finally tamed, if not to the extent of becoming useful in agriculture, at least for the purpose of war. Before the horse was known in Caldea it was used to draw the chariot. The original habitat of the horse was the great table-land of Central Asia. It is doubtful whether it was brought suddenly into the region of the Tigris and Euphrates by some barbaric invasion, or whether it was passed on from tribe to tribe, and thus gradually reached that country. It soon became acclimatized, and its cross-breeding with the ass led for centuries to the production of magnificent mules. The horse was known to the kings of Lagash, who used it in harness. The sovereigns of neighbouring cities were also acquainted with it, but it seems to have been employed solely by the upper classes of society, and never to have been generally used in the war chariot, or as a charger in cavalry operations. The Caldeans carried agriculture to a high degree of perfection, and succeeded in obtaining from the soil everything it could be made to yield. Their methods, transmitted in the first place to the Greeks and afterwards to the Arabs, were perpetuated long after their civilisation had disappeared, and were even practised by the people of Iraq under the Abbasid Caliphs. Agricultural treatises on clay, which contained an account of these matters, were deposited in one or other of the sacred libraries in which the priests of each city were long accustomed to collect together documents from every source on which they could lay their hands. There were to be found in each of these collections a certain number of works which were unique, either because the authors were natives of the city, or because all copies of them had been destroyed in the course of centuries. The Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance, at Uruk, a history of the creation and of the battles of the gods with the monsters at Kutah. All of them had their special collection of hymns or Psalms, religious and magical formulas, their lists of words and grammatical phraseology, their glossaries and syllabaries, which enabled them to understand and translate texts drawn up in Sumerian, or to decipher those whose writing presented more than ordinary difficulty. In these libraries there was, we find, as in the inscriptions of Egypt, a complete literature, of which only some scattered fragments have come down to us. The little we are able to examine has produced upon our modern investigators a complex impression, in which astonishment, rather than admiration, contends with the sense of tediousness. There may be recognized here and there, among the wearysome succession of phrases, with their rugged proper names, episodes which seem something like a Chaldean Genesis or Veda. Now and then a bold flight of fancy, a sudden exaltation of thought, or felicitous expression, arrest the attention and hold it captive for a time. In the narrative of the adventures of Gilgamesh, for instance, there is a certain nobility of character, and the sequence of events in their natural and marvelous development are handled with gravity and freedom. If we sometimes encounter episodes which provoke a smile or excite our pugnance, we must take into account the rudeness of the age with which they deal, and remember that the men and gods of the later Homeric epic are not a whit behind the heroes of Babylonian story and coarseness. The recognition of divine omnipotence and the keenly felt afflictions of the soul, awakened in the Chaldean psalmist feelings of adoration and penitence which still find, in spite of the differences of religion, an echo in our own hearts, and the unknown scribe who related the story of the descent of Ishtar to the infernal regions, was able to express with a certain gloomy energy the miseries of the land without return. These instances are to be regarded, however, as exceptional. The bulk of Chaldean literature seems nothing more than a heap of pretentious trash, in which even the best-equipped reader can see no meaning, or if he can it is of such a character as to seem unworthy of record. His judgment is natural in the circumstances, for the ancient East is not, like Greece and Italy, the dead of yesterday whose soul still hovers around us, and whose legacies constitute more than half of our patrimony. On the contrary, it was buried soul and body, gods and cities, men and circumstances, ages ago, and even its heirs, in the lapse of years, have become extinct. In proportion as we are able to bring its civilization to light, we become more and more conscious that we have little or nothing in common with it. Its laws and customs, its methods of action and its modes of thought, are so far apart from those of the present day that they seem to us to belong to a humanity utterly different from our own. The names of its deities do not appeal to our imagination like those of the Olympian cycle, and no traditional respect serves to do away with the sense of uncouthness which we experience from the jingle of syllables which enter into them. Its artist did not regard the world from the same point of view as we do, and its writers, drawing their inspiration from an entirely different source, made use of obsolete methods to express their feelings and coordinate their ideas. It thus happens that while we understand to asshade the classical language of the Greeks and Romans, and can read their works almost without effort, the great primitive literatures of the world, the Egyptian and Chaldean, have nothing to offer us for the most part but a sequence of problems to solve, or of enigmas to unriddle with patience. How many phrases, how many words at which we stumble, require a painstaking analysis before we can make ourselves master of their meaning? And even when we have determined to our satisfaction their literal signification, what a number of excursions we must make in the domain of religious, ethical, and political history, before we can compel them to render up to us their full import, or to make them as intelligible to others as they are to ourselves. When so many commentaries are required to interpret the thought of an individual or a people, some difficulty must be experienced in estimating the value of the expression which they have given to it. Elements of beauty were certainly, and perhaps are still within it, but in proportion as we clear away the rubbish which encumbers it, the mass of glossaries necessary to interpret it fall in and bury it so as to stifle it afresh. While the obstacles to our appreciation of Chaldean literature are of such a serious character, we are much more at home in our efforts to estimate the extent and depth of their scientific knowledge. They were as well versed as the Egyptians, but not more, in arithmetic and geometry, and as far as these had an application to the affairs of everyday life. The difference between the two peoples consisted chiefly in their respective numerical systems, the Egyptians employing almost exclusively the decimal system of notation, while the Chaldeans combined its use with the duodecimal. To express the units they made use of so many vertical nails placed one after or above each other. Tens were represented by bent brackets up to sixty. Beyond this figure they had the choice of two methods of notation. They could express the further tens by the continuous additions of brackets, or they could represent fifty by a vertical nail, and add for every additional ten a bracket to the right of it. The notation of a hundred was represented by the vertical nail with a horizontal stroke to the right, and the number of hundreds by the symbols placed before this sign. A thousand was written as ten times one hundred, and the series of thousands by the combination of different notations which served to express units, tens, and hundreds. They subdivided the unit, moreover, into sixty equal parts, and each of these parts into sixty further equal subdivisions, and this system of fractions was used in all kinds of quantitative measurements. The fathom, the foot, and its square, talents and bushels, the complete system of Caldean weights and measures were based on intimate alliance and parallel use of the decimal and duodecimal system of notation. The sixtieth was more frequently employed than the hundredth when large quantities were in question. It was called a sauce, and ten sauces were equal to a naire, while sixty nares were equivalent to a sahr. The series, sauces, nares, and sahrs, being employed in all estimations of values. Years and measures of length were reckoned in sauces, while talents and bushels were measured in sauces and sahrs. The fact that these subdivisions were all divisible by ten or twelve rendered calculations by means of them as easy to the merchant and workman as well as to the mathematical expert. The glimpses that we have been able to obtain up to the present of Caldean scientific methods indicate that they were on a low level, but that they were sufficiently advanced to furnish practical rules for application in everyday affairs. Helps to memory of different kinds lists of figures with their names phonetically rendered in Sumerian and Semitic speech, tables of squares and cubes, and rudimentary formulas and figures for land surveying, furnish sufficient instructions to enable any one to make complicated calculations in a ready manner, and to work out in figures with tolerable accuracy the superficial area of irregularly shaped plots of land. The Caldeans could draw out, with a fair amount of exactness, plans of properties or of towns, and their ambition impelled them even to attempt to make maps of the world. The latter were, it is true, but rough sketches, in which mythological beliefs vitiated the information which merchants and soldiers had collected in their journeys. The earth was represented as a disk surrounded by the ocean stream. Caldea took up the greater part of it, and foreign countries did not appear in it at all, or held a position out in the cold at its extremities. Actual knowledge was woven in an extraordinary manner with mystic considerations, in which the virtues of numbers, their connections with the gods, and the application of geometrical diagrams to the prediction of the future played an important part. We know what a brilliant fortune these speculations attained in after years, and the firmhold they obtained for centuries over western nations, as formerly over the past. It was not an arithmetic in geometry alone moreover that the Caldeans were led away by such deceits. Each branch of science in its turn was vitiated by them, and indeed it could hardly be otherwise when we come to consider the Caldean outlook upon the universe. Its operations, in their eyes, were not carried on under impersonal and unswerving laws, but by voluntary and rational agents, swayed by an inexorable fate against which they dared not rebel, but still free enough and powerful enough to avert by magic the decrees of destiny, or at least to retard their execution. From this conception of things, each subordinate science was obliged to make its investigations in two perfectly distinct regions. It had, at first, to determine the material facts within its competence, such as the position of the stars, for instance, or the symptoms of a malady. It had then to discover the beings which revealed themselves through these material manifestations, their names and their characteristics. When once it had obtained this information, and could lay its hands upon them, it could compel them to work on its behalf. Science was thus nothing else than the application of magic to a particular class of phenomenon. CHAPTER III. CALDIAN CIVILIZATION PART XIII. The number of astronomical facts with which the Caldians had made themselves acquainted was considerable. It was a question in ancient times whether they or the Egyptians had been the first to carry their investigations into the infinite depths of celestial space. When it came to be a question as to which of the two peoples had made greater progress in this branch of knowledge, all hesitation vanished, and the preeminence was accorded by the ancients to the priests of Babylon rather than to those of Heliopolis and Memphis. The Caldian priests had been accustomed from an early date to record on their clay tablets the aspect of the heavens and the changes which took place in them night after night. The appearance of the constellations, their comparative brilliancy, the precise moments of their rising and setting and culmination, together with the more or less rapid movements of the planets and their motions towards or from one another. To their unaided eyes, sharpened by practice and favored by the transparency of the air, many stars were visible, as to the Egyptians, which we can perceive only by the aid of the telescope. Those thousands of brilliant bodies scattered apparently at random over the face of the sky moved, however, with perfect regularity, and the period between their departure from and the return to the same point in the heavens was determined at an early date. Their position could be predicted at any hour, their course in the firmament being traced so accurately that its various stages were marked out and indicated beforehand. The moon, they discovered, had to complete two hundred and twenty-three revolutions of twenty-nine days and a half each, before it returned to the point from which it had set out. This period of its career being accomplished, it began a second of equal length, then a third, and so on, in an infinite series, during which it traversed the same celestial houses and repeated in them the same acts of its life. All the eclipses which it had undergone in one period would again afflict it in another, and would be manifest in the same places of the earth in the same order of time. Whether they ascribed these eclipses to some mechanical cause, or regarded them as so many unfortunate attacks made upon sin by the seven, they recognized their periodical character, and they were acquainted with the system of the two hundred and twenty-three lunations by which their occurrence and duration could be predicted. Further observations encouraged the astronomers to endeavor to do for the sun what they had so successfully accomplished in regard to the moon. No long experience was needed to discover the fact that the majority of solar eclipses were followed some fourteen days and a half after by an eclipse of the moon. But they were unable to take sufficient advantage of this experience to predict with certainty the instant of a future eclipse of the sun, although they had been so struck with the connection of the two phenomenon as to believe that they were in a position to announce it approximately. They were frequently deceived in their predictions, and more than one eclipse which they had promised did not take place at the time expected. But their successful prognostications were sufficiently frequent to consult them for their failures, and to maintain the respect of the people and the rulers for their knowledge. Their years were vague years of three hundred and sixty days, the twelve equal months of which they were composed bore names which were borrowed, on the one hand, from events in civil life, such as Simanu from the making of Brick, and Adiru from the sowing of seed, and on the other, from mythological occurrences whose origin is still obscure, such as Nisanu from the altar of Ia, and Ulu from a message of Ishtar. The adjustment of this year to astronomical demands was roughly carried out by the addition of a month every six years, which was called a second Adar, Bluel, or Nisan, according to the place in which it was intercalated. The neglect of the hours and minutes in their calculation of the length of the year became with them, as with the Egyptians, a source of serious embarrassment, and we are still ignorant as to the means employed to meet the difficulty. The months had relations to the signs of the zodiac, and the days composing them were made up of twelve double hours each. The Chaldeans had invented two instruments, both of them of a simple character to measure time. The Clepsidra and the Solar Clock, the latter of which in later times became the source of the Greek polos. The sundial served to determine a number of simple facts which were indispensable in astronomical calculations, such as the four cardinal points, the meridian of the place, the solstitial and equinoctial epics, and the elevation of the pole at the position of observation. The construction of the sundial and Clepsidra, if not the polos also, is doubtless to be referred back to a very ancient date, but none of the text already brought to light makes mention of the employment of these instruments. All these discoveries, which constitute in our eyes the scientific patrimony of the Chaldeans, were regarded by themselves as the least important results of their investigations. Did they not know, thanks to these investigations, that the stars shone for other purposes than to lighten up the nights, to rule, in fact, the destinies of men and kings, and in ruling that of kings, to determine the fortune of empires? Their earliest astronomers, by their assiduous contemplation of the nightly heavens, had come to the conclusion that the vicissitudes of the heavenly bodies were in fixed relations with mundane phenomena and events. If Mercury, for instance, displayed an unusual brilliancy at his rising, and his disc appeared as a two-edged sword, riches and abundance, due to the position of the luminous halo which surrounded him, would be scattered over Caldea, while discords would cease therein, and justice would triumph over iniquity. The first observer who was struck by this coincidence noted it down. His successors confirmed his observations, and at length deduced, in the process of the years, from their accumulated knowledge, a general law. Henceforward, each time that Mercury assumed the same aspect, it was a favourable aggrie, and kings and their subjects became the recipients of his bounty. As long as he maintained this appearance no foreign ruler could install himself in Caldea, tyranny would be divided against itself, equity would prevail, and a strong monarch bear sway, while the landholders and the king would be confirmed in their privileges, and obedience, together with tranquility, would rule everywhere in the land. The number of these observations increased to such a degree that it was found necessary to classify them methodically to avoid confusion. Tables of them were drawn up, in which the reader could see at one and the same moment the aspect of the heavens on such and such a night and hour, and the corresponding events either then happening, or about to happen, in Caldea, Syria, or some foreign land. If, for instance, the moon displayed the same appearance on the first and twenty-seventh of the month, Elan was threatened. But if the sun at his setting appears double his usual size, with three groups of bluish rays, the king of Caldea is ruined. To the indications of the heavenly bodies, the Caldeans added the portents which could be deduced from atmospheric phenomena. If it thundered on the twenty-seventh of Tamos, the wheat harvest would be excellent and the produce of the ears magnificent. But if this should occur six days later, that is, on the second of Abu, bloods and rains were to be apprehended in a short time, together with the death of the king and the division of his empire. It was not for nothing that the sun and moon surrounded themselves in the evening with blood-red vapours, or veiled themselves in dark clouds, that they grew suddenly pale or red after having been intensely bright, that unexpected fires blazed out on the confines of the air, and that on certain nights the stars seemed to have become detached from the firmament and to be falling upon the earth. These prodigies were so many warnings granted by the gods to the people and their kings before great crises in human affairs. The astronomer investigated and interpreted them, and his predictions had a greater influence than we are prepared to believe upon the fortunes of individuals and even of states. The rulers consulted and imposed upon the astronomers the duty of selecting the most favourable moment for the execution of the projects they had in view. From an early date each temple contained a library of astrological writings, where the people might find, drawn up, as in a code, the signs which bore upon their destinies. One of these libraries, consisting of not less than seventy clay tablets, is considered to have been first drawn up in the reign of Sargon of Agade, but to have been so modified and enriched with new examples from time to time that the original is well nigh lost. This was the classical work on the subject in the seventh century before our era, and the astronomers, royal to whom applications were accustomed to be made to explain a natural phenomenon or a prodigy, drew their answers ready made from it. Astronomy, as thus understood, was not merely the queen of sciences, it was the mistress of the world, taught secretly in the temples, its adepts, at least those who had passed through the regular curriculum of study which it required, became almost a distinct class in society. The occupation was a lucrative one, and its accomplished professors had numerous rivals whose educational antecedents were unknown, but who excited the envy of the experts in their trading upon the credulity of the people. These quacks went about the country drawing up horoscopes and arranging schemes of birthday prognostications, of which the majority were without any authentic warranty. The law sometimes took note of the fact that they were competing with the official experts, and interfered with their business. But if they happened to be exiled from one city, they found some neighbouring one ready to receive them. CHAPTER III. CALDIAN CIVILIZATION PART XIV. Caldia abounded with soothsayers and necromancers no less than with astrologers. She possessed no real school of medicine, such as we find in Egypt, in which were taught rational methods of diagnosing maladies and of curing them by the use of symbols. The Caldians were content to confide the care of their bodies to sorcerers and exorcists, who were experts in the art of casting out demons and spirits, whose presence in a living being brought about those disorders to which humanity is prone. The facial expression of the patient during the crisis, the words which escaped him in delirium, were, for these clever individuals, so many signs revealing the nature and sometimes the name of the enemy to be combated. The fever god, the plague god, the headache god. Consultations and medical treatment were, therefore, religious offices, in which were involved purifications, offerings, and a whole ritual of mysterious words and gestures. The magician lighted a fire of herbs and sweet-smelling plants in front of his patient, and the clear flame arising from this put the specters to flight and dispelled the malign influences, a prayer describing the enchantments and their effects being afterwards recited. The baleful imprecation, like a demon, has fallen upon a man. Whale and pain have fallen upon him. Direful whale has fallen upon him. The baleful imprecation, the spell, the pains in the head. This man, the baleful imprecation, slaughters him like a sheep, for his god has quitted his body. His goddess has withdrawn herself into his pleasure from him. A wail of pain has spread himself as a garment upon him and has overtaken him. The harm done by the magician, though terrible, could be repaired by the gods, and Merodoc was moved to compassion betimes. Merodoc cast his eyes on the patient. Merodoc entered into the house of his father Ia, saying, My father, the baleful curse has fallen like a demon upon the man. Twice he thus speaks and then adds, What this man ought to do, I know not. How shall he be healed? Ia replies to his son Merodoc, My son, what is there that I could add to thy knowledge? Merodoc, what is there that I could add to thy knowledge? That which I know thou knowest it. Go then, my son Merodoc, lead him to the house of purification of the god who prepares remedies, and break the spell that is upon him. Draw away the charm which is upon him. The ill which afflicts his body, which he suffers by reason of the curse of his father, or the curse of his mother, or the curse of his eldest brother, or by the curse of a murderous who is unknown to the man. The curse may it be taken from him by the charm of Ia, like a clove of garlic, which is stripped skin by skin. Like a cluster of dates may it be cut off. Like a bunch of flowers may it be uprooted. The spell may heaven avert it, may the earth avert it. The god himself deigned to point out the remedy. The sick man was to take a clove of garlic, some dates, and a stalk bearing flowers, and was to throw them into the fire bit by bit, repeating appropriate prayers at each stage of the operation. In like manner as this garlic is peeled and thrown into the fire, and the burning flame consumes it, as it will never be planted in the vegetable garden, it will never draw moisture from the pond or from the ditch. Its root will never again spread in the earth. Its stalk will not pierce the ground and behold the sun. It will not serve as food for the gods or the king. So may it remove the baleful curse. So may it loose the bond of sickness, of sin, of shortcomings, of perversity, of crime. The sickness which is in my body, in my flesh, in my muscles. Like this garlic may it be stripped off. And may the burning flame consume it in this day. May the spell of the sorcerer be cast out, that I may behold the light. The ceremony could be prolonged at will. The sick person pulled to pieces the cluster of dates, the bunch of flowers, a fleece of wool, some goat's hair, a skein of dyed thread, and a bean, which were all in turn consumed in the fire. At each stage of the operation he repeated the formula, introducing into it one or two expressions characterizing the nature of the particular offering. As for instance, the dates will no more hang from their stalks. The leaves of the branch will never again be united to the tree. The wool and the hair will never again lie on the back of the animal on which they grew, and will never be used for weaving garments. The use of magical words was often accompanied by remedies, which were for the most part both grotesque and disgusting in their composition. They comprised bitter or stinking wood shavings, raw meat, snakes' flesh, wine and oil, the whole reduced to a pulp, or made into a sort of pill and swallowed on the chance of its bringing relief. The Egyptian physicians employed similar compounds, to which they attributed wonderful effects, but they made use of them in exceptional circumstances only. The medical authorities in Caldea recommended them before all others, and their very strangeness reassured the patient as to their efficacy. They filled the possessing spirits with disgust, and became a means of relief owing to the invincible horror with which they inspired the persecuting demons. The Caldeans were not, however, ignorant of the natural virtues of herbs, and at times made use of them, but they were not held in very high esteem, and the physicians preferred the prescriptions which pander to the popular craving for the supernatural. Amulets further confirmed the effect produced by the recipes, and prevented the enemy once cast out from re-entering the body. These amulets were made of knots of cord, pierced shells, bronze or terracotta statuettes, and plaques fastened to the arms or worn round the neck. On each of the latter kind were roughly drawn the most terrible images that they could conceive. A shortened incantation was scrawled on its surface, where it was covered with extraordinary characters, which, when the spirits perceived, they at once took flight, and the possessor of the talisman escaped the threatened illness. However laughable, and at the same time deplorable, this hopeless medley of exact knowledge and gross superstition may appear to us at the present day. It was the means of bringing a prosperity to the cities of Caldea which no amount of actual science would ever have produced. The neighbouring barbaric peoples were imbued with the same ideas as the Caldeans regarding the constitution of the world and the nature of the laws which governed it. They lived likewise in perpetual fear of those invisible beings, whose changeable and arbitrary will actuated all visible phenomena. They attributed all the reverses and misfortunes which overtook them to the direct action of these malevolent beings. They believed firmly in the influence of the stars on the course of events. They were constantly on the lookout for prodigies, and were greatly alarmed by them, since they had no certain knowledge of the number and nature of their enemies, and the means they had invented for protecting themselves from these, or of overcoming them, too often proved inefficient. In the eyes of these barbarians the Caldeans seemed to be possessed of the very powers which they themselves lacked. The magicians of Caldea had forced the demons to obey them and to unmask themselves before them. They read with ease in the heavens the present and future of men and nations. They interpreted the will of the immortals in its smallest manifestations, and with them this faculty was not a limited and ephemeral power quickly exhausted by use. The rights and formulas known to them enabled them to exercise it freely at all times, in all places, alike upon the most exalted of the gods and the most dreaded of mortals, without its ever becoming weakened. A race so endowed with wisdom was, indeed, destined to triumph over its neighbors, and the latter would have no chance of resisting such a nation unless they borrowed from it its manners, customs, industry, writing, and all the arts and sciences which had brought about their superiority. Caldean civilization spread into Elam and took possession of the inhabitants of the shores of the Persian Gulf. And then, since its course was impeded on the south by the sea, on the west by the desert, and on the east by the mountains, it turned in the direction of the great northern plains and proceeded up the two rivers, beside whose lower waters it had been cradled. It was at this very time that the pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty had just completed the conquest of Nubia. Greater Egypt, made what she was by the efforts of twenty generations, had become an African power. The sea formed her northern boundary, the desert and the mountains enclosed her on all sides, and the Nile appeared the only natural outlet into a new world. She followed it indefatigably from one cataract to another, colonizing as she passed all the lands fertilized by its waters. Every step which she made in this direction increased the distance between her capitals and the Mediterranean, and brought her armies further south. Asia would have practically ceased to exist, as far as Egypt was concerned, had not the repeated incursions of the Bedouin obliged her to make advances from time to time in that direction. Still, she crossed the frontier as seldom as possible, and recalled her troops as soon as they had reduced the marauders to order. Ethiopia alone attracted her, and it was there that she firmly established her empire. The two great civilized peoples of the ancient world, therefore, had each their field of action clearly marked out, and neither of them had ever ventured into that of the other. There had been no lack of intercourse between them. If it ever really had taken place, had been accidental, had merely produced passing results, and up till then had terminated without bringing to either side a decisive advantage. Appendix. Veronic Lists. The Pharaohs of the Ancient and Middle Empires. Dynasties I through 14. The lists of the Pharaohs of the Memphite period appear to have been drawn up in much the same order as we now possess them, as early as the Twelfth Dynasty. It is certain that the sequence was definitely fixed about the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, since it was under this that the Canon of Turin was copied. The lists which have come down to us appear to follow two traditions, which differ completely in certain cases. One has been preserved for us by the abbreviators of Menetho, while the other was the authority followed by the compilers of the tables of Abidus and Sakara, as well as by the author of the Turin Papyrus. There appear to have been in the first five dynasties a certain number of kings whose exact order and affiliation were supposed to be well known to the compilers, but at the same time there were others whose names were found on the monuments, but whose position with regard to their predecessors was indicated neither by historical documents nor by popular romance. We find, therefore, in these two traditional lists a series of sovereigns always occupying the same position, and others hovering around them who have no decided place. The hieroglyphic lists and the royal canon appear to have been chiefly concerned with the former, but the authorities followed by Menetho have studiously collected the names of the latter and have intercalated them in different places, sometimes in the middle, but mostly at the end of the dynasty, where they form a kind of kaput mortuum. The most striking example of this arrangement is afforded to us in the fourth dynastie. The contemporary monuments show that its kings formed a compact group, to which are appended the first three sovereigns of the fifth dynastie, always in the same order. Mencarii succeeded Coffrey, Shapsiskov followed Mencarii, Yusercov followed Shapsipskov, and so on to the end. The lists of Menetho suppressed Shapsiskov and substitute four other individuals in his place, namely Catoesis, Bikyrus, Cybracharis, Thamsis, whose reigns must have occupied more than half a century. These four were doubtless aspirants to the throne, or local kings belonging to the time between the fourth and fifth dynasties, whom Menetho's authorities inserted between the compact groups made up of Kyops and his sons on the one hand, and of Yusercov and his two real or supposed brothers on the other, omitting Shapsiskov, and having no idea that Yusercov was his immediate successor, with or without rivals to the throne. In a course of lectures given at the Collège de France, 1893 to 1895, I have examined at length the questions raised by a study of the various lists, and I may be able, perhaps, someday to publish the result of my researches. For the present I must confine myself merely to what is necessary to the elucidation of the present work, namely the Menethonian tradition on the one hand and the tradition of the monumental tables on the other. The text which I propose to follow for the latter, during the first five dynasties, is that of the second table of Abidos. The names placed between brackets are taken either from the table of Sakara, or from the royal canon of Turin. The numbers of the years, months, and days are those furnished by the last mentioned document. From the sixth to the twelfth dynasties, the lists of Menetho are at fault. They give the origin and duration of the dynasties without furnishing us with the names of the kings. This blank is partially filled by the table of Abidos, by the fragments of the Turin papyrus, and by information supplied by the monuments. No such definitely established sequence appears to have existed for this period as for the preceding ones. The Herakliapolitan dynasties figure, perhaps, in the canon of Turin only. As for the later Memphite dynasties, the table of Abidos gives one series of pharaohs, while the canon adopts a different one. After the close of the sixth dynastie, and before the accession of the ninth, there was doubtless a period when several branches of the royal family claimed the supremacy and ruled in different parts of Egypt. This is what we know to have taken place later between the 22nd and the 24th dynasties. The tradition of Abidos had, perhaps, adopted one of these contemporaneous dynasties, while the Turin papyrus had chosen another. Menetho, on the other hand, had selected from among them as representatives of the legitimate succession, the line reigning at Memphis, which immediately followed the sovereigns of the sixth dynastie. The following table gives both the series known, as far as it is possible for the present to re-establish the order. The 11th Theben dynastie contains but a small number of kings according to the official lists. The tables on the monuments recognize only two, Nibkhuri and Sankhari, but the Turin canon admits at least half a dozen. These differences probably arose from the fact that the second Herakliapolitan dynastie having reigned at the same time as the earlier Theben princes, the tables on the monuments, while rejecting the Herakliapolitans, recognized as legitimate pharaohs only those of the Theben kings who had ruled over the whole of Egypt, namely the first and last of the series. The canon, on the contrary, replaced the later Herakliapolitans by those among the contemporary Thebans who had assumed the royal titles. Whatever may have been the cause of these combinations, we find the lists again harmonizing with the accession of the 12th Theben dynastie. For the succeeding dynasties, we possess merely the names enumerated on the fragments of the Turin papyrus, several of which, however, are also found either on the royal chamber at Karnak or on contemporary monuments. The order of the names is not always certain. It is, perhaps, best to transcribe the sequences we are able to gather it from the fragments of the royal papyrus without attempting to distinguish between those which belong to the thirteenth and those which must be relegated to the following dynasties. About fifty names still remain, but so mutilated and scattered over such small fragments of papyrus that their order is most uncertain. We possess monuments of about one-fifth of these kings and the lengths of their reigns. As far as we know them, all appear to have been short. We have no reason to doubt that they did really govern, and we can only hope that in time the progress of excavation will yield us records of them one after another. They bring us down to the period of the invasion of the shepherds, and it is possible that some among them may be found to be contemporaries of the fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties. End of vol. 3 of the history of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria by Gaston Maspero. Read by Professor Heather Mby in Carrollton, Georgia in December 2009. For more free audiobooks or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.