The Historians' History of the World 01

First of all, there is a long fragment of laws relating to the family, written in Assyrian and Sumerian. They read as follows:

“It has thus been decided by the sentence of the judge: ‘If a son (is authorised) to say to his father: “Thou art not my father,” he (the son) can sell him, treat him as a forfeit, and give him in payment like money.

“‘If a son (is authorised) to say to his mother: “Thou art not my mother,” he will cut her hair off, assemble the people, and make her go out of his house.

“‘If a father (is authorised) to say to his son: “Thou art not my son,” he (the father) can shut him up in his dwelling and in the cellar.

“‘If a mother (is authorised) to say to her son: “Thou art not my son,” she can shut him up in her dwelling and in the upper chambers.

“‘If a wife (is authorised) to repudiate her husband, and to say to him: “Thou art not my husband,” she can have him thrown into the river.

“‘If a man (is authorised) to say to his wife: “Thou art not my wife,” he can have half a mina of silver paid to him.

“‘If the intendant lets a slave escape, if he dies (the slave), if he becomes infirm, if in consequence of bad treatment he becomes ill, he (the intendant) shall pay half a hin of corn a day (to the master of the slave).’”

In these ancient records we likewise find laws concerning property. One tablet seems to pertain to the observations made by a Sumerian agriculturist, which were proposed to the Assyrian agriculturists of the seventh century B.C. First of all are indicated the best conditions of crop-growing, the time for sowing, the calculating of the income, the tillage, irrigation, and the injurious animals which must be destroyed.

It is evident that, in spite of the difference in property or wealth, the interest is always the same, the calculation of interest on different sums in contracts showing that the figures bear a relation to one another.

Loans could be made with or without interest; they could be made with or without security, and these securities were of different natures:

“For the interest of one’s money.… He has given as security.… A house, a field, an orchard, a female slave, a male slave.”

Exchanges were frequent, and from the data on the tablets, the principal things exchanged are known:

“They exchanged a house for money. They exchanged a field for money. They exchanged an orchard for money. They exchanged a female slave for money. They exchanged a male slave for money.”

Trials are inherent to human nature and to all epochs. Pleading took place in Nineveh, Assyria, and Chaldea. On this subject the following axiom used by the judges and the pleaders, holds perfectly to-day:

“He who listeneth not to his conscience, the judge will not listen to his right.”

There must have been a fairly complicated code of procedure, for traces are found of an appellative jurisdiction in which the sovereign was the final judge.

The Sumerian laws likewise fixed the form of individual contracts. The signature, “qatatu,” was the essential feature of the contract.

Signature took place by affixing the seal. One fragment of these tablets bears witness to this custom so perpetuated in the East from remotest times to the present. Herodotus mentions the existence of seals as a peculiarity of the Babylonians.

“Every Babylonian,” said he, “had his seal for his personal use.” The Assyrian “kunuk” answers, like our word “seal,” both to the instrument and the mark it left on the plastic earth.

A large number of contracts of private business concerning all the ordinary transactions of life, between individuals, on which figures the mark of a seal, has been found: contracts of sale or exchange; contracts of loan or hire; acknowledgments of debts, carrying the guaranty of a mortgage or of chattels. They read like the records of a notary’s office. These contracts, like all the documents of the palace library, are written on the traditional bricks. These are easily distinguished from other documents by their outer appearance. After a few lines given up to the names of the contracting parties, we see the imprints of their seals, or sometimes the imprint of three finger nails.

The general drift of their contracts is easy to understand; the clauses are worded in formal language which proceeds from the nature of the relations of the two parties according to the object of their agreement. As a usual thing, these contracts are very simply drawn. They begin by stating the names and qualifications of the parties who are going to enter into agreement by the affixment of their seal or by the nail mark, its substitute.

All contracting parties are not called upon to fulfil this formality; it is only those who have the title of “dominus negotii” the vendor, the lessor, the lender, those who “hold the pen” as the modern expression is.