v. SOCIAL GRADES RECOGNIZED IN THE CODE. —The Code recognizes three grades of society: the amélu, the muskénu, and the ardu.
1. The first grade were the men of gentle birth, men of family, and very likely were largely of the same race as the royal family. Winckler has com- pared them with the amélw of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, where it is still a distinct title, and with early Arabic ’aili, ulat (Altorientalische Forschung- en, li. 7. 313). The king himself seems to be ad- dressed by the title amélu sa Marduk liballitsu, ‘the amélu to whom may Marduk grant life.’ He
CODE OF HAMMURABI
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CODE OF HAMMURABI
thus held the position of the First Gentleman of Babylonia. In many passages amélu is distinctly equivalent to ‘officer.’ By courtesy it was ex- tended, like our ‘Sir’ or ‘ Esquire,’ to mark every person of position not otherwise titled. Even in the Code it is usually applied to all free citizens, when no distinction from the muskénw is necessary. It is also used as a determinative before names of trades and occupations. Thus the potter, the tailor, the stone-cutter, carpenter, builder, and other artisans, who are paid a daily wage but may have belonged to old trade guilds, are amélé ; but not the doctor, the veterinary surgeon, or the brander. In some cases this may be accidental, but must be remembered in case further evidence should come to light. He was an officer when performing military service. His residence appears to be called an ékallu, which is best ead
suggest the royal residence. It seems probable that every town contained one or more such ‘mansions.’ They are named in contracts as being built for persons who were certainly not kings (B? 333, B? 381). Consequently the slave of the ‘ palace’ is not necessarily a royal slave ($§ 175- 176).
2. The muskénu, whose name passed into Hebrew as ]202 (miskén), Ital. meschino, meschinello, Portug. mesquinho, French mesquin, etc., occupies a lower rank. His penalties are less, but so are his com- pensations for injury. He is specially legislated for (§§ 8, 140, 198, 201, 204, 208, 211, 216, 219, 992), The rendering of the name is difficult. The translation ‘poor man’ is not very good. For he was no pauper, certainly not a beggar. He had slaves ($15) and goods. Miiller calls him an Armen- stiftler ; but there is no evidence of his receiving any pension. Kohler and Peiser give Ministerial ; but there is no evidence of his having any special association with the court, or any special duties. The name itself may be taken to mean a ‘sub- ject,’ originally ‘suppliant.’ We take it he was ‘a ‘commoner,’ one of the plebs, perhaps of the conquered race. At any rate he was free, but apparently subject to the corvée, perhaps obliged to serve in the ranks of the army. We find that his offering in the temple was allowed to be less than others (Meissner, Beitrdge zur Kenntnis der Babylonischen Religion, p. 176f.). In Assyrian times the Babylonians complained that they were being treated as muskénu, not so much ‘ poor men,’ but subject to indignities. In the Tel el-Amarna tablets Amenophis quotes the letter of Kadasman- Bél to him, inquiring after his daughter Suharti. The Babylonian king says the Egyptian had his sister to wife; but no messenger of his had ever been able to see the princess, or know whether she was alive or dead. A certain lady they had seen, but mindi martu isten muskénu, ‘ whether she was the daughter of some muskénu, they could not tell. In omen tablets it is a curse that a man muskénitu allak, ‘ should come to poverty ? (Bezold, Catalogue, p. 1566).
3. The slave (ardw) was treated very much as a chattel. He could be sold or pledged (§§ 118, 147) ; damage done to him had to be paid for, but the compensation went to his master (§§ 218, 214, 219, 220). A repudiation of servitude on his part was punished by mutilation (§ 282). The master is not said to have power of life and death ; indeed his power seems expressly limited to mutilation. The slave could acquire wealth, and act in business as a free man, but his master had to be cognizant of his transactions. If he was living in his master’s house he could not buy or sell, except by power of attorney, or written licence from his master (§ 7). But many slaves married and had homes of their own. Then the master acted as patron, and
‘mansion’; the usual rendering ‘ palace’ is apt_to |
recovered their debts for them. A slave who married one of his master’s slave girls was able to acquire wealth, but his master was his sole heir, and his children were slaves. On the other hand, a slave, at any rate if in the service of a ‘great house,’ or of a muskénw, could marry a free woman. In that case the children were free (§ 175), and the free woman’s marriage portion remained hers, for her children, on her husband’s death (§ 176). The property which the pair acquired after marriage was divided into two equal portions: the master, as his slave’s heir, took one half, the wife and children the other half. A slave could buy his freedom with his savings. This must have been a free bargain between slave and master. The former had to choose between freedom and poverty on one side, and service and comfort on the other. The master accepted a present gain in lieu of a deferred reversion of the slave’s property. The Code does not notice this point.