5. The doctor does not seem to hold a high profes- sion. He is not an amélu. The fee for a successful operation, involving surgery (removal of a cataract with the bronze lancet is probably meant), is fixed and graded according to the position of the patient (§§ 215-217). An unsuccessful operation is penalized by loss of the hands, reparation, or a fine ($$ 218— 220). A cure of an injured limb, or a rupture (?), is similarly treated (§§ 221-223). The veterinary surgeon is likewise dealt with (§§ 924, 225). The brander, who may also be a barber, and perhaps a shearer, naturally follows a surgeon. Hiss ecial treatment concerns his attempting to affice a slave’s tattooed mark. If he did this wittingly, he lost his hands. If he was deceived, he could get free on oath of innocence, but the procurer suffered death (§§ 226, 227).
6. Builders are treated much the same. The builder’s fee is fixed according to the size of the house. His bad workmanship is punished if it leads to damage. He has to make good all loss, and repair at his own expense ; and, further, suffer the same damage in his own person as he has brought on the house-owner (§§ 228-233). The boatman gets a fixed fee according to the size of the boat he builds. Damage due to bad workman- ship appearing within a year’s time has to be made good, or the boat replaced (§§ 234, 235). A boatman had to make good a boat lost through his carelessness, if hired to navigate it. He was re- sponsible for the freight, if any. If he sank a boat, but raised it again, he paid half value. His hire was fixed (§§ 236-239).
vii. AGRICULTURE. —1. Land was already private property, subject to its duty to the State. ‘An impost was levied upon the crop, and was clearly proportional to its amount (miksu). How men came into possession of waste or unreclaimed land, which might be expected to be common, does not appear. The reclamation may have constituted a title. At any rate, the Code contemplates land being given to a farmer to reclaim (§ 44), and the contracts show the practice to have been common (B! 186, ete.). The unreclaimed land was usually taken along with arable land (double in amount), and without rent for a time. Then, say in the fourth year, fixed rent was expected from all—that from the virgin soil being threefold the ordinary. The landlord further made an allowance of pro- visions towards the farmer’s keep. ‘The penalty fixed by the Code for neglect to reclaim is that the farmer should leave it in good tilth, and pay a fair rent (§ 44). Ordinary arable land was let, usually
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at fixed rents, so much corn per acre, six @UR per GAN being very usual. A deposit was expected, and it was ordinary debt not to pay the rent. The Code only enacts that, if the rent had been paid, no rebate could be claimed if a storm destroyed the crop afterwards (§ 45). But if the rent was not paid, or if the land was let on the share-profit system, the damage done by storm was borne by landlord and tenant equally, or in proportion to their shares (§ 46). This system of produce-rent, or share-profit, was very common, the landlord taking half the crop, or two-thirds, according to agreement. In such a case the tenant’s neglect to do the proper work prejudiced the landlord as well as himself ; in this case the Code enacts that he shall pay an average rent, ‘like his neighbours,’ or ‘like right and left of him’ (§ 42, B? 1031). He had to leave it in proper tilth. An important measure of pre- caution, often stipulated for in the contracts (B?
361, 460), especially when the field lay some way
from the town, was the erection of a farmer’s cot- tage on the field. He had to be present, as an old work on agriculture, often compared to Hesiod’s Works and Days, tells us, ‘to scare the birds, capture antelopes or wild goats, collect locusts,’ The landlord might have a cottage already there, and charge for it, stipulating that it be vacated with the field ; or he might stipulate that the tenant should put it up, and leave it at the end of the lease. The Code contemplates the neglect to put up this cottage, and the tenant subletting the field, probably to one who lived nearer. The land- lord could not object, if he had his proper rent at harvest, and if his field was duly cultivated by some one (§ 47).
An important form of tenure was the metayer system, where the landlord found seed, implements, and oxen, besides paying a wage to the farmer. Here the farmer might embezzle the seed, or the provender, for which the Code enacts that his hands be cut off (§ 253). He might take the corn and starve the oxen (it was furnished partly for their food), for which he must restore from what he planted (§ 254). He might hire out the oxen to another, stealing their provender and not pro- ducing a crop, for which he had to pay a heavy fine, sixty GUR per GAN (§ 255). If he could not pay, he was to be torn to pieces by the oxen on the field (§ 256).