n, brought up to speak the Chaldaean tongue and
conforming to the customs of the country, became assimilated to the
ruling race; they formed, beneath the superior native Semite 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 husband
or father, debtors deprived by creditors of their liberty, and criminals
judicially 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
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 a mina. 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 on them; he could shackle their ankles,
fetter 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 accomplishments of a skilful 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 sou