amelu_ was a patrician, the
man of family, whose birth, marriage and death were registered, of
ancestral estates and full civil rights. He had aristocratic privileges and
responsibilities, the right to exact retaliation for corporal injuries, and
liability to heavier punishment for crimes and misdemeanours, higher fees
and fines to pay. To this class belonged the king and court, the higher
officials, the professions and craftsmen. The term became in time a mere
courtesy title but originally carried with it standing. Already in the
Code, when status is not concerned, it is used to denote "any one." There
was no property qualification nor does the term appear to be racial. It is
most difficult to characterize the _muskinu_ exactly. The term came in time
to mean "a beggar" and with that meaning has passed through Aramaic and
Hebrew into many modern languages; but though the Code does not regard him
as necessarily poor, he may have been landless. He was free, but had to
accept monetary compensation for corporal injuries, paid smaller fees and
fines, even paid less offerings to the gods. He inhabited a separate
quarter of the city. There is no reason to regard him as specially
connected with the court, as a royal pensioner, nor as forming the bulk of
the population. The rarity of any reference to him in contemporary
documents makes further specification conjectural. The _ardu_ was a slave,
his master's chattel, and formed a very numerous class. He could acquire
property and even hold other slaves. His master clothed and fed him, paid
his doctor's fees, but took all compensation paid for injury done to him.
His master usually found him a slave-girl as wife (the children were then
born slaves), often set him up in a house (with farm or business) and
simply took an annual rent of him. Otherwise he might marry a freewoman
(the children were then free), who might bring him a dower which his master
could not touch, and at his death one-half of his property passed to his
master as his heir. He could acquire his freedom by purchase from his
master, or might be freed and dedicated to a temple, or even adopted, when
he became an _amelu_ and not a _muskinu_. Slaves were recruited by purchase
abroad, from captives taken in war and by freemen degraded for debt or
crime. A slave often ran away; if caught, the captor was bound to restore
him to his master, and the Code fixes a reward of two shekels which the
owner must pay the captor. It was