SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS
Oxford
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
By-Paths of Bible Knowledge
XVIII
SOCIAL LIFE
AMONG THE
ASSYRIANS AND BABYLONIANS
BY
A. H. SAYCE, LL.D.
DEPUTY PROFESSOR OF PHILOLOGY, OXFORD
AUTHOR OF ‘FRESH LIGHT FROM THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS’
‘ASSYRIA, ITS PRINCES, PRIESTS, AND PEOPLE,’ ETC. ETC.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
56 PATERNOSTER ROW AND 65 ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD
1893
PREFACE
The chapters composing this little volume originally appeared in the
_Sunday at Home_. It was my intention on their republication to add
translations of the chief original documents referred to. But on further
consideration, bearing in mind the general scope of the ‘By-Path’ Series,
I have decided that it is better to print them exactly as they were
written.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE PEOPLE 9
CHAPTER II.
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 18
CHAPTER III.
EDUCATION 30
CHAPTER IV.
MARRIAGE AND DEATH 45
CHAPTER V.
THE MARKET, THE MONEY-LENDER, AND THE TENANT 58
CHAPTER VI.
SLAVERY AND THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER 74
CHAPTER VII.
TRADES AND PROFESSIONS 89
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE 106
CHAPTER I
THE PEOPLE
Ezekiel tells us how in the latter days of the Jewish kingdom the palace
walls of Babylonia were adorned with ‘images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed
with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed
attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the
manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity[1].’
He had already described the Assyrians as ‘clothed in blue,’ ‘clothed
most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses.’ They thus differed from
the Chaldeans, while the Chaldeans again are distinguished from the
Babylonians, who, however, inhabited the same country as themselves and
were clothed with the same apparel.
The discoveries that have been made of recent years in the valleys of
the Tigris and Euphrates explain and illustrate the prophet’s words.
Chaldea or Babylonia—for the two names are used synonymously—was the
alluvial plain shut in between the two great rivers of Western Asia, and
extended southwards from a point where they almost touched one another to
the marshes at the head of the Persian Gulf, where they flowed into the
sea. Northwards came the land of Assyria. It was originally the district
which surrounded the ancient capital of Asshur, alluded to in the second
chapter of Genesis[2], built on the western bank of the Tigris. Still
further to the north were the later capitals, Calah and Nineveh, between
which stood Resen or Res-eni, ‘the head of the fountain[3].’ The country
of Assyria differed essentially from the country of Babylonia, and this
difference exercised an influence upon the character of the populations
which dwelt in them. Assyria was a land of limestone hills and thick
forests, and was watered by the Tigris and its affluents, which cut their
way through channels of rock. Babylonia, on the other hand, was flat and
marshy; its soil was rich and fertile, but the rivers and streams that
intersected it could be prevented from flooding the country only by means
of a carefully organized system of canals. The silt which was carried
down to the sea was continually adding to the land, and causing the
shores of the Persian Gulf to advance southwards; cities which stood on
the sea-coast in the early days of Babylonian history are now left far
inland.
The district adjoining the sea, however, was distinguished from the
rest of Babylonia by the great salt-marshes which covered it. It was
accordingly known as the land of Marratu, or ‘the salt-marshes,’ a name
which appears in the Old Testament under the form of Merathaim[4]. In its
midst rose the ancestral city of Merodach-baladan, whose ambassadors were
shown by Hezekiah all the treasures of the Jewish monarchy.
Merodach-baladan was a Chaldean. The Chaldeans, or Kaldâ, as they are
called on the monuments, were a tribe which inhabited the salt-marshes,
and we first hear of them in the ninth century before our era. Whether
they belonged to the same Semitic race as the inhabitants of Babylon we
do not know. But under Merodach-baladan they became famous in the Eastern
world. Merodach-baladan made himself King of all Babylonia, and the
Chaldeans became so integral and important an element in the population
as henceforth to give it their name. From this time forward ‘Babylonian’
and ‘Chaldean’ became interchangeable terms.
The Babylonian race was by no means pure. The original inhabitants of the
country had been the Accadians, or Sumerians, who spoke an agglutinative
language like that of the modern Finns or Turks, and had been the authors
of the cuneiform system of writing and of the culture of early Babylonia.
They occupied both Accad, the northern division of Babylonia, and Sumer,
or Shinar, its southern division. In Accad, however, they were subjected
at an early epoch to the domination of Semitic tribes, whose first home
had been in Arabia; in Sumer they held their ground for a longer period,
and it is probable that the Semite did not succeed in superseding them
in this part of the country until a comparatively recent time. The
Semites of Babylonia were closely allied both in race and language to the
Hebrews. It was from Ur of the Chaldees, now represented by the mounds
of Mugheir, that Abraham had migrated, and the other cities of Babylonia
must have been largely occupied by traders and settlers of the Semitic
race.
Shortly after the age of Abraham the population of Babylonia became
still further mixed, in consequence of the successful invasion of the
country by certain tribes of Elam. The Kassi, as they are termed on the
monuments, settled in numbers in the Babylonian plain, and established a
dynasty of kings who ruled for several centuries. Accadian, Semite, and
Kassite intermarried and mingled together, forming a hybrid population,
which subsequently admitted into its midst the Chaldean tribes of the
south. The people of Babylonia thus became what the English are to-day;
one of the most mixed of populations, tracing their descent from races of
various origin.
Of far purer blood were the Assyrians in the north. Out of the land of
Sumer, or Shinar, we are told, Asshur went forth to found the Assyrian
kingdom[5]. It was a colony sent out by the Semitic part of the
Babylonian population, and up to the last the Assyrians continued to
represent both in appearance and character the pure Semitic type. The
faces depicted on some of their monuments remind us of the Jewish faces
we may meet with to-day in the more squalid streets of the great European
cities.
Nature and descent accordingly combined to produce a difference between
the inhabitants of Babylonia and of Assyria. The Babylonian was a stout,
thick-set man, somewhat short, with straight nose, wide nostrils, and
square face. The Assyrian, on the other hand, was tall and muscular, his
nose was slightly hooked, his lips were full, his eyes dark and piercing.
His head and face showed an abundance of black curly hair. Such a type
was in striking contrast to that of the early Accadian figures which have
come down to us. Here the face is long and thin, with a straight beard,
not altogether unlike that represented on the faces of old men in Chinese
art. What the peculiar characteristics of the Chaldean face may have been
we have at present no means of deciding.
The Babylonian was essentially an irrigator and cultivator of the ground.
The cuneiform texts are full of references to the gardens of Babylonia,
and the canals by which they were watered. It was a land which brought
forth abundantly all that was entrusted to its bosom. The palm was
indigenous in it; so too, according to naturalists, was the wheat. Even
in classical days the yield of Babylonian wheat was enormous. Herodotus
tells us that it was sometimes as much as three hundredfold to the sower.
But the fear of floods and the reclamation of the marsh lands demanded
constant care and labour, the result being that the country population
of Babylonia was, like the country population of Egypt, an industrious
peasantry, wholly devoted to agricultural work, and disinclined for war
and military operations. In the towns, where the Semitic element was
stronger, a considerable amount of trade and commerce was carried on, and
the cities on the sea-coast built ships and sent their merchantmen to
distant lands. The Chaldeans, whose cry was in their ships[6], despatched
their trading fleets to the southern coasts of Arabia and the quarries of
the Sinaitic peninsula, and even, it would appear, to the shores of India.
The character of the Assyrian was altogether different from that of
the Babylonian. He was a warrior, a trader, and an administrator. The
peaceful pursuits of the agricultural population of Babylonia suited him
but little. His two passions were fighting and trading. But his wars,
at all events in the later days of the Assyrian Empire, were conducted
with a commercial object, and were not the meaningless displays of brute
fury and the love of bloodshed which they have usually been imagined to
be. It was to destroy the trade of the Phœnician cities and to divert it
into Assyrian hands, that the Assyrian kings marched their armies to the
west; it was to secure the chief highways of commerce that campaigns were
made into the heart of Arabia and Assyrian satraps were appointed in the
cities of Syria. The Assyrian was indeed irresistible as a soldier; but
the motive that inspired him was as much the interest of the trader as
the desire of conquest.
Unlike the Babylonian, he cared but little for education and literature.
A knowledge of books was in Assyria confined to a few, more particularly
the special class of scribes. A love of study is more likely to be
developed among an agricultural than among a military people. Both
Assyrians and Babylonians, however, were similar in one respect—they
were both intensely religious. But here again we may note a difference
between them. The religion of the Babylonians was far more mingled with
superstition than was the religion of the Assyrians. While the Babylonian
lived in hourly fear of the multitudinous demons which he believed to
be ever on the watch to injure him, the Assyrian felt secure in the
protection of his gods, above all, of the supreme god Asshur. When the
Assyrian kings went forth to war it was with a firm confidence that they
were fighting the battles of Asshur, and that Asshur would give them
success. It is ‘through trust in Asshur,’ they are perpetually telling
us, that they overcome all opposition, and compel the disobedient to
acknowledge the power of the great Assyrian deity.
The Assyrians seem to have lived mostly in towns. The country was
cultivated by slaves, or by the older population whom the Semitic
colonists found there. At all events it was from the population of
the towns that the army was recruited and the ranks of the official
bureaucracy were supplied. Consequently when the power of the army and
of the upper classes was broken no force was left capable of resisting
the foe. The continual wars of the Assyrian monarch drained the kingdom
of its military class, while the Assyrian colonies which were planted
as garrisons in conquered provinces tended still further to diminish
the dominant part of the population. When, therefore, evil days fell
upon the monarchy, and the country was overrun by Scythian hordes from
the north, the Assyrian army was no longer able to withstand them. The
troops which had garrisoned the subject provinces of the empire were
recalled home, but they did not prove sufficient to defend even Assyria
itself. The Assyrian Empire fell because the population which had
created and maintained it was exhausted. The Assyrian stock practically
became extinct, the Assyrian cities became heaps of ruins, and new races
occupied their sites. In this respect Assyria offered a conspicuous
contrast to Babylonia. There the population continued unchanged in spite
of revolution and foreign conquest. Dynasties and empires might rise
and fall; but the people of the country still cultivated their fields
or plied their trade and commerce as they had done centuries before. An
agricultural population survives, while a military caste which governs by
the sword is sure in the course of time to vanish away.