In the tenth chapter of Genesis⁠[19] mention is made by the side of Nineveh of ‘the city Rehoboth,’ which should rather be translated ‘the public square of the city.’ It represented, in fact, the great open square on the north-eastern side of Nineveh in which the market was held. Every city of Assyria and Babylonia was provided with a similar market-place; here were the magazines of the corn-merchants, the booths of the vendors of country produce, and the stalls in which cattle, horses, and camels were sold. It thus differed from the suqu, or ‘street’—the ‘bazaar’ of a modern Oriental city—which contained only the regular shops.

Most commodities had to pay a duty, corresponding to the continental octroi, before they were allowed to pass the gates of the city and be exposed to sale. It was accordingly to the interest of the purchaser to contract that country goods should be delivered to him within the walls of the city before they were paid for. Thus, in the eighteenth year of Darius, we hear of a lady named Akhabtu⁠[20] selling 200 sheep on her property in the country, and agreeing to send them into Babylon before receiving for them the stipulated price of fifteen manehs of silver (or £135). The purchaser was allowed ten days within which to pay the money; if he failed to do so, he was to be charged twenty per cent. interest upon the whole amount.

Prices naturally varied, according to the quality or scarcity of what was to be sold. In the twenty-fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar we find one full-grown ox, which was required for the service of the temple of the Sun-god at Sippara, costing thirteen shekels, or about £2. In the time of Cambyses ten shekels (£1 10s.) are given for an ox, and fifty-eight shekels (£8 14s.) for eight ‘fine sheep’—that is to say, about a guinea apiece. The price, however, included the ‘bakshish’ paid to ‘an Arabian’ who looked after them. In the same reign a ‘mouse-coloured ass, seven years old,’ was sold for fifty shekels (or £7 10s.), though we also hear of an ass of inferior quality whose price was only thirteen shekels (about £2). It is rather surprising, after this, to learn that a copper libation-bowl and cup together cost as much as four manehs nine shekels (or £37 7s.); at the same period a good-sized house, with field attached, could be had for only four and a half manehs (£40 10s.), while the rent of another house, with the use of the water in its neighbourhood, amounted to one maneh. In the first year of Cambyses, one maneh seven shekels of silver were paid for a month’s work to a seal-cutter, and half a shekel (1s. 6d.) for painting the stucco of a wall. The work alone seems to have been paid for, the materials being furnished to the workmen, as is still the custom in the East. This at all events was the case as regards metal work; thus, in one instance, three manehs of iron were handed over to an ‘ironsmith’ to be made into rods for bows. Three manehs of iron, it may be added, were considered sufficient for the manufacture of six swords, two door-rings, and two bolts.

In the fourteenth year of Nabonidos (B.C. 542) a contract was made by a builder which included two shekels (or 6s.) for 200 bundles of reeds for constructing a bridge across a canal, one shekel for 100 bundles of reeds for torches, fifty shekels (£7 10s.) for 500 loads of bitumen for building a tower, fifty-five shekels for 8000 loads of brick, and one shekel for a piece of wood for the handle of an axe. In the same year skins for covering a boat or coracle cost one maneh (£9), while in the previous year eighteen sheep were sold for thirty-five shekels (not quite 6s. each), and twelve shekels derived from the rent of a house were expended upon digging a trench or canal. In the fourth year of Nabonidos one maneh was demanded for an ass; and in the following year one maneh seven shekels were paid for an ox, and six shekels (or 18s.) for a sheep.

The price of wine varied according to its quality. Thus, at one and the same time, two ‘large’ casks of new wine were purchased for eleven shekels, and five other casks for ten shekels. Wine was chiefly imported from Armenia and Syria, the wines of the Lebanon being especially prized. Nebuchadnezzar has left us a list of several of the best, among which we find the wine of Helbon, mentioned by Ezekiel⁠[21].

Clothes were comparatively inexpensive. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar, for example, a ‘mountain-cloak’ cost four and a half shekels (13s. 6d.), though doubtless this particular article of dress was made of cheap materials. Half a maneh of silver, together with a gur of corn from the royal granary, were given in the seventeenth year of Nabonidos to five men for work performed in the city of Ruzabu, in the presence of the superintendent of the clothing department, from which we may infer that they were working tailors. Wages, however, were low, partly in consequence of the employment of slave labour. Even a porter of the royal granary received only half a shekel a month by way of pay.

On the other hand, grain was correspondingly cheap. In the reign of Cambyses, two artabs (or about 100 quarts) of corn cost six and a half shekels, and as a quart of corn was considered in ancient Greece a sufficient daily allowance for a man, we may calculate that the Babylonian could manage to live on 2½d. a day. Under Nebuchadnezzar twelve qas, or the third part of an artab, of sesame were sold for half a shekel—that is to say, the quart of sesame cost a little over a penny. Similarly, in the twelfth year of Nabonidos, one maneh (or £9) was paid for six gurs of sesame, and as the gur contained five artabs, the quart of sesame would have been a little less than 1½d. In the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar one shekel only had been given for one and one-third artabs of dates, or about a halfpenny a quart; while in the thirty-eighth year of the same reign we find the quart valued at only one-twentyfifth of a penny.

Prices, however, were frequently calculated in grain and dates—that great staple of Babylonia—and payments accordingly made in kind instead of in coin. The tithes, for instance, were always paid to the priests in kind, as among the Jews. In the first year of Cambyses we are told that the price of an ox was 150 gur, 114 qas of dates, the gur containing three homers. It was in dates, again, that the wages of the gardeners were paid by the priests attached to the temples of Babylon. In the nineteenth year of Darius 120 gur of dates were sold for one maneh thirty-five shekels of silver. At this time, therefore, the quart of dates was worth about the tenth part of a penny.

Fish, both from the sea and from fresh water, were a common article of food, and must have been cheap and plentiful. We find them included among the offerings made to the gods. As at Athens, salted fish were largely eaten.

The streets, where troops of dogs acted as scavengers, as they still do in the East, were lined with shops; the business was sometimes conducted by a woman, and often consisted of a joint partnership. Deeds relating to the formation or dissolution of a partnership are by no means rare. Generally it was customary for each of the persons who entered into partnership to contribute an equal share to the business, the profits on the business, both ‘in town and country,’ being afterwards divided equally between them. When one of the parties contributed more than the other, provision was made for a proportionate distribution of gains and losses. The following deed may be taken as an illustration of the way in which a partnership could be dissolved:—‘A partnership was entered into between Nebo-yukin-abla and his son Nebo-bel-sunu on the one side, and Musezib-Bel on the other, which lasted from the eighteenth year of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, to the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. The contract was brought up before the judge of the judges. Fifty shekels of silver had been adjudged to Nebo-bel-sunu and his father Nebo-yukin-abla. No further agreement or partnership exists between the two parties. They have ended their contract with one another. All former obligations in their names are rescinded.’ Then follow the names of the witnesses, and the date, ‘The eighth day of Sebat (January), the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.’

A business could be carried on by the wife in the absence of her husband. A document belonging to the second year of Neriglissor or Nergal-sharezer (B.C. 559) shows this very clearly. Here we read:—‘As long as Pani-Nebo-dhemi, the brother of Ili-qanua, does not return from his travels, Burasu, the wife of Ili-qanua, shall share in the business of Ili-qanua, in the place of Pani-Nebo-dhemi. When Pani-Nebo-dhemi returns she shall leave Ili-qanua and hand over the share to Pani-Nebo-dhemi.’ Among the witnesses to this deed is a certain ‘minister of the king’ called Solomon (Salammanu), the son of Baaltammuh. The name indicates that he had come from Palestine or Syria, and it is therefore interesting to find him holding high office at the Babylonian court.

Other goods besides money and houses might serve as the subject of a deed of partnership. Thus, in one instance, we are told that ‘200 barrels full of good beer, twenty empty barrels, ten cups and saucers, ninety gur of dates in the store-house, fifteen gur of chickpease (?), and fourteen sheep, besides the profits from the bazaar, and whatever property Bel-sunu has accumulated, shall be shared between’ the contracting parties.

Even the members of the royal family did not consider commercial dealings beneath them. The name of Belshazzar, the son of Nabonidos, more than once appears in the contract-tablets, though it is true that he acted indirectly through the steward of his house, as well as through his secretaries. One of these tablets reads as follows:—

‘Twenty manehs of silver, the price of wool, the property of Belshazzar, the son of the king, which, by the hands of Nebo-tsabit, the steward of the house of Belshazzar, the son of the king, and the secretaries of the son of the king, has been handed over to Nadin-Merodach, the son of Basa, the son of Nur-Sin, in the month Adar, the silver, namely 20 manehs, he shall give. The house of ... a Persian, and all the property of Nadin-Merodach in town and country shall be the security of Belshazzar, the son of the king, until Belshazzar shall receive in full the money. The debtor shall pay the whole sum of money as well as the interest upon it.’ The names of six witnesses, including that of the priest who drew up the deed, are then added, as well as the date: ‘At Babylon, the twentieth day of the month (Adar), the eleventh year of Nabonidos king of (Babylon).’

It will be seen from this document that Belshazzar, whose name has been made familiar to us through the Book of Daniel, was not averse to acting as a wool merchant, when money could be made thereby.

It will also be seen that in his trading transactions the heir to the throne had to conform to the requirements of the law like the meanest of his father’s subjects. Witnesses and a properly attested deed were necessary to protect the prince against fraud. The fact illustrates the commercial and legal instincts of the Babylonians, as well as the restrictions that were placed by them on the exercise of the royal authority.

Money-lending was naturally carried on upon an extensive scale. Under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors the usual rate of interest was twenty per cent., the interest being paid each month, though at times we find it was reduced to thirteen and a third per cent., and in a time of famine even remitted altogether by a patriotic money-lender. In concluding a bargain it was ordinarily stipulated that if the money were not paid by a specified date, interest upon it at the customary rate should run on until it was paid in full.

In Nineveh in the age of Tiglath-pileser III and Sennacherib the rate of interest seems to have been different from that which afterwards prevailed in Babylonia. Thus we are told of six manehs ten shekels of silver being lent out at interest which was to be at ‘a fourfold’ rate, and of two talents of ‘the best bronze’ being given on a loan, the interest on them to be ‘three times’ their value. In Assyria, besides the national standard of ‘the royal maneh,’ the Hittite standard of ‘the maneh of Carchemish’ was in use, according to which commercial transactions could be regulated.

The metal, whether gold, silver, or bronze, was measured out by weight, and it was only in the later Babylonian period that this somewhat cumbersome way of conducting business was replaced by symbols or coins. On these was marked the weight represented by each.

The extensive system of credit implied by the Babylonian contract-tablets proves what a trading centre Babylonia had become. Goods were imported into it from all parts of the known world, and in return corn, dates, and palm-wine were exported abroad. A good deal of the business, however, carried on by the money-lenders was due to the necessity the poorer classes were frequently under of paying their taxes in coin. Many of these taxes, it is true, could be paid in kind, but it is probable that the capitation-tax, which was levied on the whole community, had to be paid in cash. The tribute paid by the subject-states, as well as the contributions to the royal treasury due each year from the cities and districts of the kingdom, had also to be made in coin. These contributions were levied both in Assyria and in Babylonia. In the time of Sennacherib, for example, the contribution due from Nineveh was assessed at thirty talents; that from Calah at five. At the same time, Carchemish, the ancient Hittite capital, had to pay 100 talents.

In Babylonia, if not in Assyria, even the brick-yards were taxed, the privilege of making bricks—the universal material of the buildings of the country—requiring the permission of the Government. It is also probable that the owners of property, if not the tenants, were obliged to contribute a fixed amount of grain each year to the royal sutummu, or ‘granary,’ which existed in each of the large towns, and out of which grants of food were made to the religious and civil functionaries.

Whether houses were taxed is not known. At all events nothing is said upon the subject in the numerous deeds that relate to them. These deeds, however, throw a flood of light on the laws which regulated their sale or letting. The exact limitations of the property to be let or sold and the condition of the house were minutely described, as well as the length of time for which it was to be leased, and the rent to be paid by the tenant. The tenant usually agreed to return the property in the state in which he found it, keeping the fabric in repair at his own expense and carefully cultivating the garden. Any transgression of the terms of the lease was punished with a severe fine.

The value of the house depended on its size, position, and character. In the reign of Cambyses we hear of a house being let for three years at sixteen shekels a year, while, at the same time, another house was rented for a year at only five shekels. In the latter case it is stipulated that half the rent shall be paid at the beginning and the other half in the middle of the year, and that the tenant shall repair all damages to the walls of the building. Any transgression of the terms of the contract was to be punished with a fine of ten shekels, or double the amount of the rent, which was to be paid to the wife of the owner of the house. It is therefore probable that the husband was dead, and that the property had passed into the hands of his widow.

At the beginning of the same reign we find four and a half manehs of silver (or £40 10s.) given for a field and house, and another house sold in the joint name of a man and his wife for two manehs (or £18). At the same time a woman pays only two shekels (or 6s.) for the house ‘in which she lives.’ It must, therefore, have been a mere hovel. It is curious to learn how many of the houses which were sold or let in Babylonia belonged to women; some of them had doubtless formed part of their dowries, but others must have been left to them by their husbands after death. One of them, which belonged to a lady named Buhiti, is described as being situated in ‘the Broad Street’ of Babylon, ‘the passage of the gods and the king.’ In the deed of sale of this house it is stipulated that if the buyer asserts that ‘the house has not been given up’ to him, the owner shall receive twelve times the amount of its purchase-money.

The same formalities which accompanied the sale or letting of a house in Babylonia were observed in Assyria. Here, for example, is the translation of a deed of sale, which is dated in the year 692 B.C., or eleven years before the death of Sennacherib: ‘The nail-mark of Sar-ludari, the nail-mark of Atar-suru, (and) the nail-mark of the woman Amat-suhla, the wife of Bel-dur, a captain (?), the owner of the house which is sold.’ [Then follow four nail-marks.] ‘The house, well-constructed, with its beams and doors, situated in the city of Nineveh, adjoining the houses of Mannu-ki-akhi and Ilu-ittiya, and the Street of the Messenger, has been sold, and Tsil-Assur, the superintendent, an Egyptian, has bought it for one maneh of silver, according to the royal standard, in the presence of Sar-ludari, Atar-suru, and Amat-suhla, the wife of its owner. The full sum has been paid, the house in question has been bought: there shall be no retractation or annulment of the contract. Whosoever hereafter, among the sellers, shall claim an annulment of the contract from Tsil-Assur shall be fined ten manehs of silver. The witnesses are: Susanqu, the son-in-law of the king, Kharmaza, the captain (?), Rasuh, the sailor, Nebo-dur-zikari, the spy, Kharmaza, the naval captain, Sin-sharezer, and Zedekiah. Dated the sixteenth day of the month Sivan (May), in the eponymy of Zazâ, the governor of Arpad. The contract has been signed in the presence of Samas-yukin-akhi, Latturu, and Nebo-sum-utsur.’

In Babylonia, where education was more widely spread, the contracting parties would have attached their names and seals to the deed instead of their nail-marks. One of the witnesses, Zedekiah, seems to have been an Israelite, while the purchaser of the property is described as an Egyptian, who held a high position in Nineveh. It would therefore appear that foreigners in Assyria were able to hold property as well as offices of state.

House-property, like slaves, could be bought and sold through the intervention of an agent. In this case the purchaser was careful to state that the property which had been bought did not belong to its nominal buyer, and also to keep the deed of sale in his own hands. When the money for the purchase was advanced by the agent it was agreed that it should be repaid within a limited time—in one instance within two months; failing its repayment within the specified period, what had been bought became the property of the agent. Advantage was occasionally taken of this system of purchase to buy a piece of land or other property in the name of the wife, whose property was usually protected from distraint for her husband’s debts.

The legal formalities attendant on the sale of property in Assyria and Babylonia are an interesting commentary on the purchase of Hanameel’s field by Jeremiah⁠[22]. The prophet agreed to pay seventeen shekels of silver for it, and the money was accordingly weighed out in the presence of witnesses. He then added his signature to the deed, and sealed it afterwards, as it would appear, enclosing the whole in a clay envelope, on which was inscribed a statement of its contents. The witnesses had previously attached their names to the document. The deed, containing both the document that had been sealed and the document that was exposed to view⁠[23], was subsequently deposited ‘in an earthen vessel,’ which must have resembled the earthen jars in which the Babylonian contract-tablets are found. Such jars served the purpose of a modern safe, and were each appropriated to a particular set of documents, or to those that related to a particular family. Who can say whether we shall not yet recover the deed of sale signed by Jeremiah, and the jar to which it was entrusted, as we have already recovered the similar deeds that were drawn up and signed by his contemporaries in Babylonia? Stranger events have happened in the romance of modern excavation.