monarch was an autocrat. Every Oriental monarchy was a despotism.

The king had many duties. He was judge, commander, and high priest, all in one. In time of war, he led his troops and faced the dangers of the battle field. During The king's intervals of peace, he was occupied with a constant duties round of sacrifices, prayers, and processions, which could not

Shows a Pharaoh receiving Asiatic envoys bearing tribute. They are introduced by white-robed Egyptian officials. The Asiatics may be distinguished by their gay clothes and black, sharp-pointed beards.

be neglected without exciting the anger of the gods. To his courtiers he gave frequent audience, hearing complaints, settling disputes, and issuing commands. A conscientious monarch, such as Hammurabi, who describes himself as "a real father to his people," must have been a very busy man.

Besides the monarch and the royal family there was generally in Oriental countries an upper class of landowners. In Egypt the Pharaoh was regarded as sole owner of the land. Nobles and Some of it he worked through his slaves, but the priests larger part he granted to his favorites, as hereditary estates. Such persons may be called the nobles. The different priesthoods also had much land, the revenues from which kept up the temples where they ministered. In Babylonia, likewise, we find a priesthood and nobility supported by the income from landed property.

The middle class included professional men, shopkeepers

independent farmers, and skilled craftsmen. Though regarded The middle as inferiors, still they had a chance to rise in the world. If they became rich, they might hope to enter the upper class as priests or government officials.

class

No such hopes encouraged the day laborer in the fields or shops. His lot was bitter poverty and a life of unending toil. Workmen If he was an unskilled workman, his wages were and peasants only enough to keep him and his family. He toiled under overseers who carried sticks and used them freely. "Man has a back," says an Egyptian proverb, "and only obeys when it is beaten." If the laborer was a peasant, he could be sure that the nobles from whom he rented the land and the tax collectors of the king would leave him scarcely more than a bare living.

Slaves

At the very bottom of the social ladder were the slaves. Every ancient people possessed them. At first they were prisoners of war, who, instead of being slaughtered, were made to labor for their masters. At a later period people unable to pay their debts often became slaves. The treatment of slaves depended on the character of the master. A cruel and overbearing owner might make life a burden for his bondmen. Escape was rarely possible. Slaves were branded like cattle to prevent their running away. Hammurabi's code imposed the death penalty on anybody who aided or concealed the fugitives. There was plenty of work for the slaves to perform -repairing dikes, digging irrigation canals, and erecting vast palaces and temples. The servile class in Egypt was not as numerous as in Babylonia, and slavery itself seems to have assumed there a somewhat milder form.

14. Economic Conditions

Such fruitful, well-watered valleys as those of the Nile and the Euphrates encouraged agricultural life. Farming was the chief occupation. Working people, whether slaves Farming or freemen, were generally cultivators of the soil. All the methods of agriculture are pictured for us on the monu

1 See page 25.

ments. We mark the peasant as he breaks up the earth with a hoe or plows a shallow furrow with a sharp-pointed stick. We see the sheep being driven across sown fields to trample the seed into the moist soil. We watch the patient laborers as with hand sickles they gather in the harvest and then with heavy flails separate the chaff from the grain. Although their methods were very clumsy, ancient farmers raised immense crops of wheat

PLOWING AND SOWING IN ANCIENT EGYPT

and barley. The soil of Egypt and Babylonia not only supported a dense population, but also supplied food for neighboring peoples. These two lands were the granaries of the East.

Many industries of to-day were known in ancient Egypt and Babylonia. There were blacksmiths, carpenters, stonecutters, workers in ivory, silver, and gold, weavers, potters, Manuand glass blowers. The creations of these ancient facturing craftsmen often exhibit remarkable skill. Egyptian linens were so wonderfully fine and transparent as to merit the name of "woven air." Babylonian tapestries, carpets, and rugs enjoyed a high reputation for beauty of design and color. Egyptian glass with its waving lines of different hues was much prized. Precious stones were made into beads, necklaces, charms, and seals. The precious metals were employed for a great variety of ornaments. Egyptian paintings show the goldsmiths at work with blowpipe and forceps, fashioning bracelets, rings, and diadems, inlaying objects of stone and wood, or covering their surfaces with fine gold leaf. The manufacture of tiles and glazed pottery was everywhere carried on. Babylonia is believed to be the original home of porcelain. Enameled bricks found there are unsurpassed by the best products of the present

day.

The development of the arts and crafts brought a new industrial class into existence. There was now need of merchants and shopkeepers to collect manufactured products Trade where they could be readily bought and sold. The cities of Babylonia, in particular, became thriving markets.

A slab from a gallery of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh. The immense block is being pulled forward by slaves, who work under the lash.

Partnerships between tradesmen were numerous.

We even

hear of commercial companies. Business life in ancient Babylonia wore, indeed, quite a modern look.

Metallic money first circulated in the form of rings and bars. The Egyptians had small pieces of gold - "cow gold" - each of which was simply the value of a full-grown cow.1 Money It was necessary to weigh the metal whenever a purchase took place. A common picture on the Egyptian monuments is that of the weigher with his balance and scales. Then the practice arose of stamping each piece of money with its true value and weight. The next step was coinage proper,

1 See page 6.

where the government guarantees, not only the weight, but also the genuineness of the metal.

The honor of the invention of coinage is generally given to the Lydians, whose country was well supplied with the precious metals. As early as Coinage

the eighth century B.C.

the Lydian monarchs began to strike coins of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver. The famous Croesus,1 whose name is still a synonym for riches, was the first to issue coins of pure gold and silver. The Greek neighbors of Lydia quickly adopted the art of coinage and so introduced it into Europe.2

66

EGYPTIAN WEIGHING Cow
GOLD'

The use of money as a medium of exchange led naturally to a system of banking. In Babylonia, for instance, the bankers formed

an important and influential class. One great Banking banking house, established at Babylon before

the age of Sennacherib, carried on operations for several centuries. Hundreds of legal documents belonging to this firm have been discovered in the huge earthenware jars which served as safes. The Babylonian temples also received money on deposit and loaned it out again, as do our modern banks. Knowledge of the principles of banking passed from Babylonia to Greece and thence to ancient Italy and Rome.

15. Commerce and Trade Routes

The use of the precious metals as money greatly aided the exchange of commodities between different countries. The cities of the Tigris-Euphrates valley were admirably situ- Asiatic comated for commerce, both by sea and land. They enjoyed a central position between eastern and western Asia. The shortest way by water from India skirted the southern

1 See page 37.

merce

2 For illustrations of Oriental coins see the plate facing page 134.