A SKETCH OP BABYLONIAN SOCIETY. 591 



it is to be sought in the ranks of the townspeople and peasants. It 

 is thus made possible to see in the revolution of 745 B. C. the vie 

 tory of a revolt of peasants. And this, again, is only to be imagined 

 on the hypothesis that in Assyria a strong peasant class unspoiled by 

 servitude had survived. Always presupposing that development had 

 taken place thus, the ascendancy of Assyria over the surrounding 

 powers may be accounted for as the result of the liberated strength of 

 the nation; and, moreover, the easy victory of Sargon, who accom- 

 plished the restoration with the aid of the priests, maybe explained on 

 the assumption that many years of warfare had shattered the social 

 condition of the peasants. 



There are two factors which make possible a verification of these 

 facts. In the first place, the fact that Sargon, after he had seized the 

 power, regulated property rights in favor of the temples, and, conse- 

 quently, to the prejudice of the townsmen and peasants, who were 

 probably reduced to yet more oppressive dependence. Thence it follows 

 that, before the restoration, temple ownership had been restricted and 

 relations with the temple relaxed, a fact which accordingly supports 

 my representation of the development. And, secondly, the course of 

 Sargon in the foundation of the city Dur-Sharrukin, inasmuch as he 

 boasts that he has accomplished the expropriation of the landowners in 

 a just manner, seems to indicate that a free peasant class had survived 

 even after the restoration. Under the descendants of Sargon, the evo- 

 lution of conditions probably tended more and more toward-the extinc- 

 tion of this class, and thus formed the social groundwork which, after 

 the downfall of the dynasty, allowed Assyria as well as Babylon to 

 become a Median and Persian province. 



Farming on the owner's own account, as we know it from the temple 

 records, was practiced in this manner : Peasants brought their products 

 to the temple storehouses and received for these products receipts from 

 officials appointed for this purpose. It was the same in the case of 

 private owners. It seems, however, as if this kind of management 

 was not very prevalent, or, at any rate, fell into disuse more and more 

 in New Babylon. It was replaced by a system of leasing, which was 

 highly perfected and formed the transition from domestic to commercial 

 management. 



I have already stated that the temples farmed out the collection of 

 their revenues; likewise, as with private owners, they rented great 

 tracts of land to contractors. These contractors made a business of 

 renting, inasmuch as they either had the land cultivated on their own 

 account by free or unfree laborers, or leased single pieces again. This 

 sublease was concluded either after exactly the same form as between 

 the first renter and the proprietor or else it was a share rent, so that 

 the property did not give a fixed rent but a j)]roportionate return, which 

 brought a larger or smaller sum according to the result of the harvest. 

 Such farming on shares was also practiced where renters took property 



