A SKETCH OF BABYLONIAN SOCIETY. 599 



bazaars, were erected before the houses. There, as in the gates of the 

 temples and palaces, handiwork and traffic were briskly carried on. 



Money, the medium of exchange, received its first and best improve- 

 ment there. It had passed from the conception of barter to the refined 

 conception of value. In even earlier times gold and silver money, and 

 also as subsidiary coinage, copper, bronze, and iron were used. The 

 further the development went the more need there must have been of 

 having the metals in a fixed form and in certain proportions of weight 

 in order that there might be no necessity for weighiug the metals each 

 time. It was, therefore, molded into bars and rings. Unfortunately, 

 no such coins have been preserved, but we have written references to 

 them. The unit of value was the mine. This contained 60 sheqels, and 

 the latter had again subdivisions, but these varied. From the two 

 first developments of money arises the third; the use of money as 

 capital ; that is, interest-bearing capital. We have, in about 2300 B. 0., 

 the transition, as people pledged themselves to work a certain length 

 of time for a sum of money which they must return later. 



Exchange was known in Babylon, and there are statements of the 

 changes in value of money. Moreover, the ratio of value between 

 gold and silver was fixed. 



This fine development of the relations of value was accompanied by 

 another — the relation of the purchasing power of money to livelihood. 

 A number of documents exist which show that the living expenses of 

 the laborers can not have been very high, and this agrees with what 

 we know of the Orient from other sources. The soil furnishes the nec- 

 essaries of life without man's having to take much trouble. Conse- 

 quently, idleness and beggary are nowhere more widespread than in 

 the Orient. Nowhere is industry urged forward in a more brutal way. 

 There are many reliefs from Babylon and Egypt which show laborers 

 constantly driven by blows from a stick; during the transportation of 

 colossal weights an overseer with a club stands behind every three 

 or four laborers. 



CONCLUSION. 



During the correction of the preceding sketch, which the editor of 

 the Mittheilungen has sent to the press half against my will, but which 

 I will not now withdraw, since otherwise I should be obliged to let it 

 lie for many years to come without finding the time to work it over 

 thoroughly, two gaps came to my special notice, the filling up of which, 

 however, is subsequently to take place elsewhere. The professional 

 position of the priests will probably be described by Zimmern in his 

 contributions to the knowledge of the Babylonian religion; that of the 

 judges will be treated by Kohler in the fourth part of the work 

 published by Kohler and myself upon Babylonian juridical life. 



