482
THE GREEN BAG
P. But in the first place, there shall not be any lawsuit. B. But how many this will ruin. P. I also make a decree for this. For on what account, you rogue, should there be any? B. By Apollo, for many reasons. In the first place for one reason, I ween, if anyone being in debt denies it. P. Whence then did the lender lend the money when all things are in common? He is by lending convicted of theft. B. By Ceres, you instruct us well. Now let some one tell me this. Whence shall those who beat people pay off a judgment rendered for the assault? I fancy you will be at a loss about this. P. Out of the barley cakes which he eats. For when one diminishes this he will not insult again so readily after he has been punished in his stomach. B. And on the other hand, will there be no theft? P. Why, how shall he steal when he has a share of all things? (660.) Thus we see that in those days, 400 years before Christ, Athens was a boom town, was full of lawyers and lawsuits, and over running with wealth and population. Let us now go back twice as far as the distance from now to the days of Aristoph anes. This brings us to the palmy days of Babylon, Nineveh, Nippur, and Susa. It has been my good fortune to have had a personal acquaintance with some who have been engaged in discovering and translating the antiquities of those ancient countries, and I have spent many hours in reading the translations of tablets which have been found and translated. I have been surprised at the evidences thus found of judicial systems, and of the fact that no legal document exists in common use to-day but that has its counterpart among the ancient forms. I made a list of some of these, and will briefly give them to you now: — A letter from a prisoner to the king of
Assyria declaring the innocence of the for mer of the crime charged. A judicial interpretation of a part of the Assyrian code. A deed of a field by Titi to Addunaid, giving price half a mana and four shekels in silver (twenty dollars). On the edge is the seizin, "the giving up of the field." The will of Sennacherib, the king. A contract for seventy-five oxen. Sale of three slaves for one mana each. Sale of house in the town of Hama for one mana. Sale of house in Nineveh for one mana, in silver (two pounds). A six year's lease of a plantation. A contract for loan of eight manas and three shekels of silver at half a shekel inter est for six months. A loan of nine manas and fifteen shekels at twenty-five per cent per annum. Many other loans running from one and two-thirds per cent to twenty-five per cent per annum. A joint deed for a house by two brothers. A conveyance of seven slaves for three manas; one of the slaves had two wives, who were also slaves. A mortgage of four slaves for 210 manas of copper (430 lbs.). An arbitration and award that Salmiaki shall pay Assursallim one and one-half manas of silver. A judicial decision as to the ownership of a female slave, named Salmanu-naid, An explanation of legal terms. A record of the judgment of a court in favor of Nabushar-usur. A loan of money "at the customary rate of interest." A lot of various boundary stones, en graved with the deed and title of the owner. A royal grant by Nebuchadnezzar, the king. A written statement regarding the ab straction of various articles from the royal treasury.
