The Babylonian World - Historia Antigua

— Power, economy and social organisation in Babylonia —
These so-called ‘house-born’ slaves could advance sometimes in their social position,
and stipulations in the Old Babylonian laws concern their duties and their rights. In
the case of people taken as prisoners of war and enslaved thereafter, a considerable
number of them were transferred to the big institutions to serve as agricultural workers
or in the army. In accordance with older customs, the females were often assigned
to textile manufactures, at least in Old Babylonian Mari.
Buying and selling slaves was a common practice in Mesopotamia. According to
some authors chattel slavery is considered a precondition for the use of the term slave.
However, the citizens from Babylon and of certain other cities enjoyed some protection
against entering into chattel slavery (Stol 2004: 915). At least in theory, all slaves
came from outside of Babylonia proper.
The citizens at the upper end of the social ladder had various obligations towards
the state. In return for their services, they received either prebend fields or rations.
They were termed awīlum, the Akkadian word for the ‘(male) human being’, and in
the law texts the term is often translated as ‘free man’, ‘gentleman’, or the like,
ignoring thus the obligatory ties this class of people had towards the state. The
members of this class possessed full rights and the state was responsible for their
welfare. They formed the backbone of the Babylonian society. They often transferred
their duties to other persons; then their so-called ilku-service was often performed by
a class of people of lower social status, called musˇkēnum, roughly translated as
‘commoner’. They received various payments from the citizens for their services, such
as subsistence fields (Stol 2004: 761). In later periods silver became the standard for
such compensations (Stol 2004: 741f.). The commoners had no formal obligations
towards the state, but they had also to look after themselves and possessed lesser
rights. Especially in times of an economic crisis, these people suffered greatly. Whereas
institutions provide a social net to ‘catch’ people under such circumstances, the
musˇkēnum fell through the cracks (Stol 2004: 732f.). Even belonging to the class of
slaves may sometimes have been better.
It may, nevertheless, come as a surprise that such a social safety net existed at all.
Old Babylonian documents give good evidence that the institutions provided for their
members in case of need, rather in the sense of a social security. There are records of
silver expenditures or extra rations in cases of illness, such as a broken leg, or in times
of hardship, e.g. following the death of a member of the family. Such expenditures
are listed among other, ‘normal’ or regular expenditures that did not require any
extra explanation (Breckwoldt 1995).
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Already in the planned economy of the third millennium, certain groups of people
received their share of the profits made through their work. However, the amount of
produce they had to deliver to the big institutions was fixed in advance and temporarily
adjusted according to changing expectations and the needs of an always-demanding
state. If, for one reason or another, a group of people could not meet the demands
of the institution, the shortfall was entered in the institution’s accounts as a kind of
debt, to be met in one of the following years. In the course of several ‘bad’ years
the debts could accumulate to a considerable amount. With this concept of institutional
debt and credit, it was just a small step further to introduce the concepts of interest
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