BABYLON AND PERSIA

244 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSLA.names and offered them for sale, one by one, to thehighest bidder. The most .beautiful came first, asthey, of course, fetched the highest prices. Whenall the pretty girls were disposed of, the plain oneshad their turn, but for them the proceeding wasreversed, marriage portions being offered with them.The herald began with the most homely one, askingwho would take her with the smallest dowry.Shewas knocked down to the man who contented him¬self with the lowest sum.The marriage-portionswere furnished out of the money paid for the beau¬tiful damsels, and thus "the fairer maidens por¬tioned out the uglier," remarks Herodotus, whothinks the whole arrangement a wise and admirableone.15. It is but lately that our materials for a knowl¬edge of Babylonian life, manners, and customs havereceived an important and unlooked for addition.Ina field of research where so much is due to chance,and where every great success is a piece of luck anda surprise, not the least of these was the discovery ofthe secret archive of a family which has been calledTHE Banking PIouse of Egibi. Already in 1874some Arab diggers disinterred from a large moundknown under the name of Djumdjuma several wellpreservedterra-cotta jars, packed full of small tabtomuniversal. It was most certainly not so, as proved by the v.astnumber of documents on jirivate life, of which an account followsfurther on. Still, as later writers mention it, it iijay have existedas a local survival from barbarous antiquity, piously preserved bysome of those worshippers of " the good old times," who are a stand¬ing feature of all ages and countries.