BABYLON AND PERSIA

BABYLON TIIE GREAT. 25 1tablets might give the average price of every articlesold in Babylon, or even hired ; for it was not un¬common for people to rent out their .slaves, andthere seem to have been speculators who made it aregular -trade to train and hire out slaves, by con¬tract, in which case a sum of money is usually agreedon to be paid to the owner should the slave be lost,killed, or injured. Sometimes a condition of thetransaction is that the hirer shall teach the slave atrade. Slaves were frequently marked probablybrandedfor identification, with their master's name,on the wrist, the arm, the shoulder.This facilitatedanother transaction, which must have been very con¬venient for people in temporarily straitened circum¬stances the conditional sale of slaves, with theprovision that whenever the original owner claimedthe slave sold on this understanding, that slaveshould bereturned to him or her, the purchasemoneybeing refunded.If children had been bornmeanwhile, the purchaser could keep them if hechose, on paying a small sum for them. All thesetransactions could equally well be performed through^a third person, by power of attorney.In wealthyestablishments this power was usually given to thehead-.slave or steward.If a freeman, it behoovedthe agent to be very careful, as ignorance or neglectof nice points of legal form were just as apt to getpeople into trouble then as nowadays. Thus wehave a contract by which a certain Iba, son of Silla,buys some property on behalf and by authority of aman and his wife ; Bunanitu is the name of the lat¬ter. Had the scribe omitted the clause, "by the