Chapter V: The Age of Hammurabi and Its Influence on Later Periods

The energy of the Western Semite and his perpetuation of a
dying culture--His age one of transition--Contemporaneous
evidence on social and political conditions--The three
grades in the social scale of Babylon--The nobles a
racial aristocracy--Origin and rights of the middle
class--Condition of slaves--Pastoral and agricultural
life in early Babylonia--Regulations sanction
long-established custom--The _corvée_ for public
works--Canals and fishing-rights--Methods of irrigation
and their modern equivalents--Survival of the Babylonian
plough and grain-drill--Importance of the date-palm
and encouragement of plantations--Methods of transport
by water--The commercial activities of Babylon and the
larger cities--Partnerships for foreign trade--Life in the
towns--Family life in early Babylonia--The position of
women--Privileges enjoyed by votaries--The administration
of justice--Relation of the crown and the priestly
hierarchy under the Western Semites--The royal regulation
of the calendar and the naming of the year--System of
administration--Changes in the religious sphere and
revision of the pantheon--Literary activity--The complete
semitization of the country unaccompanied by any break in
culture--Babylon's later civilization moulded by Hammurabi's
age