The palace of the patesi thus began to usurp the place in the national life which had formerly been held by the temple of the city-god, and, while the people found that the tithes due to the latter were not diminished, they were faced with additional taxation on all sides. Tax-gatherers and inspectors were appointed in every district and for every class of the population. The cultivators of the soil, the owners of flocks and herds, the fishermen, and the boatmen plying on the rivers and canals, were never free from the rapacity of these officials, who, in addition to levying their dues, appear to have billeted themselves on their unfortunate victims. That corruption should have existed in the ranks of his officials was but natural, when the patesi himself set them an example in the matter; for Urukagina records that his predecessors on the throne had appropriated the property of the temples for their own use. The oxen of the gods, he tells us, were employed for the irrigation of the lands given to the patesi; the good fields of the gods formed the patesi's holding and his place of joy.[41] The priests themselves grew rich at the expense of the temples, and plundered the people with impunity. The asses and fine oxen which were temple-property they carried off, they exacted additional tithes and offerings, and throughout the country they entered the gardens of the poor and cut down the trees or carried off the fruits. But while so doing they kept on good terms with the palace officials; for Urukagina records that the priests divided the temple-corn with the people of the patesi, and brought them tribute in garments, cloth, thread, vessels and objects of copper, birds, kids, and the like. The misappropriation of temple-property, and particularly that of the city-god, afforded Urukagina the pretext for inaugurating his reforms. He stood forth as Ningirsu's champion, and by restoring the sacred lands which had been seized by the palace, he proved his own disinterestedness, and afforded his subjects an example which he could insist upon their following. He states that in the house of the patesi and in the field of the patesi he installed Ningirsu, their master; that in the house of the harîm and in the field of the harîm he installed the goddess Bau, their mistress; and that in the house of the children and in the field of the children he installed Dunshagga, their master.[42] In these three phrases Urukagina not only records the restoration of all the property, which had formerly belonged to the temples dedicated to Ningirsu and his family, but also reaffirms the old relation of the patesi to the city-god. In the character of his representative the patesi only received his throne as a trust to be administered in the interest of the god; his fields, and goods, and all that he possessed were not his own property but Ningirsu's.[43]