(M484) The obligations were of various kinds. Some were directly extensions of the duty of a tenant to exercise proper care of the estate. A very prominent duty was the care of the canals. To see that they were kept in proper order was the mark of good government. To allow them to fall into disrepair was probably the result of weak government, or the exhaustion due to defeat in war. But it very soon led to the impoverishment of the country. The Code contemplates the care of the canal banks, or dikes, as the duty of the land-owner adjoining.(511) It holds him responsible for any damage done to the neighbors’ crops by his neglect to close a breach, or leaving the feed-pipe running beyond the time needed to water his field. But the canal was also liable to silt up or become choked with water-weeds, and the care of dredging it out was that of the district governor. He might carry out this duty by summoning the riparian owners to clean out the bed of the canal,(512) or by a levy for the purpose. Soldiers, or at any rate, forced labor, might be used.(513) Later, in the time of Nebuchadrezzar I., we find men, hired for the purpose, called _ḳallê nâri_, or canal laborers.(514) XIX. The Army, _Corvée_, And Other Claims For Personal Service (M485) There was always a militia, _Landwehr_, or territorial levy of troops. Each district had to furnish its quota. These are called _ṣâbê_, or _ummanâte_. We have no direct statements about them, but a great multitude of references. They were called out by the king, _adki ummanâtîa_, “I called out my troops,” is a stock phrase. The calling out was the _dikûtu_. Not easily to be distinguished from this was the _šisîtu_ of the _nâgiru_. That officer seems to have been an incarnate War Office. It is not clear whether he always acted solely for military purposes. The “levy” seems to have been equally made for public works. The men were “the king’s men,” whether they fought or built. The obligation to serve seems to have chiefly affected the slaves and the poorer men, the _muškênu_. In the Code of Ḥammurabi(515) it was punishable with death to harbor a defaulter from this “levy.” (M486) Claims might also be made for work on the fields. This was called _ḫubšu_ and we know little about it more than that Sargon II. charged his immediate predecessors on the throne with having outraged the privileges of the citizens of the old capital Asshur, by putting them to work on the fields. The obligation to provide a soldier for the state was tied to a definite plot, or at any rate, to all estates of a certain size. The _ilku_, or obligation of the land, was transferred with it. In Assyrian times, the military unit was the bowman and his accompanying pikeman and shield-bearer. The land which was responsible for furnishing a “bow,” _ḳaštu_, in this fashion, was itself called a “bow” of land.(516)