(M227) The merchant continually appears. Some passages suggest that he was a state official. But this is really pressing far the interest which the state took in him. He was, doubtless, like the Jew of the Middle Ages, a valuable asset to the king. He seems to have been the usual moneylender, so much so that in many places “merchant” and “creditor” are interchangeable. A man is usually said to borrow of “his merchant,” as we say “of his banker.” Doubtless, the king also borrowed from him. It is certain that the Code was very lenient to him. But the merchant also did business in the way of ordinary trade. As a capitalist he sent out his travellers and agents with goods far and wide, even into domains where the king’s authority did not reach. Much of the Code is occupied with regulating the relations between the merchant and his agent. The agency was that form of _commenda_ which is so characteristic of the East at the present. The agent takes stock or money of his principal, signs for it, agrees to pay so much profit, and goes off to seek a market, making what profit he can. There is much to suggest that the merchant was not usually a Babylonian. In later times, the Arameans were the chief merchants, and travelled all over Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria, and into Asia Minor. V. Judges, Law-Courts, And Legal Processes (M228) Partly because specific references to judges and legal processes are not necessarily to be expected in historical inscriptions, and partly because we do not really know which are the earliest monuments of the race, it is impossible to decide when law-courts first came into existence. It is generally admitted, however, that the stele of Manistusu is one of the earliest known monuments. There we read of Galzu, a judge. There also we find many of the officials, who later acted as judges upon occasion. Hence it may fairly be said that judges were to be found in ancient Babylonia from time immemorial. They must have decided what was right when there was no written law to which to appeal. With the judges were associated as assessors the elders of the city. This was so marked a feature, that in some cases we read, that after hearing the complaint the judge “assembled the city” to hear the case. In Babylonia the maxim, _littera scripta manet_, was so well understood that hardly anything of importance was done without committing it to writing. Hence we are as well informed about domestic affairs in Babylonia as about those of Europe in the Middle Ages.