House-property was valuable, especially if it included shops. As far back as the reign of Eri-Aku, or Arisch, 2¼ shekels were given for one which stood on a piece of ground only 1⅚ _sar_ in area, the _sar_, if Dr. Reisner is right, being the eighteen-hundredths part of the _feddan_ or acre. In the twentieth year of Assur-bani-pal, just after a war which had desolated Babylonia, a house was sold in the provincial town of Erech for 75 shekels (£11 5s.), and in the beginning of the reign of Nabonidos a carpenter’s shop in Borsippa, the suburb of Babylon, which was not more than 7 rods, 5 cubits, and 18 inches in length, was bought by the agent of the Syrian Ben-Hadad-nathan and his wife for 11½ manehs, or £103 10s. On the other hand, in the reign of Cambyses, we hear of smaller prices being given for houses in Babylon, 4½ manehs for a house with a piece of land attached to it, and 2 manehs for one that had been the joint property of a man and his wife; while in the ninth year of Nergal-sharezer a house was sold for only 52½ shekels. Houses, however, were more frequently let than sold. Already, in the age of Khammurabi, we have the record of the lease of a house for eight years. At a later date contracts relating to the renting of houses are numerous. Thus in the sixth year of Cyrus a house was let at a yearly rent of 10 shekels, part of which was to be paid at the beginning of the year and the rest in the middle of it. The tenant was to renew the fences when necessary and repair all dilapidations. He was also expected to send a present to his landlord thrice a year in the months of Nisan, Tammuz, and Kisleu. Other houses in Babylon in the Persian age were let at yearly rents of 5 shekels, 5½ shekels, 7½ shekels, 9 shekels, 15 shekels, 20 shekels, 23 shekels, and 35 shekels, the leases running for two, three, five, and more years. The tenant usually undertook to keep the property in repair and to make good all dilapidations. Loss in case of fire or other accidents also fell upon him. Most of the houses seem to have been inhabited by single families; but there were tenements or flats as well, the rent of which was naturally lower than that of a whole house. Thus we find a woman paying only 2 shekels, or 6s., a year for a tenement in the reign of Cambyses. Any violation of the lease involved a fine, the amount of which was stated in the contract. A house, for instance, was let at Babylon in the first year of Cambyses for 5 shekels a year, the rent to be paid in two halves “at the beginning and in the middle of the year.” In this case a breach of the contract was to be punished by a fine of 10 shekels, or double the amount of the rent. In other cases the fine was as much as a maneh of silver.