The average wages of the workmen can be more easily fixed. Contracts dated in the reign of Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, and found at Sippara, show that it was at the rate of about 4 shekels a year, the laborer’s food being usually thrown in as well. Thus in one of these contracts we read: “Rimmon-bani has hired Sumi-izzitim for his brother, as a laborer, for three months, his wages to be one shekel and a half of silver, three measures of flour, and 1 _qa_ and a half of oil. There shall be no withdrawal from the agreement. Ibni-amurru and Sikni-Anunit have endorsed it. Rimmon-bani has hired the laborer in the presence of Abum-ilu (Abimael), the son of Ibni-samas, of Ili-su-ibni, the son of Igas-Rimmon; and Arad-Bel, the son of Akhuwam.”(7) Then follows the date. Another contract of the same age is of much the same tenor. “Nur-Rimmon has taken Idiyatum, the son of Ili-kamma, from Naram-bani, to work for him for a year at a yearly wage of 4½ shekels of silver. At the beginning of the month Sebat, Idiyatum shall enter upon his service, and in the month Iyyar it shall come to an end and he shall quit it. Witnessed by Beltani, the daughter of Araz-za; by Beltani, the daughter of Mudadum; by Amat-Samas, the daughter of Asarid-ili; by Arad-izzitim, the son of Samas-mutasi; and by Amat-Bau, the priestess (?); the year when the Temple of the Abundance of Rimmon (was built by Khammurabi).” It will be noticed that with one exception the witnesses to this document are all women. There was but little rise in wages in subsequent centuries. A butcher was paid only 1 shekel for a month’s work in the third year of Cambyses, as has been noticed above, and even skilled labor was not much better remunerated. In the first year of Cambyses, for instance, only half a shekel was paid for painting the stucco of a wall, though in the same year 67 shekels (£10 1s.) were given to a seal-cutter for a month’s labor. Slavery prevented wages from rising by flooding the labor market, and the free artisan had to compete with a vast body of slaves. Hence it was that unskilled work was still so commonly paid in kind rather than in coin, and that the workman was content if his employer provided him with food. Thus in the second year of Nabonidos we are told that the “coppersmith,” Libludh, received 7 _qas_ (about 8½ quarts) of flour for overlaying a chariot with copper, and in the seventeenth year of the same reign half a shekel of silver and 1 _gur_ of wheat from the royal storehouse were paid to five men who had brought a flock of sheep to the King’s administrator in the city of Ruzabu. The following laconic letter also tells the same tale: “Letter from Tabik-zeri to Gula-ibni, my brother. Give 54 _qas_ of meal to the men who have dug the canal. The 9th of Nisan, fifth year of Cyrus, King of Eridu, King of the World.” The employer had a right to the workman’s labor so long as he furnished him with food and clothing. CHAPTER VII. THE MONEY-LENDER AND BANKER