The harem in which they were shut up by custom, rarely opened its doors: the people seldom caught sight of them, their relatives spoke of them as little as possible, those in power avoided associating them in any public acts of worship or government, and we could count on our fingers the number of those whom the inscriptions mention by name. Some of them were drawn from the noble families of the capital, others came from the kingdoms of Chaldaea or from foreign courts; a certain number never rose above the condition of mere concubines, many assumed the title of queen, while almost all served as living pledges of alliances made with rival states, or had been given as hostages at the concluding of a peace on the termination of a war.* As the kings, who put forward no pretensions to a divine origin, were not constrained, after the fashion of the Pharaohs, to marry their sisters in order to keep up the purity of their race, it was rare to find one among their wives who possessed an equal right to the crown with themselves: such a case could be found only in troublous times, when an aspirant to the throne, of base extraction, legitimated his usurpation by marrying a sister or daughter of his predecessor. * Political marriage-alliances between Egypt and Chaldaea were of frequent occurrence, according to the Tel el-Amarna tablets, and at a later period between Chaldaea and Assyria; among the few queens of the very earliest times, the wife of Nammaghani is the daughter of Urbau, vicegerent of Lagash, and consequently the cousin or niece of her husband, while the wife of Rimsin appears to be the daughter of a nobleman of the name of Rimnannar.