The task of the _ensi_ in the main was to co-ordinate the temple communities within the city. To each he assigned a share in the common tasks on buildings, canals, and dikes. These _corvées_ were then divided among the guilds and individual members of a community by its _sangu_ or _nubanda_. The _ensi_ dealt, furthermore, with matters of defence and trade, in other words, with foreign affairs. The professional soldiers were under his direct and personal command and formed an important source of his power within the city. Like every other citizen, he received an allotment for his sustenance; but his fields were part of the Common and were cultivated by the people as part of their communal task. Here, again, was an opportunity for abuse of power. Moreover, it became customary to acknowledge the _ensi’s_ exalted position by offering him presents on the festivals of the gods. He also took a fee for making legal decisions or decreeing a divorce, and imposed certain taxes. While he administered the main temple of the city, he appointed members of his family to head other temple communities. Although the assembly seems not to have been superseded entirely, the effective power of the _ensi_ was preponderant; and what had been the original strength of Sumerian society, its integration with the temple organization, became its weakness when the leaders of the temple communities utilized the need for leadership, which the growth of the cities called forth, to oppress the people. We know, for instance, that one _ensi_ sequestered fields assigned to him on the Common and used them to build up an independent “estate of the palace,” modelled on that of the temple. The tablets from Fara show how varied an assortment of people had become directly dependent upon the _ensi_: scribes, chamberlains, heralds, pages, cupbearers, butlers, cooks, musicians, and all kinds of craftsmen.[116] An equalitarian society had been thoroughly transformed, and the power assumed by the ruler was reflected in the presumptions and extortions of his officials. In fact, the Early Dynastic period ends, in Lagash, in an abortive attempt to move against the current and restore the theocratic form of its ideal prototype to Sumerian society. An _ensi_, called Urukagina, states that he “contracted with the god Ningirsu (the city god of Lagash) that he would not deliver up the orphan and the widow to the powerful man.”[117] He also put a stop to specific abuses: “he took the ships away from the master of the boatmen; he took the sheep and asses away from the head-herdsman.... He took away from the heralds the tribute which the _sangus_ paid to the palace.” These “changes,” and many like them, listed in the so-called reform texts, mean that the prerogatives usurped by the foremen and officials were abolished and that these rights were vested once more exclusively in the temple as a vital organ of the community.