Documents of an earlier date than those now under our notice indicate that Babylonian civilization goes back no less than three thousand years before the period of the dynasty of Babylon, and this, in consideration of the date calculated for the foundation of Niffer (another three thousand years earlier), must be regarded as a moderate estimate. Babylonian civilization was already, at the time now treated of, exceedingly ancient. The early village settlement of primitive houses, clustered around an equally primitively-constructed temple, had grown into a large city, with many fanes therein. The scattered outlying smaller villages around this primitive settlement had gradually been incorporated with it, and formed its suburbs, each retaining its ancient name. Villages of more recent foundation were scattered all over the land, and the whole country was instinct with national life, due to the increase of importance which the comparatively recent union of several small states in a single large and therefore powerful kingdom had brought into existence. Thus we find Babylonia at the period of the dynasty of Babylon. It could even then look back into a past stretching back into a remote and dim antiquity. Its laws, manners, customs, and religion were already old, and were our knowledge of this interesting period complete, we should probably find that there was much that was excellent in their laws, and interesting and instructive in the administration of those laws, as well as in their manners and customs with regard to legal matters in general. Something of what the tablets of the period are able to inform us concerning the sacred person of the king and the position of his family has already been treated of, and we have now to turn to the next in the social scale—the people of the middle class. To this class belonged the priests, the leaders of the troops, the landowners, the employers of labour, the scribes, the physicians, the land-hirers, and the small farmers. In all probability artists and artisans also formed part of it, though their position may have been sometimes as bad as that of many who toiled in servitude, for the slaves seem, on the whole, to have been exceedingly well treated. With regard to the scribes at least, the head and beard were shaven, they wore a simple garment like a toga thrown over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm free, and in all probability had on their feet no shoes, but sandals, though this point is doubtful.