The class which has given most trouble to realize was called the _mushkênu_. PROFESSOR SCHEIL, followed by DARESTE, _Journal des Savans_, rendered the ideographic signs used in the Code, MASH-EN-KAK, by ‘noble’, not recognizing the Babylonian rendering first pointed out in print by PROFESSOR ZIMMERN[14] as _mushkênu_, but already known to me and underlying my first translations. The word _mushkênu_ passed into Hebrew as _miskên_, and later into modern languages—Italian _meschino_, _meschinello_, Portuguese _mesquinho_, French _mesquin_—naturally, with modifications of meaning. Its derivation suggests the meaning of ‘suppliant’, from _kânu_, ‘to bow,’ and points to a position of inferiority, if not dependence. It had already been recognized that he was less fined for misdeeds, which evidently suggested the rendering ‘noble’. But as it turns out, Hammurabi was more severe in his punishment of the aristocracy than of the poorer or inferior class. On the other hand, while the proud patrician insisted on exact retaliation for his injuries, ‘eye for eye’, ‘tooth for tooth’, ‘limb for limb’, the _mushkênu’s_ injuries were assessed for pecuniary compensation. He was expected to accept a less primitive award, pointing to a more civilized state. The difference in treatment suggests difference of race. They may well have been the subject race, common people without rights of citizenship. There was a quarter in Sippara, the _mushkênutu_, where this people dwelt apart from the houses, with their gardens and broad streets, occupied by the patricians. This also points in the same direction. We know that the guilds each occupied its own quarter, as in many mediaeval cities, but these had already won, or never lost, the right to rank as _amêlu_. The _mushkênu_ was not necessarily poor, for (§ 15) he had slaves and goods. The earliest copy of the Code sometimes gives _amêlu_ where the later reads _mushkênu_. MÜLLER had called him an _Armenstiftler_, but there is no trace of his receiving a pension. KOHLER, PEISER, and UNGNAD call him _Ministerial_, but adduce no evidence that he had any special relation to government or clergy. HOMMEL thought him a dependant of the priests, comparing the Hebrew Cohen. The word, as MR. COMBE has shown in _Babyloniaca_,[15] is found in Arabic—_masâkîn_, used of those who are not _sâdèh_ (plural _sayyid_) descendants of the Prophet; nor _mashayikh_, ‘nobles’, affiliated to the family of the Prophet; nor _gabâyil_, ‘secular nobles’; but including the ‘labourers’, ‘workers’, ‘merchants’, ‘schoolmasters’, ‘sycophants’, and ‘mendicants’. They are unable to carry arms, have no organization, and are entirely under the domination of the nobles. They cannot in any case change their condition. This seems to have been their exact position in ancient Babylonia also, at any rate in somewhat later times.