Services were many. Each day required its own offerings and ceremonies. The changes of the moon were watched and accompanied by peculiar services. Taboos were placed on certain days and on these no work was permitted. The priesthood was large. Besides the chief priests, there were elders, anointers,--who anointed the images of the gods and the vessels of the temple with sacred oil; priests who presided over the oracles and whose function it was to ascertain auspicious times for war and other prodigious undertakings, and seers, who interpreted dreams. Revenues of the temples came from offerings and more regularly, from the tithe, a tax paid by both king and subjects. In this way, the temples controlled property. Their lands were usually rented out. When Babylonia reached her age of greatest prosperity, the religion of the land had been greatly secularized, and the temples were important for their business significances quite as much as for their religious features. "The temple exerted an overwhelming financial influence in smaller towns. Only in certain large cities was it rivalled by a few great firms. Its financial status was that of the chief, if not the only, great capitalist. Its political influence was also great. This was largely enlisted on the side of peace at home and stability in business." Its great possessions resulted from the daily and monthly payments, from lands dedicated to the temple by devout ones, and from careful investment of revenues. "The temple was also a commercial institution of high efficiency. Their accumulations of all sorts of raw products were enormous. The temple let out or advanced all kinds of raw material, usually on easy terms. To the poor, as a charity, advances were made in times of a scarcity or personal want, to their tenants as part of the metayer system of tenure, to slaves who lived outside its precincts, and to contractors who took the material on purely commercial terms. The return was expected in kind, to the full amount of advance, or with stipulated interest.... "The temples did a certain amount of banking business. By this we mean that they held money on deposit against the call of the depositor. Whether they charged for safe-keeping or remunerated themselves by investing the bulk of their capital, reserving a balance to meet calls, does not appear.... "In certain circumstances the king's officials might borrow of the temples.... Some kings laid hands on the treasure of the temple for their own use. Doubtless this was done under bond to repay. The cases in which we read of such practices are always represented as a wrong.... "The temple could act in all the capacities of a private individual or a firm of traders."[2]