from the Elamites; while directions are sent to others engaged in a campaign upon the Elamite frontier.  The letter which contains directions for the safe escort of the captured Elamite goddesses, and the one ordering the return of these same goddesses to their own shrines, show that foreign deities, even when captured from an enemy, were treated by the Babylonians with the same respect and reverence that was shown by them to their own gods and goddesses.  Hammurabi gave directions in the first letter for the conveyance of the goddesses to Babylon with all due pomp and ceremony, sheep being supplied for sacrifice upon the journey, and their usual rites being performed by their own temple-women and priestesses.  The king’s voluntary restoration of the goddesses to their own country may have been due to the fact that, after their transference to Babylon, the army of the Babylonians suffered defeat in Elam.  This misfortune would naturally have been ascribed by the king and the priests to the anger of the Elamite goddesses at being detained in a foreign land, and Hammurabi probably arrived at his decision that they should be escorted back in the hope of once more securing victory for the Babylonian arms.

The care which the king exercised for the due worship of his own gods and the proper supply of their temples is well illustrated from the letters that have been recovered, for he superintended the collection of the temple revenues, and the herdsmen and shepherds attached to the service of the gods sent their reports directly to him.  He also took care that the observances of religious rites and ceremonies were duly carried out, and on one occasion he postponed the hearing of a lawsuit concerning the title to certain property which was in dispute, as it would have interfered with the proper observance of a festival in the city of Ur.  The plaintiff in the suit was the chief of the temple bakers, and it was his duty to superintend the preparation of certain offerings for the occasion.  In order that he should not have to leave his duties, the king put off the hearing of the case until after the festival had been duly celebrated.  The king also exercised a strict control over the priests themselves, and received reports from the chief priests concerning their own subordinates, and it is probable that the royal sanction was obtained for all the principal appointments.  The guild of soothsayers was an important religious class at this time, and they also were under the king’s direct control.  A letter written by Ammiditana, one of the later kings of the First Dynasty, to three high officials of the city of Sippar, contains directions with regard to certain duties to be carried out by the soothsayers attached to the service of the city, and indicates the nature of their functions.  Ammiditana wrote to the officials in question, stating that there was a scarcity of corn in the city of Shagga, and he therefore ordered them to send a supply thither.