The Chaldaean towns:  the aspect and distribution of the houses, domestic life—­The family patrimony:  division of the inheritance—­Lending on usury, the rate of interest, commercial intercourse by land and sea—­Trade corporations:  brick-making, industrial implements in stone and metal, goldsmiths, engravers of cylinders, weavers; the state of the working classes.

Farming and cultivation of the ground:  landmarks, slaves, and agricultural labourers—­Scenes of pastoral life:  fishing, hunting—­Archaic literature; positive sciences:  arithmetic and geometry, astronomy and astrology, the science of foretelling the future—­The physician; magic and its influence on neighbouring countries.

[Illustration:  239.jpg CHAPTER III.]

Drawn by Boudier, from the sketch by Loftus.  The initial vignette, which is by Faucher-Gudin, represents a royal figure kneeling and holding a large nail in both hands.  The nail serves to keep the figure fixed firmly in the earth.  It is a reproduction of the bronze figurine in the Louvre, already published by Heuzey-Sakzeo, Decouvertes en Chaldee, pl. 28, No. 4.

CHAPTER III—­CHALDAEAN CIVILIZATION

Royalty—­The constitution of the family and its property—­Chaldaean commerce and industry.

The Chaldaean kings, unlike their contemporaries the Pharaohs, rarely put forward any pretensions to divinity.  They contented themselves with occupying an intermediate position between their subjects and the gods, and for the purpose of mediation they believed themselves to be endowed with powers not possessed by ordinary mortals.  They sometimes designated themselves the sons of Ea, or of Ninsun, or some other deity, but this involved no belief in a divine parentage, and was merely pious hyperbole:  they entertained no illusions with regard to any descent from a god or even from one of his doubles, but they desired to be recognized as his vicegerents here below, as his prophets, his well-beloved, his pastors, elected by him to rule his human flocks, or as priests devotedly attached to his service.  While, however, the ordinary priest chose for himself a single master to whom he devoted himself, the priest-king exercised universal sacerdotal functions and claimed to be pontiff of all the national religions.  His choice naturally was directed by preference to the patrons of his city, those who had raised his ancestors from the dust, and had exalted him to the supreme rank, but there were other divinities who claimed their share of his homage and expected of him a devotion suited to their importance.  If he had attempted to carry out these duties personally in detail, he would have had to spend his whole life at the foot of the altar; even when he had delegated as many of them as he could to the regular clergy, there still remained sufficient to occupy a large part of his time.  Every month,