[Illustration:  327.jpg THE FARM OXEN]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a green marble cylinder in the
     Louvre.

His average wage was from four to six shekels of silver per annum.  He was also entitled by custom to another shekel in the form of a retaining fee, and he could claim his pay, which was given to him mostly in corn, in monthly instalments, if his agreement were for a considerable time, and daily if it were for a short period.

The mercenary never fell into the condition of the ordinary serf:  he retained his rights as a man, and possessed in the person of the patron for whom he laboured, or whom he himself had selected, a defender of his interests.  When he came to the end of his engagement, he returned to his family, and resumed his ordinary occupation until the next occasion.  Many of the farmers in a small way earned thus, in a few weeks, sufficient means to supplement their own modest personal income.  Others sought out more permanent occupations, and hired themselves out as regular farm-servants.

The lands which neither the rise of the river nor the irrigation system could reach so as to render fit for agriculture, were reserved for the pasture of the flocks in the springtime, when they were covered with rich grass.  The presence of lions in the neighbourhood, however, obliged the husbandmen to take precautions for the safety of their flocks.  They constructed provisional enclosures into which the animals were driven every evening, when the pastures were too far off to allow of the flocks being brought back to the sheepfold.  The chase was a favourite pastime among them, and few days passed without the hunter’s bringing back with him a young gazelle caught in a trap, or a hare killed by an arrow.  These formed substantial additions to the larder, for the Chaldaeans do not seem to have kept about them, as the Egyptians did, such tamed animals as cranes or herons, gazelles or deer:  they contented themselves with the useful species, oxen, asses, sheep, and goats.  Some of the ancient monuments, cylinders, and clay tablets reproduce in a rough manner scenes from pastoral life.  The door of the fold opens, and we see a flock of goats sallying forth to the cracking of the herdsman’s whip:  when they reach the pasture they scatter over the meadows, and while the shepherd keeps his eye upon them, he plays upon his reed to the delight of his dog.  In the mean time the farm-people are engaged in the careful preparation of the evening meal:  two individuals on opposite sides of the hearth watch the pot boiling between them, while a baker makes his dough into round cakes.

[Illustration:  329a.jpg COOKING:  A QUARREL.]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the terra-cotta plaques
     discovered by Loftus.