judge by the space covered and the arrangement of the rooms, the
vicegerents of Lagash and the chiefs of towns of minor importance
must, as a rule, have been content with a comparatively small number of
servants; their court probably resembled that of the Egyptian barons who
lived much about the same period, such as Khnumhotpu of the nome of the
Gazelle, or Thothotpu of Hermopolis. In great cities such as Babylon
the palace occupied a much larger area, and the crowd of courtiers was
doubtless as great as that which thronged about the Pharaohs. No exact
enumeration of them has come down to us, but the titles which we come
across show with what minuteness they defined the offices about the
person of the sovereign. His costume alone required almost as many
persons as there were garments. The men wore the light loin-cloth or
short-sleeved tunic which scarcely covered the knees; after the fashion
of the Egyptians, they threw over the loin-cloth and the tunic a large
"abayah," whose shape and material varied with the caprice of fashion.
They often chose for this purpose a sort of shawl of a plain material,
fringed or ornamented with a flat stripe round the edge; often they seem
to have preferred it ribbed, or artificially kilted from top to bottom.*

* The relatively modern costume was described by Herodotus,
i. 114; it was almost identical with the ancient one, as
proved by the representations on the cylinders and monuments
of Telloh. The short-sleeved tunic is more rarely
represented, and the loin-cloth is usually hidden under the
abayah in the case of nobles and kings. We see the princes
of Lagash wearing the simple loin-cloth, on the monuments of
Urnina, for example. For the Egyptian abayah, and the manner
of representing it, cf. vol. i. pp. 69, 71.

The favourite material in ancient times, however, seems to have been
a hairy, shaggy cloth or woollen stuff, whose close fleecy thread hung
sometimes straight, sometimes crimped or waved, in regular rows like
flounces one above another. This could be arranged squarely around the
neck, like a mantel, but was more often draped crosswise over the left
shoulder and brought under the right arm-pit, so as to leave the upper
part of the breast and the arm bare on that side. It made a convenient
and useful garment--an excellent protection in summer from the sun, and
from the icy north wind in the winter. The feet were shod with sandals,