taining
information about them, we shall probably find that their condition was
as miserable as that of their Egyptian contemporaries. The course
of their lives was monotonous enough, except when it was broken at
prescribed intervals by the ordinary festivals in honour of the gods
of the city, or by the casual suspensions of work occasioned by the
triumphant return of the king from some warlike expedition, or by his
inauguration of a new temple.

The gaiety of the people on such occasions was the more exuberant in
proportion to the undisturbed monotony or misery of the days which
preceded them. As soon, for instance, as Gudea had brought to completion
Ininnu, the house of his patron Ningirsu, "he felt relieved from the
strain and washed his hands. For seven days, no grain was bruised in the
quern, the maid was the equal of her mistress, the servant walked in the
same rank as his master, the strong and the weak rested side by side in
the city." The world seemed topsy-turvy as during the Roman Saturnalia;
the classes mingled together, and the inferiors were probably accustomed
to abuse the unusual licence which they momentarily enjoyed: when the
festival was over, social distinctions reasserted themselves, and each
one fell back into his accustomed position. Life was not so pleasant
in Chaldaea as in Egypt. The innumerable promissory notes, the receipted
accounts, the contracts of sale and purchase--these cunningly drawn up
deeds which have been deciphered by the hundred--reveal to us a people
greedy of gain, exacting, litigious, of artisans in Egypt. This is taken
from a source belonging to the XIIth or possibly the XIIIth dynasty. We
may assume, from the fact that the two civilizations were about on
the same level, that the information supplied in this respect by the
Egyptian monuments is generally applicable to the condition of Chaldaean
workmen of the same period.

(Unreadable) and almost exclusively absorbed by material concerns.
The climate, too, variable and oppressive in summer and winter alike,
imposed upon the Chaldaean painful exactions, and obliged him to work
with an energy of which the majority of Egyptians would not have felt
themselves capable. The Chaldaean, suffering greater and more prolonged
hardships, earned more doubtless, but was not on this account the
happier. However lucrative his calling might be, it was not sufficiently
so to supply him always with domestic necessities, and both tradespeople