he death of a member of the upper class,
or inflicted a serious injury upon him, such as the loss of an eye, the
punishment was the amputation of both hands, but no such penalty seems
to have been exacted if the patient were a member of the middle class.
If, however, the patient were a slave of a member of the middle class,
in the event of death under the operation, the doctor had to give the
owner another slave, and in the event of the slave losing his eye, he
had to pay the owner half the slave's value. Penalties for assault were
also regulated in accordance with the social position and standing
of the parties to the quarrel. Thus, if one member of the upper class
knocked out the eye or the tooth of one of his equals, his own eye or
his own tooth was knocked out as a punishment, and if he broke the limb
of one of the members of his own class, he had his corresponding limb
broken; but if he knocked out the eye of a member of the middle class,
or broke his limb, he suffered no punishment in his own person, but was
fined one mana of silver, and for knocking out the tooth of such a man
he was fined one-third of a mana. If two members of the same class were
engaged in a quarrel, and one of them made a peculiarly improper assault
upon the other, the assailant was only fined, the fine being larger
if the quarrel was between members of the upper class. But if such an
assault was made by one man upon another who was of higher rank than
himself, the assailant was punished by being publicly beaten in the
presence of the assembly, when he received sixty stripes from a scourge
of ox-hide. These regulations show the privileges and responsibilities
which pertained to the two classes of free men in the Babylonian
community, and they indicate the relative social positions which they
enjoyed.

Both classes of free men could own slaves, though it is obvious that
they were more numerous in the households and on the estates of members
of the upper class. The slave was the absolute property of his master
and could be bought and sold and employed as a deposit for a debt,
but, though slaves as a class had few rights of their own, in certain
circumstances they could acquire them. Thus, if the owner of a female
slave had begotten children by her he could not use her as the payment
for a debt, and in the event of his having done so he was obliged to
ransom her by paying the original amount of the debt in money. It was
also possible for a male s