s concerning the
duties of debtors and creditors, and it throws an interesting light
on the commercial life of the Babylonians at this early period. For
instance, it reveals the method by which a wealthy man, or a merchant,
extended his business and obtained large profits by trading with other
towns. This he did by employing agents who were under certain fixed
obligations to him, but acted independently so far as their trading was
concerned. From the merchant these agents would receive money or grain
or wool or oil or any sort of goods wherewith to trade, and in return
they paid a fixed share of their profits, retaining the remainder as
the recompense for their own services. They were thus the earliest of
commercial travellers. In order to prevent fraud between the merchant
and the agent special regulations were framed for the dealings they had
with one another. Thus, when the agent received from the merchant the
money or goods to trade with, it was enacted that he should at the time
of the transaction give a properly executed receipt for the amount he
had received. Similarly, if the agent gave the merchant money in return
for the goods he had received and in token of his good faith, the
merchant had to give a receipt to the agent, and in reckoning their
accounts after the agent's return from his journey, only such amounts as
were specified in the receipts were to be regarded as legal obligations.
If the agent forgot to obtain his proper receipt he did so at his own
risk.

[Illustration: 280.jpg CLAY CONTRACT TABLET AND ITS OUTER CASE]

Dating from the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon.

Travelling at this period was attended with some risk, as it is in the
East at the present day, and the caravan with which an agent travelled
was liable to attack from brigands, or it might be captured by enemies
of the country from which it set out. It was right that loss from this
cause should not be borne by the agent, who by trading with the goods
was risking his own life, but should fall upon the merchant who had
merely advanced the goods and was safe in his own city. It is plain,
however, that disputes frequently arose in consequence of the loss of
goods through a caravan being attacked and robbed, for the code states
clearly the responsibility of the merchant in the matter. If in the
course of his journey an enemy had forced the agent to give up some of
the goods he was carrying, on his return the agent had to specify