governors of cities and civil officials, most of them deal with
matters affecting the internal administration of the empire. One letter
indeed contains directions concerning the movements of two hundred
and forty soldiers of "the King's Company" who had been stationed in
Assyria, and another letter mentions certain troops who were quartered
in the city of Ur. A third deals with the supply of clothing and oil
for a section of the Babylonian army, and troops are also mentioned
as having formed the escort for certain goddesses captured from the
Elamites; while directions are sent to others engaged in a campaign upon
the Elamite frontier. The letter which contains directions for the
safe escort of the captured Elamite goddesses, and the one ordering the
return of these same goddesses to their own shrines, show that
foreign deities, even when captured from an enemy, were treated by the
Babylonians with the same respect and reverence that was shown by them
to their own gods and goddesses. Hammurabi gave directions in the first
letter for the conveyance of the goddesses to Babylon with all due pomp
and ceremony, sheep being supplied for sacrifice upon the journey,
and their usual rites being performed by their own temple-women and
priestesses. The king's voluntary restoration of the goddesses to their
own country may have been due to the fact that, after their transference
to Babylon, the army of the Babylonians suffered defeat in Elam. This
misfortune would naturally have been ascribed by the king and the
priests to the anger of the Elamite goddesses at being detained in a
foreign land, and Hammurabi probably arrived at his decision that they
should be escorted back in the hope of once more securing victory for
the Babylonian arms.

The care which the king exercised for the due worship of his own gods
and the proper supply of their temples is well illustrated from the
letters that have been recovered, for he superintended the collection
of the temple revenues, and the herdsmen and shepherds attached to the
service of the gods sent their reports directly to him. He also took
care that the observances of religious rites and ceremonies were duly
carried out, and on one occasion he postponed the hearing of a lawsuit
concerning the title to certain property which was in dispute, as it
would have interfered with the proper observance of a festival in
the city of Ur. The plaintiff in the suit was the chief of the temple
bakers, and