How much do you know about the Ancient World?

[Minerva]

There is nevertheless a backward logic to be found in the above-quoted passage. The logic of the ancient world being that a woman in her own home and within earshot of family and servants would be expected to cry out for help if being raped -- and would remain silent if having an adulterous affair.

IIn answer to the question posed in this topic... like Sonic, I'd like to learn more about the ancient Chinese, as well.

 

It does make more sence with your explanation. Thanks!

 

China seems to have had an amazingly advanced civilization. It's sad that Ch'in Shih Huan Tih considered one of China's greatest emperors and a builder of the great wall decided to burn all books save those that dealt with Agriculture and Medidcine in 212 B.C with the aim of erasing the past and decreeing that history should begin with him. It was apparently only a century and a half later that it was safe to bring out the few boooks hidden by brave scholars. I've always wondered how many works survived and how much knowledge was lost.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, Amici.

It seems the Nesilim (Hittites) rulers were true believers of a controlled economy, with fixed wages and prices; their monetary unit was the shekel, but it seems they still used barter to some extent.

Here come extracts from their Code:

 

158. If a man go for wages, bind sheaves, load it into carts, spread it on the straw barn and so forth "till they clear the threshing floor, for three months his wages are thirty pecks of barley. If a woman go for wages in the harvest, for two months he shall give twelve pecks of barley.

 

159. If anyone harness a yoke of oxen, his wages are one-half peck of barley.

 

160. If a smith make a copper box, his wages are one hundred pecks of barley. He who makes a copper dish of two-pound weight, his wages are one peck of emmer.

 

178. A plow-ox costs fifteen half-shekels of silver, a bull costs ten half-shekels of silver, a great cow costs seven half-shekels of silver, a sheep one half-shekel of silver, a draft horse twenty half-shekels of silver, a mule one pound of silver, a horse fourteen half-shekels of silver.

 

181-182. Four pounds of copper cost one half-shekel of silver; one tub of lard, one half-shekel of silver; two cheese one half-shekel of silver; a gown twelve half-shekels of silver; one blue woolen garment costs twenty half-shekels of silver; breeches cost ten half-shekels of silver. . .

 

200. If anyone give a son for instruction, be it a carpenter, or a potter, or a weaver, or a tailor, or a smith, he shall give six half-shekels of silver for the instruction.

[DecimusCaesar]

Thank you for posting these laws, I had heard that some of these were bizarre, and having read them that does seem the case. I once read a few excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi. That was a bit wiser than the Hittite laws, but there were still some odd stuff in there, including numerous punishments where an offending women is thrown into a river.

[Minerva]

Thank you for posting these laws, I had heard that some of these were bizarre, and having read them that does seem the case. I once read a few excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi. That was a bit wiser than the Hittite laws, but there were still some odd stuff in there, including numerous punishments where an offending women is thrown into a river.

 

Can you please elaborate on what kind of offenses were punshed by throwing the offending woman into a river? It was a common punishment for women in SriLanka even in the 18th Century A.D although I don't know when the practice started. During the Kandyan kingdom which fell in 1815 women (generally noble women) who had incurred the displeasure of the king by commiting a crime or whose family members had (though not always in the latter case) were given the option of either drowning in a river or joining the lowest of the low castes, the "rhodis" who lived in perpetual ostracism

[DecimusCaesar]

Thank you for posting these laws, I had heard that some of these were bizarre, and having read them that does seem the case. I once read a few excerpts from the Code of Hammurabi. That was a bit wiser than the Hittite laws, but there were still some odd stuff in there, including numerous punishments where an offending women is thrown into a river.

 

Can you please elaborate on what kind of offenses were punshed by throwing the offending woman into a river? It was a common punishment for women in SriLanka even in the 18th Century A.D although I don't know when the practice started. During the Kandyan kingdom which fell in 1815 women (generally noble women) who had incurred the displeasure of the king by commiting a crime or whose family members had (though not always in the latter case) were given the option of either drowning in a river or joining the lowest of the low castes, the "rhodis" who lived in perpetual ostracism

 

 

Here is one example:

 

108: If a [woman wine-seller] does not accept [grain] according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water.

 

By water, the text means the Euphrates river. According to the link, this practice was similar to that meted out on European women in the Seventeenth century.

 

There are many more examples in this link below, which is a section from the Code of Hammurabi:

 

Code of Hammurabi

Edited July 13, 2008 by DecimusCaesar

[ASCLEPIADES]

Here is one example:

 

108: If a [woman wine-seller] does not accept [grain] according to gross weight in payment of drink, but takes money, and the price of the drink is less than that of the corn, she shall be convicted and thrown into the water.

 

By water, the text means the Euphrates river. According to the link, this practice was similar to that meted out on European women in the Seventeenth century.

 

There are many more examples in this link below, which is a section from the Code of Hammurabi:

 

Code of Hammurabi

Salve, DC.

Articles 104 to 110 of this Code are primarily concerned with what we may call consumer protection and liquor licensing.

It's clear both were a real concern at early XVIII century BC Babylon::

 

"104. If a merchant give an agent corn, wool, oil, or any other goods to transport, the agent shall give a receipt for the amount, and compensate the merchant therefore. Then he shall obtain a receipt form the merchant for the money that he gives the merchant.

105. If the agent is careless, and does not take a receipt for the money which he gave the merchant, he can not consider the unreceipted money as his own.

106. If the agent accept money from the merchant, but have a quarrel with the merchant (denying the receipt), then shall the merchant swear before God and witnesses that he has given this money to the agent, and the agent shall pay him three times the sum.

107. If the merchant cheat the agent, in that as the latter has returned to him all that had been given him, but the merchant denies the receipt of what had been returned to him, then shall this agent convict the merchant before God and the judges, and if he still deny receiving what the agent had given him shall pay six times the sum to the agent.

.............

109. If conspirators meet in the house of a tavern-keeper, and these conspirators are not captured and delivered to the court, the tavern-keeper shall be put to death.

110. If a "sister of a god" (nun) open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death".

 

Within this context, I would suppose that art. 108 feminine side is better explained by linguistics than by sexism; ie, tavern-keepers were probably always or almost always women (like nowadays nurses), so the noun turned its grammatical gender in accordance.

Edited July 13, 2008 by ASCLEPIADES