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"æa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery"


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.


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