Chapter 4. The Farmer
To the king, queen, princes, and to all the land of Hatti, give life,
health, strength, long years, and joy in the future! And to them
give future thriving of grain, vines, fruit, cattle, sheep, goats,
pigs, mules, asses—together with wild animals—and of human
beings!1
In our investigations of almost all aspects of Hittite life and society
we are constantly aware of one basic fact: the prosperity and wellbeing
and sustenance of the kingdom depended, to a critical degree,
on the industry of its food-producers, the productivity of its soil, and
the benevolence of the elements. That a country needs to produce
sufficient quantities of food to feed its population may appear selfevident.
Yet in poor-yielding years many countries have been able to
supplement their own production and buffer themselves against
famine by accessing stores of supplies accumulated in good years, or
by importing supplies acquired through trade or war or as tribute
from subject states. The Hittites too sometimes boosted local food
supplies with imported grain, probably only on an occasional basis
during the earlier years of the kingdom, more regularly towards its
end. But to a very large extent their ability to ‘keep alive the land of
Hatti’ depended on what they themselves could produce annually
from their own resources—their own crop and orchard and grazing
lands, worked by their own labour forces.
The task was a challenging one. The central Anatolian plateau
provides a harsh and often hostile environment for an agriculturally
based society. In summer it was, and still is, a hot, dry, thirsty land,
poorly served for irrigation purposes by its meagre, unnavigable
rivers.The rainfall for the whole year rarely exceeds 500 millimetres
and is often considerably less. The winters can be bitterly cold, with
the land often buried deep in snow and at least in ancient times often
cut off totally from the outside world for months at a time. River
valleys and pockets of land between mountain ranges offered the
best opportunities for cultivation of the soil, but even in these areas
soil fertility was often low, and in between lay rugged tracts of virtual
wasteland. It was a land chronically vulnerable to the vagaries of
climate and to the whims of the gods who controlled it. Drought and
famine were seldom more than a poor-yielding harvest away, the
result of a labour shortage or a low seasonal rainfall or a devastating
storm at harvest time, or the depredations of vermin, which included
mice and a wide range of insect pests. The land lacked the capacity
to absorb such setbacks—which any agriculturally based society
must accept as a matter of course—without serious and sometimes
devastating consequences for large sections of the population.
Seton Lloyd wonders why the Hittites should ever have chosen for
their homeland and seat of government what he refers to as ‘this
unprepossessing region of Anatolia’. ‘One is even tempted’, he
says,‘to attribute certain aspects of the Hittite character . . . to overfamiliarity
with the “unupholstered” virility of the plateau landscape,
or even to an ascetic appreciation of the austerities imposed
on them by such an environment.’2
Yet for those who lived close to the land (and that applied to
persons at all levels of Hittite society and in almost all occupations),
who understood it and used it efficiently, there could be prosperity
and good quality of life. Indeed for the Hittites it was hard to envisage
any kind of life which did not have a farming or agricultural
basis. Their gods—who could presumably have chosen to do otherwise
if they wished—lived much of their lives on celestial pastoral
estates, and their kings retired to similar estates specifically allocated
to them after their deaths, well stocked for their sustenance and
diversion with sheep, cattle, and game.
The Workers of the Land
Efficient use of the land meant in the first instance intensive
exploitation of relatively small areas suitable for orchards and crop
production.When this was done, and provided the gods were cooperative,
the land was capable of producing grain crops, fruit, and
vegetables in some abundance.There was little that one might find in
well-stocked markets today that was missing from the Hittite range
of produce. Grain crops included four kinds of wheat and two or
three kinds of barley. Vegetables included a wide range of legumes
(like peas, beans, broad beans, chickpeas, lentils), root and bulb
vegetables (carrots, onions, leeks, garlic), cucumber and watercress
and parsley, and that ubiquitous Mediterranean product the olive.
Various herbs and spices such as cumin and coriander were cultivated.
Orchards produced figs, apples, pears, apricots, grapes, pomegranates,
and perhaps plums and tamarisks. Apiaries produced
honey, dairies milk, cream, and cheese.3
The key unit in the agricultural economy of the Land of Hatti was
almost certainly the small mixed farm, whose success depended
primarily on two factors: intensive cultivation, and diversification
of produce. On each farm one would expect to find a variety of fruit,
vegetable, and grain crops, with perhaps some crop rotation being
practised, complemented by a range of domesticated livestock—
cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, donkeys, horses, and poultry, including partridges
and ducks.
One such farm was worked by a man called Tiwatapara. He was a
family man with a wife, Azzia, and three children, a boy Hartuwanduli
and two girls Anitti and Hantawiya. A land-grant document
provides us with an inventory of his assets:
Estate of Tiwatapara: one man, Tiwapatara; one boy, Hartuwanduli; one
woman, Azzia; two girls, Anitti and Hantawiya; (total) five persons; two
oxen, twenty-two sheep, six draught oxen . . . eighteen ewes, and with the
ewes two female lambs, and with the rams two male lambs; eighteen goats,
and with the goats four kids, and with the he-goat one kid; (total) thirty-six
small cattle:one house. As pasture for oxen, one acre of meadow in the town
Parkalla. Three-and-a-half acres of vineyard, and in it forty apple trees,
forty-two pomegranate trees, in the town Hanzusra, belonging to the estate
of Hantapi.4
Though by no means a wealthy man,Tiwatapara and his family had
sufficient resources to provide for all their material needs, so long
as all the family were prepared to work hard, and they suffered no
major setbacks through drought, storms, or illness.They had a small
mixed herd of livestock, some of which were bred for ploughing the
fields, some for their meat, and some for their milk and their wool
(sheep seem to have been bred primarily for their wool).They were
able to diversify their earning capacity with a small vineyard, which
also contained apple and pomegranate trees. And very likely they
kept a vegetable garden,within an enclosure around their mudbrick,
timber-framed house, in which they grew onions, lentils, peas, beans,
and the like. We do not know how large Tiwatapara’s actual farm
was—some farms may have been as small as 600 square metres.5
Tiwatapara apparently had enough space to run most of the livestock
listed on his inventory, but needed additional pieces of land to
pasture his oxen and to cultivate his vines and fruit trees.
This was quite consistent with the general pattern of farming in
the Hittite world—small pieces of land owned or leased by or allocated
to the one person or family but scattered over several or more
locations. Even when the king made land-grants to those who had
served him well,6 he tended to do so in small parcels rather than in
single large estates. For political reasons, it has been suggested, he
thought it wise to fragment the holdings even of his most trusted subjects;
large landowners with consolidated land-holdings and a large
labour force at their disposal might be tempted to entertain ambitions
beyond their station and pose a potential threat to the stability
of the regime in Hattusa.7 But it is just as likely that there were economic
reasons for the policy. Smaller land-holdings were more likely
to be fully utilized for food production than large estates, where the
owner might have devoted only a part of his land to productive purposes.
In a later period this was amply demonstrated by the use made
of latifundia, the large estates of the Roman world, whose underexploitation
caused serious shortfalls in food production in Italy
during the later years of the Roman Republic.
Tiwatapara seems to have been in the position, probably regarded
as a fairly privileged one for a small farmer, of having several plots of
land available to him, including the one on which he and his family
lived. No doubt this was a reflection of his industry and enterprise.
He is probably a good example of the basic yeoman farmer on which
Hittite society largely depended. Land could be acquired in a
number of ways. It could be bought, or it could be leased—from the
crown, a town or village, or a wealthy neighbour. As we have already
noted, it could be bestowed on favoured individuals, and sometimes
on institutions like cult centres, as a gift from the king. The grant
might be quite substantial,including woods and meadows and sometimes
whole villages, along with livestock, equipment, buildings, and
a workforce. Lower down the scale, small farms were apparently
allocated in lieu of other forms of payment to employees in the
king’s service, including such persons as heralds, couriers, and the
king’s cupbearers and table servants.
The term for such persons, ‘Man of the Weapon’ (lú GISˇ
tukul),
suggests that it once applied to soldiers in the king’s service who
presumably worked plots of assigned land and produced their own
food during periods when they were not required for military
service; the government would thus be saved the administrative difficulties
of directly feeding standing army troops all year round.8 But
such an arrangement would not have been without its problems,
since soldier-farmers must often have been away on campaign at
precisely the time their farms most needed their attention or supervision,
for example during the sowing or the harvest.Also, the unsettling
effects of dividing one’s time between the excitement and
unpredictabilities of military campaigns on the one hand and the
day-to-day and often tedious routine of farming life on the other
would hardly have been conducive to the maintenance of a stable
productive agricultural workforce. The use of the system for paying
troops may have been abolished or considerably scaled down quite
early in Hittite history, while being extended to other forms of
employment in the king’s service; the original term continued in use
for persons paid in this way, although its military connotations may
no longer have applied.
At all events the state seems to have given much attention to
ensuring, through a mixture of sticks and carrots, that all land
capable of cultivation was worked to its maximum capacity. All
assigned land, whether bestowed as a gift or as payment for services
rendered,or granted as a leasehold,imposed clear obligations on the
assignee. All farming enterprises were subject to taxes, generally in
the form of agricultural produce, and under the system of socage
many farmers were also obliged to provide payment in the form
of part-time service to their liege-lord; if they were tenants of the
crown, this might involve the provision of their labour for public
works or on crown estates.9Tax and labour exemptions might sometimes
be granted in special cases or for special reasons. But to have
too many exemptees could seriously impact on overall productivity
and revenue for the state, and it appears that the originally long
list of those routinely granted exemptions had been considerably
whittled down by the beginning of the New Kingdom. The large
landowner was obliged to ensure that all tax and labour requirements
for his estates were fully met, whether from land directly
worked by himself and his own labour force or from land which he
had leased to tenant farmers. Similar obligations must have been
imposed on temple establishments, which often owned extensive
tracts of farm and pasture land, like the Church in more recent times,
and were no doubt responsible for both the efficient use of the land
and the collection of all revenues due. Small farmers who worked
plots of land as lessees or tenant farmers were also obliged to
demonstrate full utilization of their land or risk forfeiting it to
someone else. Shortfalls at this level would ultimately affect an
estate’s overall productivity, for which the large landowner was
responsible. It was his job to ensure maximum efficiency at all levels
within his ambit of responsibility.
Grain gathered as tax from the Hittite farmlands, in addition to
what may have been sent as tribute from vassal states, was stored in
a number of grain depots strategically located throughout the homeland.
We have important new information about the nature of some
of these facilities from the recently discovered silos in Hattusa.
Eleven underground grain pits have been excavated on the mountain
ridge now called Büyükkaya on the city’s north-eastern extremity.
And behind the so-called ‘postern wall’ on the south-west of the
Lower City, an underground storage complex consisting of two parallel
rows of sixteen chambers each has come to light.10 Dr Seeher,
the excavator, has estimated a storage space ranging from a possible
minimum of 128 to a possible maximum of 648 cubic metres for the
individual silos on Büyükkaya, and a total storage space of up to
9,800 cubic metres for the postern wall complex. In terms of weight,
the latter had a maximum holding capacity of some 5,880 tonnes of
grain, a sufficient annual ration for up to 32,000 people. There were
undoubtedly other grain silos,both underground and above-ground,
built in the city throughout its history,11 as also in the kingdom’s
regional administrative centres.We may suppose that the large silos
in Hattusa and elsewhere served as redistribution centres for large
areas of the homeland, and not merely for the sustenance of the
immediate population.12 None the less the considerable numbers of
troops, palace and temple functionaries, administrative officials,
and labourers who constituted the capital’s workforce clearly made
much higher demands on the state commissariat than any other
parts of the homeland, necessitating substantial food storage facilities
within the city simply to meet its own needs.
One of the crucial factors in agricultural productivity was the
availability of an adequate labour force. For the Hittites this was a
chronic problem, sometimes reaching critical proportions. Annual
military expeditions imposed a constant drain on the homeland’s
labour forces. However often Hittite armies returned home laden
with rich spoils of conquest, the fact remains that military campaigns
were conducted between spring and autumn, at precisely the time
the agricultural labour needs of the homeland were greatest.When
on top of this the homeland population, including a substantial proportion
of the labour force, was decimated by plague, the kingdom
could end up on the brink of starvation—as forcefully stated by King
Mursili II in a blunt address to the gods:
What have you done, o Gods? You have allowed a plague to enter the land
of Hatti and all of it is dying! Now there is no-one to prepare food and drink
offerings for you! No-one reaps or sows the god’s fields, for the sowers and
reapers are all dead! The mill women who used to make the bread of the
gods are all dead! All the corrals and sheepfolds from which cattle and sheep
were chosen for sacrifice are empty, for the cowherds and shepherds are all
dead!13
The importation into the homeland each year of hundreds, sometimes
thousands, of transportees from conquered territories must
have contributed much to the alleviation of labour shortages.A significant
proportion of the transportees were almost certainly used to
swell the agricultural workforce on Hittite farms and pasturelands.
Becoming in effect slaves, they were undoubtedly a valuable asset to
the homeland,and well warranted the effort and the risks involved in
getting them there. Probably for this reason rather than for humanitarian
considerations they enjoyed a higher degree of protection at
law than one generally finds in slave-owning societies.
Buying Land
As we shall see (Chapter 7),The Laws allowed slaves to accumulate
property of their own, to the point where some generated sufficient
wealth to attract free persons into their families through marriage.
This ‘enlightened’ approach to slavery (as far as any slave-owning
society can be called enlightened) was almost certainly pragmatically
based—on the principle that the best way of maximizing
human productivity is through an appropriate system of rewards and
incentives. In the case of slaves this was a particularly important consideration
at times when many of the able-bodied male population
were absent on military campaigns, and a large proportion of those
who were left to work the fields were persons who were there
because they had no choice in the matter.To the Hittite way of think-
ing, their cooperation could best be achieved by waving carrots
rather than sticks under their noses. Many such persons were apparently
given the opportunity of working one or more plots of land for
themselves, perhaps raising a few livestock, and keeping at least
some of their earnings, in addition to performing the services
required by their master. In this way they could eventually build up
sufficient resources to buy property of their own.
From the various prices recorded in The Laws it is clear that this
was well within an enterprising and industrious farmer’s capability,
however modest his starting point. Land which was suitable for
farming purposes but had not been developed was very cheap. It was
possible to buy a small uncultivated 1-iku plot, around 3,600 square
metres, for no more than two or three shekels of silver14 (the iku was
a basic unit of land measurement, with larger holdings measured in
multiples of it).15 But let us suppose that a farmer wants a piece of
land already under cultivation.This will cost him considerably more,
up to twenty times the cost of an uncultivated plot. Initially he may
not have sufficient funds to pay for it. But it is well within his reach if
he is prepared to devote several years of hard work and enterprise to
achieving it. Let us suppose that he has his sights set on a small vineyard.
Forty shekels of silver will secure him a 1-iku vineyard plot.16 In
working towards his goal, he starts off with a couple of sheep and
goats, and breeds from them over the next few years. As his stock
numbers grow, he periodically sells off some of them, or their wool,
and with the proceeds buys several calves, which he also uses as
breeding stock.Within a few years he has built up a small herd of
cattle, some of which he sells for their meat and their hides. The list
of selling prices in The Laws indicates the sort of returns he could
expect; for example, ‘one plough ox—twelve shekels of silver; one
bull—ten shekels; one full-grown cow—seven shekels; one pregnant
cow—eight shekels; one weaned calf—four shekels; one yearling
plough ox or cow—four shekels; one sheep—one shekel; two
lambs—one shekel; three nanny-goats—two shekels; two kids—half
a shekel’.17The proceeds from just a few such animals would clearly
put his vineyard within his grasp. As we shall see, once he has it he
could expect to recoup his purchase price within about four years.
The Laws indicate many other means by which a farmer starting
out with very modest means, and whether slave or free, could eventually
buy or lease land of his own. In the slave’s case, there might
also be a further incentive beyond mere asset accumulation—the
opportunity to acquire sufficient wealth to pay a ‘bride-price’ for a
free woman, and thus ensure free status for his offspring. Everyone
stood to benefit—the slave himself from the opportunities to
improve his position as allowed by Hittite law, the owner from the
slave’s increased productivity on his master’s as well as his own
behalf, and the state which was the ultimate beneficiary of a productive
workforce.
The Hire of Labour
We do not know how far down the rungs of Hittite society slaveowning
went. But for a farmer like Tiwatapara,the costs of acquiring
and maintaining a slave and securing him against escape were probably
not warranted by the return he would get from him—particularly
during the winter months when the slave would still have to be
fed and sheltered without being fully employed. At busy times of
the year Tiwatapara’s own family of five could not have coped with
all the work which the land he farmed generated. Small working
‘households’ seem to have required somewhere between seven and
ten personnel.18 Tiwatapara probably hired the labour of free
persons on a contract basis for a month or two at a time as it was
needed, particularly during the labour-intensive periods of the agricultural
year. The basic hire rate for a male was apparently one
shekel of silver per month. Female labour could also be hired, at half
that rate. But the rate and method of payment probably varied,
depending on the period of the year and the nature of the work
required. Thus The Laws stipulate that in the harvest season: ‘If a
(free) man hires himself out for wages, to bind sheaves, load them on
wagons, deposit them in barns, and clear the threshing floors, his
wages for three months shall be 1,500 litres of barley. If a woman
hires herself out for wages in the harvest season, her wages for three
months shall be 600 litres of barley’ (clause 158).19
Payment in kind was clearly the most convenient form of remuneration
at this time. The labourer simply took a share of the grain
harvested and stored it for consumption by his family in the period
before the next harvest. Professor Hoffner has calculated that 1,500
litres of barley equates to 3.75 shekels of silver, slightly better than
the standard rate of one shekel of silver per month for a male,
although the woman’s remuneration of 600 litres, equated to one
shekel of silver, is worse than the standard rate of half a shekel for
one month’s hire. The difference between the male and female hire
rates may well be a reflection of the different work each was required
to do, with the more physically demanding tasks reserved for the
male (as suggested by clause 158 above). On the other hand women
shared in many of the tasks undertaken by men, particularly at times
of labour shortages, whether due to plague, or absence of males on
military campaigns, or redeployment of males for work on public
projects. More generally we hear of women employed in a range of
manual activities—as millers,cooks,weavers, and fullers as well as in
more specialist occupations as doctors and ritual practitioners. Elsewhere
they appear as musicians, dancers, and tavern-keepers.
The Farming Communities
The various little farmsteads were probably grouped in clusters,each
of which constituted or was attached to a community or village of its
own. Each had its own council and administration which was responsible
for overall supervision of the territory within its jurisdiction,
extending up to about five kilometres or three miles from the village
centre.20The council had the task of ensuring effective use of the land
and the payment of taxes due, as well as arbitrating on disputes
between landholders and other members of the local community.
Apart from the land which was owned or leased by small farmers,
there was also land owned communally by the village, which might
earn revenue for the village by being leased out, or by the villagers
themselves apportioning a certain amount of their time to it.
The intensive cultivation of small plots of land located next to
each other, and probably in many cases without clear lines of demarcation
between them, must often have been a source of tension and
dispute between neighbours. And indeed a number of clauses in The
Laws deal with offences committed by a careless or malicious neighbour.
A landholder was, for example, responsible for damage done
by any of his stock which, presumably through lack of adequate
supervision, strayed into an adjoining orchard or vineyard: ‘If a
person lets his sheep into a productive vineyard, and ruins it, if it is in
fruit, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for each 3,600 square metres.
But if it is bare (i.e. already harvested), he shall pay three shekels of
silver’ (clause 107). The ten shekels probably represents the estimated
annual earnings of a vineyard of the specified size, which the
offender must now pay to the owner as compensation for his loss of
income. (On this basis our supposed vineyard purchaser, discussed
above, could expect to recoup his initial outlay of forty shekels in
perhaps no more than five years, allowing for a year’s income to
cover his labour and other recurrent costs.)
Among the hazards faced by those who lived in the closely settled
farming communities, fire must have been one of the most feared,
particularly in the hot dry months of the central Anatolian summer.
A fire that swept through crops and orchards and farm buildings had
the potential for destroying a farmer’s livelihood for years to come,
possibly forever. There could of course be a number of quite valid
reasons for starting a fire on one’s own property. But a man who did
so was obliged to exercise particular care in keeping it under control,
and was liable to pay substantial compensation if he was careless
enough to allow the blaze to spread to his neighbour’s property: ‘If
anyone sets a field on fire, and the fire takes hold of a fruit-bearing
vineyard, in the event that a vine, an apple tree, a pear(?) tree or a
plum tree is burnt up, for each tree he shall pay six shekels of silver,
and he shall re-plant the plot. And he shall look to his house for it. If
the offender is a slave, he shall pay three shekels of silver for each
tree’ (clause 105).21
Six shekels, even three shekels, per tree could amount to a very
considerable sum, even for a small orchard or vineyard, particularly
when compared with penalties imposed for other offences dealt with
in The Laws. Indeed in some cases the compensation payable could
well have reduced the culprit to ruin—for what was perhaps no more
than a moment’s carelessness—if the fire for which he was responsible
not only wiped out his neighbour’s current crop but also totally
destroyed the trees or vines from which the crop was produced.Yet
that is the nature of the compensatory principle in The Laws—the
offender must bear the full cost of reparation, forfeiting everything
he owns if necessary. No doubt too the size of the penalty emphasized
to all the need for constant vigilance in preventing what may
well have been an all too frequent occurrence in the small farming
communities of the Hatti land.
Herding and Herdsmen
In the mixed farming economy of the Hittite world, probably every
small Hittite farmer derived part of his livelihood from a modest
assortment of livestock as well as from the soil. Indeed much of the
wealth of the Hittite land depended very largely on its flocks and
herds. Professor Beckman notes, for example, the vital role played
by wool production and processing in the Hittite economy.22 Goats,
horses, pigs, and asses along with cattle and sheep figure among the
livestock run by small landowners and large landowners alike. The
latter, which included palace, temple, and royal mausoleum establishments,
had substantial flocks and herds, which were regularly
augmented by war booty. Cattle and sheep constituted the bulk of
the booty brought home as the prizes of military conquest. Some
were taken by the king for his own estates, others were distributed
among the estates of the king’s officers, as their share of the spoils of
battle.
For pasturing these animals, extensive tracts of territory not suitable
for crop cultivation were required. Central Anatolia abounded
in such tracts, but many parts of the region, then as now, could not
have sustained all-year-round grazing by large numbers of stock.
Transhumance, the shifting of stock on a seasonal basis, from winter
grazing on their owners’ estates to mountain pasture in the hot
summer months, must have been a regular feature of Hittite pastoral
life, as indeed it is in parts of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean
lands and the sub-Saharan continent today. Some stock-owners
without permanent land of their own spent much of their lives on the
move, nomads or semi-nomads living in ‘tent villages’, and moving
with their cattle and sheep from one region to another wherever
pasture was available.23 Landowners used herdsmen to accompany
their stock (which might include horses and goats as well as cattle
and sheep) to distant grazing areas as the season demanded, and
generally to act as guardians of the animals throughout the year.
In the ancient Near Eastern as well as the Classical world, the
herdsman’s lot was often a harsh, lonely, and dangerous one. It was
certainly not one to which a free man might aspire of his own accord,
no matter how humble his status, and in fact herdsmen seem generally
to have been slaves, including transported prisoners-of-war.
Their lowly status was hardly commensurate with the considerable
responsibilities which their task entailed—ensuring above all the
well-being of the herd in the harshest conditions and often for considerable
parts of the year far removed from their master’s estate.
Presumably only the most trustworthy and most reliable of those
who were legally bound to a master could be safely assigned a herdsman’s
role. As in many cultures, dogs assisted with herding activities.
A dog specially trained for this purpose was one of the farmer’s most
prized possessions, to judge from the twenty-shekel compensation
payable to him if someone struck and killed his animal (clause 87).
This was twenty times the penalty inflicted for similar injury done to
an ordinary dog, and by far the highest of a number of penalties
specified in The Laws for injury done to other farm stock, including
an ox, horse, mule, ass, and pregnant cow.24
Some forty or so of The Laws, around 20 per cent of the entire collection,
are devoted to livestock—a clear reflection of the crucial
role pastoral activities played in the welfare and prosperity of the
kingdom. The number also reflects the considerable potential for
legal disputes and claims involving livestock and the criminal activity
often associated with them. Apart from setting prices and hire
rates, the pastoral laws dealing with stock are principally concerned
with provisions covering grazing animals that have been stolen or
injured or have strayed.
Regardless of how vigilant their herdsmen were, stock-owners
almost inevitably experienced some losses, due to theft or misadventure,
or to individual animals straying from the main herd or flock.
Such losses may have occurred fairly frequently, particularly when
stock was being grazed on open, unfenced pasture land.Very likely
thieves accounted for most of these losses, and partly as a deterrent
measure,The Laws imposed severe penalties for theft of stock.Thus:
‘If anyone steals a plough-ox, formerly they gave fifteen cattle, but
now he shall give ten cattle: three two-year-olds, three yearlings, and
four weanlings, and he shall look to his house for it’ (clause 59).The
scaling-down of the original penalty may simply be in line with
general reductions in penalties in later versions of The Laws rather
than the adoption of a more lenient attitude towards stock-thieves.
In any case the revised penalty still went considerably beyond simple
one-for-one compensation for the victim. Here as elsewhere in
determining an offender’s liability, two factors were of particular
relevance: first, whether the offence was deliberate or due to negligence;
and secondly, the scale of the victim’s loss in terms of how
much his livelihood was likely to be affected.
The risks of an owner’s stock going missing, or getting mixed up
with someone else’s, were all the greater when flocks or herds of
several different owners were grazed together on common pasture
land.We have no clear idea of what stipulations governed the use
of such land, which legally belonged in its entirety to the king, or
who precisely had access to it. But we do know from treaties or
agreements made with a group of pro-Hittite Kaska peoples that the
herds of a number of owners might share common pasture land, and
on occasions become totally intermingled. The agreements allowed
the friendly Kaska groups to graze their herds alongside Hittite
herds in Hittite territory, but held them responsible for any losses of
Hittite stock, and prohibited them from letting their stock mingle
with those of hostile Kaska groups.25 Clearly, each stock-owner must
have had some means of identifying his own animals, some form of
branding process, which enabled him to prove ownership if it was
disputed with a neighbour, if allegedly stolen stock were recovered,
when the time came to extricate his own animals from two intermingled
herds, or if some of his animals had strayed and were recovered
by someone else. In this last case,a man who found strayed stock had
to follow a clear procedure:‘If anyone finds a stray ox,a horse,a mule
or a donkey, he shall drive it to the king’s gate. If he finds it in the
country, they shall present it to the elders.The finder shall harness it
(i.e. use it while it is in his custody).When its owner finds it, he shall
take it in full value, but he shall not have him (i.e. the finder) arrested
as a thief. But if the finder does not present it to the elders,he shall be
considered a thief’ (clause 71).
The procedure was obviously designed to prevent genuine thieves
from avoiding a charge of theft by claiming that the animals in their
possession were strays that they had found. A clear distinction is
drawn in The Laws between theft on the one hand and finding stray
livestock on the other. In the latter case the compensatory payment
for someone who finds a stray animal and makes no effort to restore
it to its rightful owner is significantly less than for an act of deliberate
theft. The distinction in this case is basically between that of a premeditated
and unpremeditated act; the offender is less culpable in
the second instance.
Apart from the identification of individual animals, the Hittites
had precise definitions for various categories of stock, from horses
(‘a stallion—if it is a weanling, it is not a stallion; if it is a yearling, it is
not a stallion; if it is a two-year-old, it is a stallion’—clause 58), to
various kinds of horned cattle, three categories of dogs,26 different
varieties of sheep and pigs, bees, and even birds, though the last may
have been kept for purposes of augury rather than as poultry.
From reading The Laws, the various land-grant documents, and
other texts relating to agricultural activity in the Hittite world, we
have the clear impression of a highly regulated society, which stipulated
forfeiture of land for failing to work it effectively,fixed penalty
scales for a broad range of offences, and apparently fixed prices and
wages and hire rates. The impression may well be an accurate one,
given the absolute importance of ensuring that all food-producing
land was worked to its maximum capacity.Those who threatened the
livelihood of their neighbours, whether through deliberate criminal
action or malice or simply through negligence, were also a threat to
the well-being of the state as a whole.Their punishment could not be
left to whim or chance. And given that many of the farming communities
on which the Hittite homeland depended for its sustenance
were closely settled, it was important to have in place strict regulations
governing the activities of these communities—more so than in
communities with farmsteads more widely spaced.