Usury. Part two

Money is freedom forged in gold. Erich Maria Remarque. The construction of irrigation systems was one of the fundamental factors in the accomplishment of the agricultural revolution.

The four great civilizations of antiquity are rightly called irrigation civilizations - agriculture actively developed in the floodplains of rivers.  

The well-being of Mesopotamian landowners depended on proximity to water: less effort to irrigate fields, large harvests - less costs, higher incomes. In other words, those who are closer to water are richer. 

The large plot of the Egibi family was considered poor: far from the water and located higher than other plots - the canal could not be extended. But in 716 BC. e. everything changed - a powerful flood of the Euphrates destroyed the irrigation system. As a result, the best areas near the water were flooded, and their owners were left without grain at all. The Egibi lands were irrigated that year and produced an unprecedented harvest. 

Shula, the head of the Egibi family, came to the aid of neighbors affected by the flood - he lent grain. For a bag of grain, they agreed to return two bags from the next year's harvest. And they were very grateful to their savior.  

This is how the history of the Banking House of Egibi began - one of the most famous (thanks to the three thousand clay tablets) dynasties of moneylenders of Ancient Babylon.

The first clay tablets, dated 715 BC, contained notarial records, according to which the property of the debtors or the debtors themselves (previously grateful neighbors) passed to Shula as property. slaves 

From the Egibi archive we know that Shula and his descendants were extremely successful moneylenders - they began to rent out not only the property they received, but also slaves. In Ancient Babylon, the bulk of slaves were prisoners - the property of the state or the sovereign personally. Their labor was used in public works, or in the fields of the despot. The need of private farms for slave labor remained unsatisfied. And the Egibi met this demand by continuously supplying labor to the private market.  

The Banking House of Egibi played the role of the Babylonian House of Rothschild.. Egibi's operations were varied: on a commission basis, purchases, sales and payments were made for the account of clients; cash deposits were accepted, credit was provided to clients in the form of antichreticum, whereby the creditor received, instead of interest, the right to the fruits of the harvest from the debtor’s fields (a form close to natural loans that were common in Greek ancient policies in the 6th-4th centuries BC), loans were issued against a receipt and on collateral; The House of Egibi acted as guarantor for transactions.

 The Babylonian forefather of modern bankers participated in “joint-stock” trading ventures as a depositor financing the business. Finally, there is an indication of another function performed by the Egibi banker - the role of an adviser and trustee in the preparation of various types of acts and transactions.

Information has been preserved about the activities of the moneylenders of the House of Egibi in financing large commercial and government projects. They invested, lent or took part as guarantors in large transactions that were both state and international in nature.

The Egibi Banking House, in addition to lending activities as such, received for management land plots transferred by the state to major officials. The harvest from these plots, minerals extracted from the depths, were sold by Egibi, and the profits were distributed between officials and the Banking House.

 Slaves from among Egibi’s debtors worked in the fields and mines received under management. The profits were enormous. 

 Thus, the Egibi marked the beginning of the merger of public and private capital, this is how not only banking activity arose, but also corruption.

 Such economic relations of Ancient Babylon could not do without legal regulation. Even in the Code of Hammurabi (1750s BC) - the legislative code of the Old Babylonian period, not only security issues were stipulated - punishments were established for murder, mutilation, beatings and violence; taboo (incest) and the duty to help the old and young. The activities of merchants and moneylenders were carefully regulated - commercial transactions, their participants and torts (offenses) associated with commercial transactions were stipulated.. As well as real estate transactions and torts in relation to real estate.

 And the history of the House of Egibi ended in their complete ruin. The last of the mentioned representatives of the family, a certain Marduk-natsir-apli, in the last of the found tablets where the name of his family appears, enters into a deal by which the slave, the owner of a reed hut, undertakes not only to provide his home to the son of Marduk-natsir-apli, but also to feed him daily. This tablet dates back to 485 BC. Three years later, the Babylonian kingdom was liquidated and turned into one of the satrapies of the Persian state.

Babylonian moneylenders, of whom there were a great many in the city even without Egibi, will not disappear anywhere, just as usury itself will not disappear, which, of course, is much older than Babylon itself. 

Usury is about as old as organized human existence. There have always been people who had surpluses, and there were always those in need of them.

 It has already been said about farmers, using the example of Egibi. There is evidence that similar relationships existed among pastoral tribes. Cattle taken for use were supposed to be returned with offspring. As a result, sooner or later, some accumulated huge herds, which were managed by slave shepherds, others fell into bondage, sooner or later. Not only the borrower himself, but also his loved ones, including children, fell into slavery.

 They didn’t like moneylenders, to put it mildly. In the popular consciousness, a moneylender is an attacker who profits from the problem of his neighbor. Wise rulers tried to level out the conflict in the relationship between the borrower and the lender. The biblical ruler Solomon is credited with the law according to which the debtor is responsible to the creditor with property, but not with freedom - personal, and the freedom of the family.

Reasonable people of antiquity tried to convey to the rulers the idea that it was impossible to govern a people mired in debt, “waiting for any war, any disaster and any quarrel” to write off their debt. “There are no prospects in their lives, their plight leaves them no choice over any meanness and any villainy, if they suddenly imagine that meanness or villainy can somehow change their current fate.”

To be continued