Even Hammurabi could not entirely guarantee the safety of such traders, for attacks by brigands were then as common in the Nearer East as at the present day; and there was always the additional risk that a caravan might be captured by the enemy, if it ventured too near a hostile frontier. In such circumstances the king saw to it that the loss of the goods was not borne by the agent, who had already risked his life and liberty in undertaking their transport. For, if such an agent had been forced in the course of his journey to give up some of the goods he was carrying, he had to specify the exact amount on oath on his return, and he was then acquitted of all responsibility. But if it could be proved before the elders of the city that he had attempted to cheat his employer by misappropriating money or goods to his own use, he was obliged to pay the merchant three times the value of the goods he had taken. The law was not one-sided and afforded the agent equal protection in relation to his more powerful employer; for should the latter be convicted of an attempt to defraud his agent, by denying that the due amount had been returned to him, he had to pay his agent as compensation six times the amount in dispute. The merchant always advanced the goods or money with which to trade, and the fact that he could, if he wished to do so, fix his own profit at double the value of the capital, is an indication of the very satisfactory returns obtained at this period from foreign commerce. But the more usual practice was for merchant and trader to share the profits between them, and, in the event of the latter making such bad bargains that there was a loss on his journey, he had to refund to the merchant the full value of the goods he had received. At the time of the First Dynasty asses and donkeys were the beasts of burden employed for carrying merchandise, for the horse was as yet a great rarity and was not in general use in Babylonia until after the Kassite conquest.[29]
A large number of the First Dynasty contracts relate to commercial journeys of this sort, and record the terms of the bargains entered into between the interested parties. Such partnerships were sometimes concluded for a single journey, but more often for longer periods of time. The merchant always demanded a properly executed receipt for the money or goods he advanced to the trader, and the latter received one for any deposit or pledge he might have made in token of his good faith. In reckoning their accounts on the conclusion of a journey, only such amounts as were specified in the receipts were regarded as legal obligations, and, if either party had omitted to obtain his proper documents, he did so at his own risk. The market-places of the capital and the larger towns must have been the centres where such business arrangements were transacted, and official scribes were probably always in attendance to draw up the terms of any bargain in the presence of other merchants and traders, who acted as witnesses. These had their names enumerated at the close of the document, and since they were chosen from local residents, some were always at hand to testify in case of any subsequent dispute.