Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

44

G. R. DRIVER AND SIR JOHN MILES

therefore not a professional procuress, but an amateur; this is then
the explanation why she is called an assat aweli ' wife of a man
and not merely sinnistu' ' woman, since in the case before the
redactor she actually was someone's wife. This hypothesis, he claims,
also explains why the man is to be treated 44 as an adulterer,; for,
although the judge might say this, neither the Babylonian nor the
Assyrian draftsman would do so, as they never refer to other sections of their codes. But what decides his view is the fact that the
section mentions only a man who knew the woman procured to be a
married woman and not the opposite case, with which a lawgiver
would be bound to deal. Further, as the house of a professional procuress is practically the same as a brothel, it must be assumed, as
in ~ 14, that the man is not aware that the woman is married; but
the opposite assumption must be made if the procuress is a mere
amateur. He concludes therefore that the reference to the man's
knowledge is superfluous and rejects 1. 17 ' and the man knew that
she was the wife of a man ' as a mere explanatory gloss. This solution, he asserts, explains also why nothing is said of the reverse,
where the man had not such knowledge; for in the case before the
redactor this did not occur.
It is now necessary to examine the soundness of these assumptions,
on which the theory that 1. 17 is a gloss, are based. In the first place,
why is the procuress called ' the wife of a man '? The real reason is
shown by the words ara bitisa ' to her house ' in 1. 15: the house is
called ' her house ' because her husband is absent; similarly it is so
called in ~ 13 (which can only be satisfactorily explained on the
assumption that the woman's husband is away), and in ~ 47 (46), (where
he is definitely stated to be dead). A woman whose husband is away
from home is, indeed, the most likely sort of person to act as a procuress. Secondly, there is no need to see in 11. 17-26 any reference
to a definite section, e. g. ~ 1; for the penalty for adultery was
without doubt well-known, and ~ 15 is not general but particular,
dealing with the special case of adulterers caught in flagranti delicto.
Thirdly, Koschaker's supposition that the procuress must be an ama