activities and disputes that arose between the common people of
the Hittite world–those who laboured on the land, engaged in
trades and crafts, thronged the streets of Hittite cities and villages,
and refreshed themselves in the local taverns. This is the world of
‘the villager injured in a tavern brawl or in a dispute with his
neighbour over boundaries, the small farmer seeking to buy some
pigs or a small orchard, the hired labourer, the herdsman, the cattle
rustler, the slave, the local romeos and lotharios, the participants
in family weddings, the partners in mixed and common law
marriages. There was potential for conflict and litigation in every
aspect of life in the village and farming communities, and no doubt
the“city-gates”, the venue of the local courts, were thronged with
clamorous appellants, seeking justice for real or supposed wrongs,
laying claim to stray livestock which their discoverer has refused to
hand over, demanding compensation for a crop trampled by a
neighbour’s unsupervised cattle, or for a favourite working dog
brained by an irate neighbour for savaging his ducks.’^8 All this is far
removed from the world of elite Hittite society, which dominates
both the archaeological and the written record. It was a common
everyday world of farmers, labourers, craftsmen and tradesmen, of
slaves as well as free. For this reason in particular, the collection of
Hittite Laws is one of our most valuable social documents dating to
that period, especially because of the light it throws on life and
society at its lower levels in the day-to-day activities of the peoples
who inhabited the kingdom of the Hittites.
In the next two chapters, we’ll have a further look at the workings
of Hittite society. We’ll focus particularly on attitudes to sex, the
roles women played in society at various levels, the institution of
marriage, and the status, functions and rights of slaves.
JUSTICE AND THE COMMONER 135