Hammurabi was the oldest son of Sin-Muballit, and he became the sixth king of Babylon upon
his father’s abdication around 1729 BC.
Even though he didn’t inherit much power from his father and at the time he controlled
only a small part of Babylonia, the city of Sippar, he later became the first king of
the so-called Babylonian Empire.
With his accession to the throne, he expanded Babylon’s dominance and authority over Mesopotamia
by being victorious in a series of wars against adjoining lands and kingdoms.
In his almost forty-three-year reign, he became the greatest conqueror Babylonia had ever
seen and his empire dominated all of Mesopotamia.
Despite Hammurabi’s success as a conqueror and king, he’s best remembered, not for
his accomplishments on the battlefield, but for being a great reformer and legislator.
Most pertinently, Hammurabi produce and organized a set of laws known as Hammurabi's Code, which
is one of the first set of written laws in history, and the most influential among these
early written laws, particularly as it is hypothesized that Hammurabi’s Code directly
inspired the laws of Moses, among other evidence owing to the extreme similarities between
the two sets of laws.
For example, law 196 of Hammurabi’s Code states in part, “If a man destroy the eye
of another man, they shall destroy his eye.
If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone….”
Whatever the case on that hot button issue, in 1901, a 2.3-meter-high diorite cylindrical
stele of the Code of Hammurabi was found at Susa, Iran.
At the top of it is a bas-relief image that portrays Shamash, the Sun God (also known
as the God of Justice) in the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian pantheons, handing the code
of laws to the king who then disseminated them as outlined by said god.
In total, Hammurabi’s Code given to him by Shamashconsisted of 282 laws, and punishments
varying depending on the socioeconomic class of the accusers and the accused.
Some of the main topics, among others, include dealing with theft, agriculture, destruction
of property, marriage and the rights of the two parts therein, women’s rights, children’s
rights, the rights of slaves, murder, and the death penalty.
The included laws were quite harsh and did not forgive any ignorance of the law, as the
code was placed publicly, so that all could see it.
However, the majority of the people at that time could not read and so fatal misunderstandings
are thought to have occurred frequently.
Nonetheless, because these laws were so publicly displayed, this forestalled a common practice
of many peoples around this time with oral laws often being only known in detail by the
elite, and thus even where the elite were supposed to be subjected to them, they could
often get around this easy enough, at least when dealing with those of the lower classes.
As for how punishments were determined, as you might have guessed from that “eye for
an eye” bit, the basic tenet of the laws was that the punishment should not be heavier
or milder than the crime committed.
This also thus not only set the punishment, but the limits on revenge one could get if
someone committed a crime against you.
This attempt at fairness was something markedly different than, for instance, the infamous
Draconian laws where even certain slight offenses could see a person receive the death penalty,
which we’ll get to shortly.
Hammurabi’s code is also one of the first known in human history to have some level
of presumed innocence.
It also allowed for both accused and accusers to present evidence in the case, among other
such things that today would be considered obvious and fair, but at the time was something
of a revolution.
That Sun God really knew what he was doing.
Additionally, the administrative law system of the code was seemingly well ahead of its
time.
Hammurabi divided the empire into large regions in which he installed trusted commanders (like
today’s governors) with whom he kept a correspondence about the administration of those regions.
In addition, there was an independent authority that controlled the local commanders for possible
arbitrariness and disobedience to the king’s laws, keeping even the elite in check.
Accomplished judges administered the legislation and they were also observed by Hammurabi’s
council and advisers.
Hammurabi’s Code also helped to develop a considerable progressive educational system
and the literacy percentages inside the empire exploded, making the Babylonian citizens some
of the most educated and sophisticated the world had seen up to that time.
All that said, despite the Code of Hammurabi being one of the most well-written and advanced
legal codes of antiquity, as alluded to, today it would be considered ridiculously harsh,
inhumane, sexist, and even irrational in many cases.
To give you a little taste of some of the items,
• Law 129: If a man's wife has the finger pointed at her on account of another, but
has not been caught lying with him, for her husband's sake, she shall plunge into the
sacred river.
That said, in order to forestall false accusations on this one, law 127 states, “If any one
'point the finger' at a sister of a god or the wife of any one, and cannot prove it,
this man shall be taken before the judges and his brow shall be marked” with it presumed
this was done through cutting the skin on his brow.
Further, if it be proved said accuser was lying Law #3 covers this and many other such
false accusations, “If a man has borne false witness in a trial, or has not established
the statement that he has made, if that case be a capital trial, that man shall be put
to death.”
Moving on from that, a bit ahead of its time, law 142 had a facility for a woman to divorce
her husband, sating, “If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not congenial
to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented.
If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and neglects her,
then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry and go back to her father's
house.”
A few other laws include: “If a man has struck a free woman with child, and has caused
her to miscarry, he shall pay ten shekels for her miscarriage.
If that woman dies, his daughter shall be killed.”
“If it be the daughter of a plebeian that has miscarried through his blows, he shall
pay five shekels of silver.
If that woman dies, he shall pay half a mina of silver.”
“If the surgeon has treated a serious injury of a plebeian's slave, with the bronze lancet,
and has caused his death, he shall render slave for slave.”
“If a slave has said to his master, “You are not my master,” he shall be brought
to account as his slave, and his master shall cut off his ear.”
“If a son has struck his father, his hands shall be cut off.”
“If a man, after his father’s death, has lain in the bosom of his mother, they shall
both of them be burnt together.”
In all of these and so many more, as ever, just be thankful regardless of who you are
that you live today and not basically any other time in history.
Sure, we’ve still got problems to solve, but at least nobody can point a finger at
you without any evidence needed resulting in you being made to drown in a river…
Bonus Fact: Speaking of Draconian Laws, the official set
occurred around the so called Dawn of democracy.
As alluded to, in ancient Greece, since laws were unwritten at first, the social pyramid’s
elite interpreted and twisted laws for their own exclusive benefit.
Of course, as usually happens in such cases as previously mentioned, this elite claimed
the laws were god-given, and subsequently, holy and to be blindly followed by all members
of society...
except themselves.
At this time, however, something somewhat new to recorded history started to happen-
people began initiating widespread protests against the so-called “noble and holy habit”
of creating and interpreting laws to benefit themselves.
The common people, thus, demanded a single, written and organized legal system that would
be fair and practical for every social class.
Enter Draco (650 to 600 BC), a legislator of Athens in ancient Greece.
Although usually regarded as the first lawmaker in Athenian history, in reality, six men preceded
him in institutionalizing unwritten laws and codes.
Although obviously from the first half of this video, Draco was far from the first person
to document a complete system of laws, he is widely considered the first democratic
legislator in recorded history, given that he was the first lawgiver to write a codes
of law following overwhelming request from the citizens of any ancient city-state, with
Draco commissioned by the people for such a task in 624 BC.
By 621 BC, he delivered a comprehensive and thorough legal system, written on plates to
be placed publicly in the Athenian Agora.
These laws, though fundamentally fair in the sense that they were applicable for every
citizen regardless of heritage, social class, or wealth, proved to be extremely, well, Draconian.
The punishments for minor offenses were ridiculously harsh.
For instance, the theft of a piece of fruit or sleeping in a public place were both punishable
by death.
Similarly, minor offenses could easily see a person turned from a free citizen to a slave.
Naturally the harshness of the punishments caused a lot of controversy and resentment
within diverse circles of Athenian society from the wealthy to the poor man.
Unsurprisingly, only thirty years later, most of the Draconian Laws were abolished and replaced
successfully by a set of reforms and laws created by one of the so-called “Seven Sages
of the Ancient World”- Solon, His goal was to create a relatively fair system that would
also appease members of all levels of society.
Solon is thus widely considered the father of Modern Western Law and often credited as
the Athenian who laid the foundations for the city-state’s later so-called “perfected”
democracy.