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Hammurabi Code

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In the early 18th century, the Babylonian King Hammurabi constructed a compilation of 282 laws that set standards of conduct and justice for his empire in ancient Mesopotamia (Van de Mieroop, 10). Hammurabi was the sixth king of the Amorite First Dynasty of Babylon; and the first king to divide and conquer his enemies with an army of soldiers who carried only axes, spears, and daggers. The 282 laws written in cuneiform called "The Code of Hammurabi" were etched on a seven-and-a-half-foot stele (Slanski, 9). Hammurabi's codes covered everything from property rights and criminal behavior to divorce, and promised brutal punishments for all who disobeyed, varying by gender and social status, and also set a standard wage requirement for people (Slanski, …show more content…

The code took a severe approach to justice, but the brutality of criminal penalties often depended on the identity of both the lawbreaker and the victim. While one law stated, “If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out,” committing the same crime against a member of a lower class was punished with only a fine (Slanski, 14). Other penalties based on rank were even more significant. For example, if a man killed a pregnant maid-servant, he was punished with a fine, but if he killed an upper class pregnant woman, his own daughter would be killed as retribution.(Van de Mieroop, 11) The code also listed different punishments for men and women with regard to infidelity. Men were allowed to have extramarital relationships with maid-servants and slaves, but women were to be killed along with their lovers (Van de Mieroop, 11). The double standards Hammurabi set around this one law are sometimes seen even in the current legal system …show more content…

This is something that is still done today, and perhaps has been going on ever since Hammurabi mandated it. Several publications in the code referenced specific occupations and dictated how much the workers were to be paid (Slanski, 8). Field laborers and herdsmen were guaranteed a wage of “eight gur of corn per year,” and ox drivers and sailors received six gur(Wright, 21). Doctors, meanwhile, were entitled to 5 shekels for healing a freeborn man of a broken bone or other injury, but only three shekels for a freed slave and two shekels for a slave(Wright,

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