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Hammurabi's Code Dbq Essay

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If you were to rule over 1,000,000 people, how would you do it? Would you make laws that are very strict? Would you make very harsh punishments so that you could scare people into doing what you wanted? This is what Hammurabi had to deal with when he created 282 laws for the 1,000,000 people that he ruled over in Babylonia. This 282 law code was called “Hammurabi’s Code,” and the property laws along with the personal injury laws made his code fair, or in other words, just. One of the reasons that Hammurabi’s Code was just is due to its property laws. The first law is law 21, and it states that if a man has broken through a wall in a house he is trying to rob, then he shall be put to death and pierced or hung in the hole that he has made. (Law 21, Doc D) You might say this is harsh punishment, but this is wrong. When a robber breaks into a house, he knows the risks of breaking a hole during a robbery. But most of all, this law strikes fear in people who are thinking of robbing. This is good because it teaches the people in Babylonia that robbing is not acceptable, and needs a punishment if the felony is committed. In another law, if a man has borrowed money to plant his fields from a creditor and a storm floods his field, then the farmer that borrowed the money does not have to pay back the borrowed money. (Law 48, Doc D) This just due to the …show more content…

Hammurabi had to make laws that 1,000,000 people that he ruled over would obey. I could see where some people would think that these laws are quite harsh, but back then things were different. Nowadays, we know better than to create laws such as these, with that harsh of punishments. But without these laws, we would not be able to revolutionise our laws that we have today. We all owe a great thanks to Hammurabi, because without him, government laws would have been like that in the current world

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