Code of Hammurabi (ca. 2250 B.C.E.)
The code of Hammurabi (c.1810-1750) is the most remarkable and complete code of ancient law that we have, until we come to the legislation recorded in the Pentateuch. Hammurabi was the sixth king of Babylon and the first king of the Babylonian Empire. The Code can be found on a stele, a stone slab usually used to commemorate military victories in the ancient world.
If a man in a case under trial, as a witness to slander, has lied, and has not proved the word which he has spoken, if the case involve a capital penalty,—let him be put to death.
If a man has stolen an ox, or a sheep, or an ass or a pig, or a ship from the temple, or the palace; let him requite thirty fold. But if he have stolen from a poor man he shall repay ten fold. If the robber be not able to pay, let him die the death.
If a man [bringing a lawsuit] has not his witnesses on hand, the judge shall assign him a fixed time [for trial] up to six months: and if within six months he has not produced his witnesses, then he has slandered [in his charges.] He himself then must bear the penalty.
If any one turns bandit and is captured let him die the death.
If the bandit has escaped, the man who has been robbed shall recount before God [i.e. state under oath] what he has lost, and the city and governor in whose land and district the robbery occurred, shall repay him what he lost.
If any one has given his field for produce to a farmer, and has received the produce of his field, and afterward a thunderstorm has ravaged the field or destroyed the produce, the loss is the farmer’s.
[But] if the owner has not received [his share of] the produce of his field, or has given the field either for one half or one third of the corn that was in the field, the farmer and owner of the field shall share [any loss] according to the special wording of their contract.
If any one shall give silver, gold, or anything else to another party on deposit, all things so deposited he shall show to witnesses, and fix the bonds [required.]
If without witnesses or bonds he has given on deposit, and the party receiving later disputes his claim, he has no redress:
[But] if . . . he has given before witnesses, and the other party has disputed his claim [to repayment]: the latter person is liable, and whatever property he has disputed he shall restore double.
If a man has set his face against his son, and declared to the judge; “I intend to cut off my son,” then the judge shall seek his reasons: and if the son be not guilty of a great crime such as destroys his rights to sonship, the father may not cut him off.
If a man has caused a man of rank to lose his eye, one of his own eyes must be struck out.
If he has shattered the limb of a man of rank, let his own limb be shattered.
If he has caused a poor man to lose an eye, or has shattered a limb, let him pay one maneh of silver.
If any one has smitten the cheek of a man his superior in rank, he shall be whipped in the public assembly with 60 strokes with the cowhide lash.
[But] if being a man of rank he so smite another man of rank his equal, let him pay one maneh of silver.
[But] if a poor man so smite a poor man, let him pay 10 shekels of silver.
[But] if the servant of a man of rank so strike a freeman, let his ear be cut off.
[Many other penalties for a long catalog of crimes, arranged on a similar scale, follow.]
If a physician has treated a man of rank with a bronze lancet for a severe wound, and caused the nobleman to die, or has removed a cataract from the eye of a nobleman using a bronze lancet, and caused the loss of the eye, — let his hands be cut off.
[If he so treat a slave] and the slave die, he shall render back slave for slave.
If a physician cure the shattered limb of a man of rank, . . . the patient shall give him five shekels of silver.
If the patient is the son of a poor man, he shall give three shekels of silver.
If a cow doctor or an ass doctor has treated a cow or an ass for a severe wound, and affected a cure, the owner thereof shall give the healer one sixth of a silver shekel as his fee.
If any one hire a working ox for one year, he shall pay for its hire four gur of corn.
If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the open field, the owner must stand the loss.
[But] if any one hire an ox, and through negligence or his beatings it die, then he must render back ox for ox to the owner.
[A list of regulations fixing the price for all kinds of personal service, wages, and things connected therewith follows.]
These judgments of righteousness did Hammurabi the mighty king confirm, and caused the land to take on a sure government and a beneficent rule.