Hammurabi

The book is what the title states - an almost complete law code from ancient Babylon. Whilst a bit dry, and sometimes difficult to follow in its translation, the brief text gave a very interesting insight into life in that civilisation. The coverage of laws involving family life, trade, agriculture and industry, assault, etc is quite insightful - especially the differing penalties for gentlemen, poor men and slaves - and surprised me as I wasn’t expecting such breadth for such times.
I found it somewhat appealing the simplicity of the code and the apparent justice offered , as opposed to the opaque and complex legal system we have today, where sometime the law and justice seem to be different things.
I had the kindle edition and would suggest its best to read this not as a book from cover to cover, but use the index to read those sections of interest.… (lisätietoja)

282 'legal guidelines', that’s what this code of Hammurabi is, codified by one of the most famous Mesopotamian monarchs, dating from the early Babylonian period, ca 1800 BCE. To be precise, it are only 250 guidelines, because we can no longer read about thirty of them, and guideline 13 even was deliberately left out (yes, already an unlucky number). The guidelines—I purposely don't use the term "laws"—are grouped more or less by theme, and all follow the "if-then" form. A simple example: "If anyone steals property from a temple or the royal court, he will be killed, just like the one who received the stolen property." Clear and plain, and immediately an illustration of the severity of the judgments. Note, they are not all that strict: Most crimes come with a lump sum, although this also depends on the social status of who commits the crime or who is the victim. But in general, the punishments are certainly not soft. So, you better not be a surgeon, because if you perform an operation (with an incision) and the patient dies, your hands will be cut off. Or if you are a mason who builds a house and if it collapses and the resident or his son die, you will be killed, unless… the victims are slaves.
Well, perhaps these examples feed the idea that things were very primitive and barbaric in those earliest times. But such a vision is a typical expression of modernist hybris: Hammurabi's code bears witness to cultural and moral depth in several respects. The mere maniacal tendency to carefully inventory which crimes and transactions can occur illustrates the 'systematic mind' at work in Mesopotamian culture (witness also the lengthy lexicographic lists of names of things and phenomena, or the rather precise astronomical observations). And, of course Hammurabi's code is a child of its time and reflects harsh social differences, but by all means it tries to be 'just', and to lay down appropriate punishments or compensation, sometimes even protecting the weaker actor in a transaction. At the same time, there is this curious universalist ambition: Hammurabi explicitly sees his code as a model for the world over which he ruled and beyond; that too refers to a sense of justice that has a surprisingly modernist feel. Finally, each of the almost 300/250 rules
exudes the ambition to institutionalize the rule of law, no small feat when you consider common practices of blood feud in many cultures. There is so much more to tell about this very interesting text. I try to do this in my History Account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4650707324.… (lisätietoja)

The Code of Hammurabi reminds me of some of the laws in the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament of the Bible. There are laws concerning relationships between men, women, and children, as well as payment or restitution for the harming or killing of others. There are also many laws concerning the payments for farming, crops, and trade, and use and care of others animals, servants, and slaves. The Code is missing some text, so we don't have all the laws that were written, but it gives us a good idea of people's dealings with one another in this ancient period.… (lisätietoja)