Code of Hammurabi: An Eye for an Eye

The stele of Hammurabi’s Code at the Louvre Museum, Paris — The seven foot tall pillar depicts Hammurabi receiving the authority to establish laws from Shamash, the Babylonian god of the sun and divine justice, who holds a rod and ring as symbols of authority. It is carved in cuneiform, the wedge shaped writing of the era. Photograph by the author at the Louvre, a museum in Paris, France.

Introduction to Hammurabi’s Code

Laws are rules that people must follow. Hammurabi was a Mesopotamian king who ordered 282 laws to be inscribed on stone and displayed in a public place for everyone to see. The Code of Hammurabi was an early attempt at justice—but it did not treat everyone equally.

“An Eye for an Eye”

Hammurabi’s Code prescribed specific punishments for citizens who broke the law. One law said, “If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.” Later historians summarized this idea with the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” This means that a person who commits an injury would be punished in the same way. Although this may seem fair, the punishments were often harsh and left little room for mercy, or kindness in judgment. Today, many legal systems try to balance justice with mercy.

Criminal and Civil Law

Hammurabi’s Code included what we today call both criminal and civil law. Criminal law consists of rules that define conduct. One law said, “If a son strikes his father, his hands shall be hewn off.”

Civil law settles disputes among individuals. Hammurabi’s Code states, “If a man builds a house badly, and it falls and kills the owner, the builder shall be killed. If the owner’s son was killed, the builder’s son shall be killed.”

Trial by River

One exception to the “an eye for an eye” principle showed that Hammurabi believed the gods had power over people and events. An accused person could jump into the Euphrates River. “If he sinks in the river, his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river proves that the accused is not guilty and he escapes unhurt, then he who brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.” We can infer from this law that few people at that time could swim.

Hammurabi’s Babylon

Sumerian city-states dominated southern Mesopotamia, but power later shifted upriver as irrigation and overuse reduced soil fertility. Babylon, a city on the Euphrates River, grew into a center of wealth and trade. Hammurabi ruled Babylon from 1792 to 1750 BCE and expanded his kingdom by conquering nearby cities. In time, Babylon became one of the most important and wealthy cities in the region, known for its busy markets, grand temples, and impressive buildings. People still refer to a wealthy city with many luxuries as “a Babylon.”

Reconstructed walls and ruins of ancient Babylon in modern-day Iraq. — Babylon was once one of the world’s grandest cities. Today, its reconstructed walls and ruins stand in modern-day Iraq near the city of Hillah. Parts of the site have been rebuilt on the original foundations, giving visitors a sense of its former scale and importance.

Laws and Social Class

Hammurabi’s Code helps us understand what life was like in ancient Babylon. Equal punishment existed only when the two sides were of equal rank. The penalty for injuring a woman or a slave was less. One law said, “If a man strikes a free-born woman so that she loses her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.” Another says, “If a man has caught either a male or female runaway slave in the open field and has brought him back to his owner, the owner of the slave shall give him two shekels of silver.”

Rediscovery

Hammurabi’s laws were forgotten for centuries until a French expedition in 1901 uncovered the stone pillar containing the Babylonian king’s laws. Today, that artifact is on display at the Louvre, a museum in Paris, France.

Evaluation

Hammurabi’s Code helped create order and made the king’s expectations clear, but it did not treat people equally and left little room for mercy.

What happened to Babylon

Babylon was once one of the world’s greatest cities. It reached its height under Hammurabi, but after his death in 1750 BCE the empire weakened. Like Sumer before it, the city began to decline as farmland became less productive and it faced repeated invasions. It was later conquered by other powers, including the Assyrians around 700 BCE and the Persians in 539 BCE. Alexander the Great arrived in Babylon in 323 BCE. He planned to revive the city and make it the capital of his empire, but he died there before he could carry out his plans.

Hammurabi’s capital was largely abandoned by 1000 CE. Its ruins are located near the city of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad in modern-day Iraq. Today, Babylon is an archaeological site where scientists study the remains of one of the world’s earliest great cities. Parts of the site have been reconstructed to give visitors a sense of what it once looked like.

From Babylon to Paris

The stone pillar with Hammurabi’s laws was originally erected in Babylon. Around 1150 BCE, a king from Susa invaded Babylon and carried it more than 200 miles (about 320 kilometers) to the east. The pillar remained buried there for centuries until a French expedition discovered it in 1901.

Susa was in Persia, a nation now known as Iran. At the time the pillar was uncovered, the Persian government lacked the means to preserve or study it. Persia allowed foreign archaeologists to remove the artifacts they uncovered. The stone pillar is now on display at the Louvre in Paris.

Resources

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Mr. Donn has an excellent website that includes a section on Mesopotamia.

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The Assyrians

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