Origins
The Code of Hammurabi was promulgated around 1754 BCE by Hammurabi, the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, who ruled from approximately 1792 to 1750 BCE. Hammurabi transformed Babylon from a minor city-state into the dominant power of Mesopotamia, conquering Larsa, Eshnunna, Mari, and Assyria to create an empire encompassing most of the ancient Near East. His law code, inscribed on a black diorite stele now housed in the Louvre, represented both a culmination of earlier legal traditions and an assertion of royal authority over his newly unified realm.
The Code was not the first written law—the Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100 BCE) and the Laws of Eshnunna (c. 1930 BCE) preceded it—but it was the most comprehensive and influential of ancient Mesopotamian legal collections. The stele’s prologue presents Hammurabi as a just king appointed by the gods to establish righteousness, protect the weak, and prevent the strong from oppressing the powerless. This theological framing—law as divine mandate mediated through royal authority—would influence legal concepts throughout the ancient Near East and beyond.
The Code contains 282 laws covering diverse subjects: property rights, trade, family relations, labor, agriculture, and criminal offenses. Its provisions reflect Babylonian society’s complexity: merchants, artisans, farmers, slaves, and various classes of free persons appear in different legal contexts. The laws are formulated as conditional statements (“If a man does X, then Y shall happen”), establishing a casuistic legal style that would characterize Near Eastern jurisprudence for millennia.
Structure & Function
The Code’s most distinctive feature is its systematic organization and attempt at comprehensive coverage. Laws are grouped roughly by subject: judges and witnesses, property offenses, land and agriculture, merchants and trade, marriage and family, assault and personal injury, professional standards, and slaves. This organization reflects an effort to impose coherent structure on social relations, defining rights and obligations across the spectrum of Babylonian life.
The Code famously embodies the principle of lex talionis—proportional retribution, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Law 196 states: “If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.” Yet this principle applied mainly among social equals; injuries to persons of lower status required monetary compensation rather than physical retaliation. The Code thus reinforced social hierarchy while establishing limits on punishment—retribution could not exceed the original offense.
The Code’s practical function remains debated among scholars. The stele was publicly displayed, suggesting educational or propagandistic purposes, but most Babylonians were illiterate. Surviving court records show judges did not consistently apply the Code’s specific provisions, suggesting it functioned more as ideal principles than binding statute. The Code may have served primarily to demonstrate Hammurabi’s justice and wisdom—a royal monument asserting legitimate authority over a newly conquered empire.
Historical Significance
The Code of Hammurabi’s historical significance lies less in its direct legal influence than in what it represents: the aspiration to organize social life through written, publicly promulgated rules. Earlier societies had customs and royal decrees; Hammurabi’s Code attempted something more ambitious—a systematic statement of principles governing social relations. This aspiration, whatever its practical limitations, marks a crucial step in the development of law as an institution distinct from mere command or custom.
The Code’s survival—the stele was carried to Susa as booty around 1150 BCE and remained there until French archaeologists discovered it in 1901-1902—preserved a window into Bronze Age society that profoundly influenced modern understanding of ancient law. Scholars have traced connections between Hammurabi’s Code and later legal traditions, including possible influences on biblical law. The famous formulation of lex talionis in Exodus (“eye for eye, tooth for tooth”) echoes Hammurabi’s language, though the precise relationship between Babylonian and Hebrew law remains debated.
The Code also influenced political thought about legitimate authority. The prologue’s presentation of law as divine mandate establishing justice became a template for royal ideology throughout the ancient Near East. Rulers from Assyria to Persia would claim similar divine authorization for their laws. This conception—that legitimate authority rests on establishing justice according to divine principles—has echoed through political philosophy from ancient times to modern debates about rule of law and just governance.
Key Developments
- c. 1894 BCE: Amorite dynasty establishes Babylon
- c. 1792 BCE: Hammurabi becomes king of Babylon
- c. 1787-1755 BCE: Hammurabi conquers neighboring kingdoms
- c. 1754 BCE: Code of Hammurabi promulgated
- c. 1750 BCE: Death of Hammurabi
- c. 1595 BCE: Hittites sack Babylon; end of First Dynasty
- c. 1155 BCE: Elamites conquer Babylon; carry stele to Susa
- c. 1100-600 BCE: Code copied and studied in scribal schools
- c. 539 BCE: Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon
- 1901-1902 CE: French archaeologists discover stele at Susa
- 1902 CE: First translation published; revolutionizes legal history
- 1904 CE: Stele displayed at the Louvre