43 pages • 1-hour read
Code of Hammurabi
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Key Figures
Hammurabi
Hammurabi (spelled Hammurapi in some texts) was the 6th king of the Old Babylonian Empire, which held sway over much of Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BCE (See: Background). He had a relatively long reign, from c.1792 to c.1750 BCE (as rendered according to the “middle chronology” of ancient Near Eastern studies). During Hammurabi’s rule, Babylon expanded its rule from a relatively small area to encompass nearly the entirety of Mesopotamia. He conquered the major city-states of southern Mesopotamia, like Larsa, and the ruling powers of northern Mesopotamia, like Mari. He even exerted influence over another major power at the time, Assyria, forcing it to become a tribute state to Babylon.
Hammurabi’s reign proceeded in three main stages. The first period, of about 20 years, was relatively peaceful, in which Hammurabi engaged in a series of public works and improvements of the civil infrastructure of Babylon. In the second period, about a decade in length, Hammurabi was engaged in his wars of conquest, first to the south and then to the north. The third and final period of his reign, also a decade in length, saw the consolidation of Hammurabi’s power as he administered his extensive empire. It was in this final period of his reign that his famous Code was produced and etched onto its black stone stele.
Hammurabi’s most enduring accomplishment was the establishment of his law Code. While there were earlier law-codes in Mesopotamian society (for example, Sumerian precedents like the code of Ur-Nammu), those codes differed from Hammurabi’s in several important ways. Earlier law codes established justice by providing compensation for victims, but Hammurabi’s code added several influential adaptations to jurisprudence. It focused not only on the loss suffered by victims, but also on the moral guilt of perpetrators. It introduced the principle of the presumption of innocence, for example, by requiring the submission of evidence or the testimony of witnesses in certain cases. For those who were found guilty, the Code established penalties of physical punishment. Hammurabi thus advanced the practice of jurisprudence from being a matter of simple compensation for victims toward a more robust form of justice, where the guilt of perpetrators was established through due process and assessed with penalties.
Due to the influence of his Code, Hammurabi was remembered in Mesopotamian society as an idealized law-giver, a reputation that hallowed his memory for more than a thousand years.
Marduk
Hammurabi references Marduk extensively in both the Prologue and the Epilogue. While the wider Mesopotamian pantheon had many gods and goddesses, Marduk was among the most important figures in the Babylonian pantheon, the patron-god of its capital city. It was, in fact, partially due to Hammurabi’s influence that Marduk rose from relative obscurity to hold a central position in Mesopotamian religion. In the 3rd millennium BCE, Marduk is only rarely mentioned in mythical and religious texts, and by the early second millennium his influence appears still to be localized to the city of Babylon alone.
Hammurabi, however, sees in Marduk a personal patron, a mediator between the king and the high gods. Marduk’s description in the Code’s text likely brought the Babylonian god to new heights of popular devotion. It was during Hammurabi’s reign that cult sites associated with the worship of Marduk first began to spread significantly beyond Babylon itself. By the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, Marduk was being viewed as holding the supreme position in the pantheon, as king of the gods, a position reflected in the references to him in another piece of classic Mesopotamian literature, the Enuma Elish.
Scholars hold a variety of views regarding Marduk’s function in the Babylonian pantheon, particularly since his role shifted over time. Some have argued that he was initially thought of as a storm god or a god associated with incantations and healings, but the evidence for each role is at best suggestive rather than conclusive. Other analyses have seen Marduk as a god of agriculture and canals, connected to his symbology of the spade, a characteristic that would fit well with the canal-based agriculture on which the city-state of Babylon depended. Since Hammurabi’s early reign was characterized by an interest in public works, this aspect of Marduk’s character may have made the god especially appealing to the king’s piety.
Within the Code, Marduk appears only in the Prologue and Epilogue (as with all references to deities), but he emerges as the focus of Hammurabi’s devotion, the one to whom he “daily pays his devotions in Saggil [the temple of Marduk]” (27). Hammurabi’s vocation as king is attributed to Marduk, who is credited with sending Hammurabi to rule over the land and to protect its people.
Shamash
The other god who appears most prominently in the Code is Shamash, the god of the sun and, appropriately, of justice. Shamash, unlike Marduk, was a prominent divine figure from the earliest records. He was considered one of the primary gods in the regional pantheon, and was worshiped across a wide swath of lower Mesopotamia. The name used here, Shamash, is the Akkadian form of the name (the language of Akkad, which Babylonians primarily spoke), but he was also widely known by his Sumerian name, Utu. Since Shamash was primarily associated with the sun, he became viewed as an enlightener (a giver of wisdom) and as the divine judge, since the sun looks down on the earth and can see all that takes place therein.
Like Marduk (and all the other gods), the Code only references Shamash in the Prologue and Epilogue. While Marduk has a personal-patronage connection to Hammurabi, Shamash appears frequently in the text due to his dual roles as the enlightener and the god of justice. Hammurabi likens his rule to the influence of Shamash, describing his mission as one of enlightening the people: “By the command of Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, may I make righteousness to shine forth in the land” (86). In addition to likening his vocation to that of Shamash, he also describes himself as someone who has received the wisdom of divine justice from the god, which gives an added weight of authority to the laws of his Code.
Free-Born and Enslaved Persons
While there were many social classes within Babylonian society, the most basic division, and the one that appears most frequently in the Code, is that between free-born Babylonians and enslaved persons. Free-born Babylonians had traditionally been subdivided into two smaller classes, the avilum and the mushkenu, the former being a patrician class endowed with full civic rights, and the latter being a lower class, most likely of poor or landless citizens.
Within the Code, however, most references to the free-born population simply address the avilum, which was becoming a shorthand reference for the broader class except in cases where distinguishing social rank was especially important. Free-born Babylonians held significant rights for owning and retaining property, and most of the strongest protections of the law accrued to their benefit. They receive the highest remunerations when judgments go in their favor, and punishments for offenses against them are more severe, but there are a few instances in which their higher status also puts them in a place of greater legal responsibility.
The enslaved class, the ardu, lacked the extent of the rights granted to free-born Babylonians, but they were not left without legal protections. In the case of assault, for instance, an enslaved person had recourse to the law, but in all such cases, any benefit received from the judgment (aside from the basic principle of justice enacted against one’s offender) enriched the enslaver, not the enslaved. The enslaved person was considered the property of their enslaver, though they tended to be granted somewhat greater personal liberties than was common in other forms of enslavement throughout history. An enslaved man was often granted land and a house by his enslaver, usually with the provision of an enslaved woman to be his wife, and he could live and work and earn money in that position. The Code also reveals that it was possible for an enslaved man to marry a free-born Babylonian woman, which must have been common enough to make it necessary to address with such specificity in the state’s legal framework.
Much of the enslaved person’s revenue as a property-tenant would go to his enslaver, but there were provisions made for enslaved persons to buy their freedom, such that another class—that of the freedman (formerly enslaved persons)—had developed into a considerable population in Babylon by Hammurabi’s time. The freedman did not have equal rights to a free-born Babylonian, but was considered independent and earned slightly higher protections under the law than an enslaved person did.
Despite the opportunities available to enslaved persons in Babylonian culture, however, enslavement remained a brutal institution, such that attempts at escape or displays of anger against one’s enslaver merited the harshest of punishments. Enslavement in ancient Babylon existed for the good of the enslavers, not the enslaved persons, and the latter class existed primarily to enrich the former.
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