The unique ruler of Babylon, Hammurabi, became the author of the Code of Laws. In fact, every crime and punishment according to the laws of Hammurabi was painted in detail on a table made of clay. After all, it was on such clay tablets that articles of prescriptions were published. In the XVIII century BC. e. a monument of history appeared - the laws of King Hammurabi. The crimes and punishments described in the code are contained in 282 articles. When the reign of Hammurabi turned 35 years old, he ordered the laws to be carved on a huge pillar of black bas alt. This pillar was found during the excavations of Susa in 1901. The prologue to the set explains that these are God's laws, proclaimed on behalf of the king, and they must be followed.
Assignment of laws
As the king himself said, laws were needed so that the stronger did not oppress the weak,so that widows and orphans and other oppressed people receive justice.
Issuing a set of prescriptions, the king strengthened his power. The system of crimes and punishments according to the laws of Hammurabi made it possible to annex large territories of neighbors and create unified norms of laws common for the country. In addition, the then elite of society set the task of legitimizing privileges and property in front of the rest of the people by legal methods. This is where the laws of Hammurabi came in handy. Crimes and punishments, articles with which have survived to this day, allow us to judge the degree of development of the Sumerian civilization. On the other hand, laws were also required to smooth out tensions in society. The criminal law that described any crime and punishment according to the laws of Hammurabi, in short, was based on the principle: an act that violates the established traditional order is punished.
Property
In the laws of Hammurabi, an attempt was made to regulate property rights. Land, buildings, slaves and movable property were recognized as it.
The state (king), community, temples, private individuals could own the land.
Private ownership of property was secured. Slaves were considered an important part of the property, the protection of which was given increased attention.
Law of Obligations
Various obligations under the code were derived from contracts. The contract system was regulated by the realities of life andright. Although the written conclusion of agreements was not mandatory, they could not be concluded without witnesses. Since writing was widespread in the country, literate people entered into contracts in the form of writing on a clay tablet. Some agreements required oaths of the parties and the presence of priests.
Breach of the treaty was punished in a variety of ways, including slavery.
For the sale required a written contract. When transferring a thing to a new owner, the object was symbolically touched with a stick. It was possible to sell movable property, buildings and slaves.
Employment contracts were also practiced. With their help, things, services and people were hired. Land leasing was widespread. At the same time, the rent was collected by the harvest, sometimes reaching half of it.
Although slave labor was widely used in Babylon, personal contracts were not uncommon. Numerous documents prove the employment of builders, shepherds and carpenters. It was considered shameful for doctors not to provide medical care to the poor, even if he had nothing to pay.
The law protected the accurate performance of duties by an employee. For example, if a building built by a bricklayer collapsed, he had to restore it at his own expense.
With the development of monetary transactions, banks began to appear with which loan agreements were concluded. The interest on the loan was huge, amounting to 100% of the borrowed amount. An insolvent debtor could lose his freedom as a punishment. However, since the peasants and artisans suffered the most from this, Hammurabisoftened the laws, eliminating life-long debt slavery and setting a period of 3 years to work off the debt. In addition, a number of provisions were introduced into the laws to protect the debtor from the arbitrariness of creditors.
Family Law
Family law was based on the patriarchal traditions that prevailed in Babylon. Girls married at an early age, barely reaching 12 years old. In Babylon, a girl was considered equal to a man in marriage, in contrast to neighboring states. In addition to the wedding ceremony, a marriage contract was required.
The law spells out in detail what happens to the property of spouses in various situations in family relationships. It was allowed to marry free citizens with slaves. Children born in such a marriage were considered free.
Monogamous marriages prevailed. However, in some circumstances a husband could have a second wife. Although in the legal sense a woman was equal to a man, she was in an oppressed position in the family.
Husband had the opportunity to beat her and even sell her into slavery. The laws of Hammurabi regulated the pen alties for cheating on his wife.
Prostitution was also widespread in Babylon. It could be household and temple. Some categories of women without husbands were engaged in sacred prostitution at temples. Income from these activities was appropriated by the temple.
Although the priestesses of love did not experience public condemnation, the laws at the same time protected the morality of society.
Inheritance law
At the initial stage of the formation of legislation, as in other countries with legalized slavery, sons were usually considered heirs, one of whom had priority. Daughters inherited property only when there were no sons. Later, children of different sexes received equal inheritance rights. If the children died before their parents or refused to inherit, this right passed to the grandchildren. Children adopted by the family had the same inheritance rights as natural children.
Based on the fact that property should not leave the family, the law gave the right of inheritance to married sons. The law was silent about married daughters.
After the death of her husband, the dowry and gifts made by her husband were returned to the widow. She could live in the house of her late husband. If the mother of the family died, the dowry that was given to her was received not by the husband, but by the children in equal shares. Everything that a slave had, with his death, went to the master.
Will was not provided. True, some of his features were already visible. For example, it was possible to give preference to individual heirs, and it was also possible to deprive the offending sons of the inheritance in whole or in part.
The system of crimes and punishments according to the laws of Hammurabi is quite harmonious.
Crimes
There is no designation of a criminal act in Hammurabi's legislation, however, by the very content of the articles, one can understand thatA crime was considered a situation where the prescriptions of the laws were violated. The legal culture of the inhabitants of Babylon was not enough to consolidate the dominant principles of criminal law: varieties of guilt, the definition of complicity, the concept of attempted crime, mitigating and aggravating circumstances. However, certain features of the future coherent legislation have already been traced. Thus, a distinction is made between intentional and unintentional crimes, the concept of complicity, concealment of a crime and incitement to it is defined. For example, beatings inflicted on the victim during a fight that caused his death do not always require the death pen alty for the perpetrator as it should be under customary law or as required by blood feud. In Babylon, for such a crime, the perpetrator was punished with a fine, the amount of which was determined by the social position of the victim. If the wound in a fight was inflicted unintentionally, the perpetrator was released from liability. At the same time, looting during a fire was extremely severely punished by burning alive. The murder of her husband by a woman on order was punishable by the fact that the woman was impaled.
The types of crimes and punishments according to the laws of Hammurabi are given below.
Crimes against the person
This category of crimes includes murder (intentional or unintentional). Examples of such crimes are murder by one of the spouses of the other, a doctor's operation resulting in death, intentional bodily harm, verbalinsult or insult by action, slander.
Property crimes
Special attention was paid to the protection of temple property and the property of the king, the punishment for attempting to steal which was the death pen alty without any conditions. Moreover, the value of the property that is stolen does not matter. People who bought stolen goods were also severely punished.
The article on theft of livestock was worded somewhat differently, which seems to be somewhat contrary to the pen alties for the crimes given above. The theft of an ox, a sheep, a pig or a donkey is punishable by the fact that the stolen is returned in thirty times. The punishment seems too lenient, if you do not take into account the fact that such a high fine is tantamount to the death pen alty, since it is almost impossible to find how to pay the fine. As a result, the criminal was forced to pay with his head.
Some crimes related to property, according to the laws of Hammurabi, allowed the use of lynching. These norms existed under the influence of customary law, which regards lynching as the most just punishment. The kidnapper, who was caught at the scene of the crime in the room where he entered through a breach made by him, was sentenced by the owners to instant execution and burial right at the place of capture.
Among property crimes were robberies, removal of the slave brand from a slave, damage to other people's property, destruction of crops by livestock.
Crimes against morality
The most frequent crimes in this category were crimes that violate family traditions: incest,wife's adultery, wife's depraved behavior, rape. This also included crimes related to the theft or substitution of children, the escape of a wife from her husband, the theft of a woman who is married.
Crimes against justice
Such offenses include false testimony during the trial. This crime was punished on the basis of the principle of equal retribution. The law also regulated the punishment of judges who changed court decisions in any case due to pressure or for money. It was planned to remove the judge from office. In addition, the judge had to pay 12 times the amount of the claim.
Professional crimes
This category includes the criminal acts of doctors, builders, persons who are tenants, shepherds.
Among the crimes there are also state crimes. The person who gave shelter to the criminal, and also who did not inform, having learned about the conspiracy, is subject to punishment. The death was punishable by the refusal of the soldiers to go on a campaign. They did not even have the right to offer another person to replace their candidacy.
Punishments
The punishments were extremely cruel. More than thirty types of crimes were punished by death. Manslaughter or negligent homicide entailed the death of the accused. In addition to the death pen alty, corporal punishment, self-harm, compensation of property in multiples, punishment based on equal retribution (talion principle), and pen alties were used.
Hammurabi's laws gave a number of privileges depending on social status orgender of the offender. Similar crimes were punished by different punishments for a slave and a free person. Although most often the laws of Hammurabi punished crimes individually, in a number of situations mutual responsibility remained - a relic of tribal relations. So, if the kidnapper could not be detained, the community was forced to compensate for the property stolen in the territory where it lived.
Types of punishments:
- death pen alty by burning, impalement, drowning;
- mutilation in the form of cutting off the tongue, fingers, hands and tongue;
- exile from the settlement;
- pen alties for property damage, verbal abuse and action abuse.
The law code of Hammurabi often uses the principle of talion (retribution to equals). For example, if the culprit is guilty before the son of a person, then the son of the culprit is subject to punishment. From the point of view of modern law, such an interpretation seems meaningless, but in ancient times, children were considered as the property of the father, and such compensation for damage seemed legitimate.
Litigation
At the court session, the crime and punishment according to the laws of Hammurabi were considered. The court and the process took place in the adversarial mode. The case was initiated by the injured party. In Babylon, procedural law was already formed, requiring judges not only to hear witnesses, but also to investigate the circumstances of cases.
Guilt was considered proven if the perpetrator confessed to the deed, there were documents and testimonies of witnesses proving guilt,there was evidence and traces of illegal actions.
Table of articles of Hammurabi's laws
Excerpts from the set, which lists each crime and punishment according to the laws of Hammurabi with articles, can be read below.
| Article 14. | Theft of children, punishable by death. |
| Article 21. | Violation of the inviolability of housing. The punishment is death. |
| Article 25. | Theft during a fire. As a punishment, a person should be thrown into the fire. |
It was not possible to fully restore every crime and punishment according to the laws of Hammurabi with examples of articles. Not all provisions of the laws have survived to this day.
