Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Sunday, June 2, 2024

Trump’s guilty verdict is a triumph for the Code of Hammurabi

When I was in ‘Junior High’ school – oh, so long ago – the curriculum included learning about the Code of Hammurabi.  I don’t think I really understood the significance of the lessons at the time, and I have my doubts that Hammurabi is mentioned much in schools today, so let me fill any gaps in knowledge that you or I may have in this particular respect.

Hammurabi lived in Ancient Mesopotamia, regarded today as a “cradle of civilization” in the land bordered by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.  The two rivers run almost parallel to each other; the Tigris passes through today’s Baghdad, and both rivers flow into the Persian Gulf.  Politically-speaking the area was known as the First Empire of Babylon, and Hammurabi’s Code dates from around 1790 BCE.

Hammurabi was a lawmaker who saw himself as a “king of justice,” and his code of laws are highly significant, for they are recognized as the first known manifestation of the rule of law (as opposed to 'rule by law') anywhere in the world.  According to Hammurabi, law should be a source of inspiration, and he wanted all future kings to be bound by the same set of rules.[1]

Hammurabi was also an early believer in accessibility.  The Code is written in everyday language, and for those who weren’t literate he made sure it was read aloud, so all could be informed.  He believed in the idea of justice for everyone.  And he imagined that the laws would last for all time.

Hammurabi not only introduced the rule of law to the world, he also saw transparency – wrapped in the notion of accessibility - as implicit to the legal system.  There is no justice without transparency.  This concept, which began in Mesopotamia, was continued by the Romans, for example, who ensured that all schoolboys memorize their own code of laws known as the Law of Twelve Tables.[2]  In other words, “justice” and “transparency” have been integral to the rule of law for a very long time.

For those kings who did not abide by Hammurabi’s rules, he set aside a series of unpleasant curses, for example:

… should a man not heed my pronouncements which I have inscribed upon my stela, and should he slight  my curses and not fear the curses of the gods, and thus overturn the judgements that I rendered, change my pronouncements, alter my engraved image, erase my inscribed name and inscribe his own name (in its place) – or should he, because of fear of these curses, have someone else do so – that man, whether  he is a king, a lord, or a governor, or any person at all,

May the great god Anu, father of the gods, who has proclaimed my rein, deprive him of the sheen of royalty, smash his scepter, and curse his destiny.

May the god Enlil, the lord who determines destinies, whose utterance cannot be countermanded, who magnifies my kingship, incite against him even in his residence disorder that cannot be quelled and a rebellion that will result in his obliteration; may he cast as his fate a reign of groaning, of few years, of years of famine, of darkness without illumination, and of sudden death; may he declare with his venerable speech the obliteration of his city, the dispersion of his people, the supplanting of his dynasty, and the blotting out of his name and  his memory from the land.[3]

And so on.

 



[1] For a good introduction on Mesopotamia, see: Fernanda Pirie: The Rule of Laws:  A 4,000-Year Quest to Order the World (New York: Basic Books, 2021), pp.17-44

[2] Ibid., p. 111.

[3] Martha T Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, ed. Piotr Michalowski, 2nd ed. (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997) pp. 136-137. 

No comments:

Post a Comment