Imagine walking the streets and seeing a young boy hanging from a noose, covered in a little blood, crawling with flies, dead, and thinking to yourself, tomorrow could bring one less hand, a lost loved one, or you swaying slightly in the wind, slowly choking. This is what the empire of Babylonia looked like. It was formed 38 centuries ago by a man named Hammurabi. Fearing attack, he crushed his neighbors. With these city-states under his control, he wrote a code of 282 laws on stones called stelae, and the laws are now known as Hammurabi’s code. Surrounded by questions, only one stands out: did these laws make Hammurabi a kind elder, or a demanding tyrant? I will show how just four of these laws can be used to prove Hammurabi was unfair, and even harsh and a liar.
Much evidence comes from laws regarding thieves and property. Law 21 clearly states that if an unfortunate thief has stolen property, he shall be condemned to death and hanged at the scene(Doc D). While others may say this is fair and that he…show more content… This is where the commonly referred an eye for an eye comes from. Law 196 says (http://www.phillipmartin.info) if a eye is knocked out, the other man's eye will be knocked out and code 199 declares that If a slave’s eye gets knocked out, or a bone broken, the man who injured him will have to pay half the slave's value. The first law already shows the unfairness as they don’t account for if it’s an accident, and society is losing two good men instead of one. Law 199 has even more problems. Even though slaves were low in the order, it creates distrust and a way to get revenge. In the prologue(http://www.phillipmartin.info) clearly states the strong shall not injure the weak, and while this may protect slave, who are clearly weak, against a poor man, many noblemen could afford to hit slaves for luxury, showing that the slave was unprotected from the
