"HAMMURABI"

Zélia de Toledo Piza         

  

2.000 years before Christ we hear to speak about the code of Hammurabi, first king of Babylon. Great legislator, this code, reunion of the Sumerianos and Acadianos, was made with such wisdom that has been resisting to the judgment of the most modern civilizations. In him it was everything foreseen - deprived property, trade and businesses, family, work and moral.

I will transcribe to follow an article of authorship of the Dr. Luis Carlos Valois and that presents concrete data on the code of Hammurabi:

                                           

Hammurabi - king of Babylon (1792-1750 or 1730-1685 a.c.), creator of the Babylonian empire. His code is one of the humanity's oldest laws and it is recorded in a cylindrical stele of diorite, discovery in Susa and conserved in Louvre.

"The Code of Hammurabi protects the property, the family, the work and the human life (...) The robbery author for house breaker should be died and buried in front of the place of the fact (...) The punishments were cruel: to throw in the fire (a steal in a fire), to nail in a stake (homicide practiced against the spouse), corporal mutilations, to cut the tongue, to cut the breast, to cut the ear, to cut the hands, to pull the eyes and to remove the teeth."  Passage of the work: "Criminology", of the Des. Álvaro Mayrink of Costa, Ed. Forensic, vol. 1, p. 23.

The Code possesses 282 articles and he has as preamble the following text:

"-When the high Anu, King of Anunaki and Bel, Mister of the Earth and of the skies, determinateness of the destinies of the world, gave all the humanity's government to Marduc; when it was pronounced the high name of Babylon; when he made her famous in the world and in her it established a durable kingdom whose foundations had the firmness of the sky and of the earth, - for that time Anu and Bel called me, me Hammurabi, the high prince, the gods' worshiper, to implant justice in the earth, to destroy the bad and the badly, to prevent the oppression of the weak by the fort, to illuminate the world and to propitiate the good welfare of the people. Hammurabi, chosen governor for Bel, it is me; me that brought the abundance to the earth; what made complete work for Nippur and Dirilu; what gave life to the city of Uruk; it supplied water with abundance to their inhabitants; what turned beautiful our city of Brasíppa; the one that provided grains for powerful Urash; the one who helped the people in time of need; who established the safety in Babylon; the governor of the people, the servant whose facts are pleasant to Anuit."

The chapter I of the Code is devoted to the Spells, judgment of God, false testimony, prevarication of Judges. To follow some articles regarding the applied penalties, it is noticed at once the influence of the Talião:

Art. 1st - If somebody accuses another one, and it imputes him a spell, but he cannot give proof of that; the one that is accused should be killed.

Art. 3rd - If somebody in a process comes as prosecution witness and it doesn't prove what said, if the process imports life loss, he should be died.

Art. 4rd - If somebody to present itself as witness in exchange for grain and money, he should suffer the punishment determined in the process.

In the art. 5th it is established that the judge that utters a wrong sentence will be punished with the payment of the costs multiplied by 12, and it will still be expelled openly of his chair

Art. 15 - If somebody steals from the door of the city a slave or a slave of the Court, or slave or slave that is free, it should be died.

Art. 16 - If somebody welcomes to his house a slave or slave fled of the Court or of a free one after the butler's public proclamation, it doesn't present, and the owner of the house should be died.

[...]

Art. 127 - If somebody defames a consecrated woman or a free man's woman and it cannot prove, she should drag that man before the Judge and to shear him the forehead.

Art. 128 - If somebody takes a woman, but it doesn't conclude contract with her, that woman is not wife.

Art. 129. If the wife of somebody is found in sexual contact with another one, she should attach them and to throw them in to the water, except if the husband forgives her wife and the king to his slave.

Art. 130. If somebody deflower the woman that still didn't meet man and she lives at the paternal house and he has contact with her and it is surprised, this man should be died and the woman will go free.

Art. 131. If a free man's woman is accused by the own husband, but no surprised in contact with other, she should take oath on behalf of God and to return to her house.

[...]

195 - If a son beats his father, we should cut off the hands.

[...]

On crimes and pities:

Art. 198. If somebody pulls the eye of the one who is free, he should pay a mine.

Art. 199. If he pulls an eye of a strange slave, or it breaks a bone to the strange slave, he should pay the half of his price.

Art. 201 - If he broke the teeth of the one who is free, he should pay a third of a mine.

Art. 203 - If a born one free beats a born one free from equal condition, he should pay a mine.

Art. 204 - If one free beats me free, he should pay ten shekels.

[...]

Art. 209. If somebody beats in a free woman and he makes her to abort, he should pay ten shekels for the fetus.

Art. 210. If that woman dies, then he should kill his son.

[...]

On the exercise of the Medicine:

Art. 215. If a doctor treats somebody of a serious wound with the bronze lancet and it cures him or if he opens somebody an incision with the bronze lancet and the eye is saved, it should receive ten shekels.

Art. 218. If a doctor treats somebody of a serious wound with the bronze lancet and it kills him, or he opens him an incision with the bronze lancet and the eye is lost, we should cut the hands.

Art. 219. If the doctor treats the slave of the one who is free of a serious wound with the bronze lancet and it kills him, he should give slave for slave.

[...]

On the exercise of the Engineering:

Art. 229. If an architect builds for somebody and he doesn't make him solidly and the house that he built falls and it hurts of death the proprietor, that architect should be died.

Art. 233. If an architect builds for somebody a house and it doesn't take it to the end, if the walls are vicious, the architect will owe to his cost to consolidate the walls.

[...]

About the navigation:

Art. 236. If somebody freights his boat to a boatman and this is negligent, it puts to nick or he does that he gets lost the boat, the boatman will owe to the proprietor boat for boat.

Art. 237. If somebody freights a boatman and the boat has provisions of wheat, wool, olive oil, dates and any other thing that forms his load, if the boatman is negligent, it puts to nick the boat and he does that he gets lost the shipment, it should compensate the boat that made to go to it pricks and everything that he caused loss.

Art. 240. If a boat to oars invests against a sail boat and it puts him to pricks, the boss of the boat that was put nick should ask justice before God; the boss of the boat to oars, that it put the sail boat to sank, should compensate his boat and whatever got lost.

This way it finishes the Code of Hammurabi:

The fair laws that Hammurabi, the wise person king, established and with which he gave stable base to the government: - I am the guardian governor. In my breast drag the people of the lands of Sumer and Acad. In my wisdom I they refrain, so that the fort doesn't oppress the weak and so that it is made justice to the widow and the orphan. That each oppressed man attends before me, as king that I am of the justice. Let it to read the registration of my monument. Let to attempt he in mine considered words. And it cans my monument to illuminate him as for the cause that brings and it can him to understand his case. Can him not to work the exclaimed heart: - "Hammurabi is actually as a father for his people; he established the prosperity forever and he gave a pure government to the earth. In the days that will come, for every future time, can the king that is in the throne to observe the words of the justice that I drew in my monument."

Sources of consultation:

"Origin of the Rights of the People", Ed. Icon, 6ªed., 1995.

-"Criminology", of the Des. Álvaro Mayrink da Costa, Ed. Forense, vol. 1, 1992.

- Almanac April CD-ROM 1996.