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R/AskHistorians: The Portal for Public History. Please read the rules before participating, as we remove all comments which break the rules. Answers must be in-depth and comprehensive, or they will be removed. It was US and allied military, civilians and innocents. A number of my mates from my home country, Australia, UK, Ireland, etc military have been killed in this debatable campaign. The US ask for support at time of action, let's not forget all who have been caught up in this. Otherwise I think you nailed it. R/Military: The largest military subreddit on reddit. Posted in r/Military 9y. It was US and allied military, civilians and innocents. A number of my mates from my home country, Australia, UK, Ireland, etc military have been killed in this debatable campaign. The US ask for support at time of action, let's not forget all who have been caught up in this. Otherwise I think you nailed it.
It is important for a number of reasons. Whether it lives up to them is another thing.
It is not the first Mesopotamian law code. It has three forerunners with the same prologue-laws-epilogue format. The Reforms of Urukagina (ca 2400 BCE), the code of Ur-Namma (ca 2100 BCE), and the law code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca 1950 BCE) all predate it. So it is not significant for its originality, but perhaps for its political statement.
With almost 300 laws it is the longest of the Mesopotamian law codes of the time. The format of these laws are typically conditional statements, a protasis (if-clause), alongside an apodosis, (then-clause). It covers a large array of topics, from basic crime like theft, to contract law, or domestic matters. In scope it covers a large area, so is very useful for historians in revealing how the Babylonians thought about the various parts of life and what kinds of behaviour were expected or frowned upon. It describes some very specific situations. Here are some examples:
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If a man buy/from an officer the cattle or sheep which the king has given to that officer, he shall forfeit his money.
If, when he goes on a journey, an enemy rob him of whatever he was carrying, the agent shall take an oath in the name of god and go free.
If a man point the finger at a priestess or the wife of another and cannot justify it, they shall drag that man before the judges and they shall brand his forehead.
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If a man take a wife and she become afflicted with disease, and if he set his face to take another, he may. His wife, who is afflicted with disease, he shall not put away. She shall remain in the house which he has built and he shall maintain her as long as she lives.
In terms of legal importance, it is considered something akin to a constitution. I would probably disagree on this point. It fails to set out any fundamental principles for the Babylonian empire, rather just dealing with extremely specific examples, much like case law. It does have some fairly developed legal principles, putting burden of proof on the accuser and requiring evidence in order to convict someone of a crime:
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If a man bring an accusation against a man, and charge him with a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, he, the accuser, shall be put to death.
However, the laws are mostly an act of propaganda, displaying the power of Hammurabi, who had recently carved out an empire in Mesopotamia. This itself is illuminating, extremely important in understanding the Old Babylonian empire, systems of power, and the political situation faced by Hammurabi. Yoffee has argued that the application of law was a political act design to assert power over disparate polities within the empire. It was meant to standardise, (Yoffee uses simplify), the various different local laws under a single authority. The laws themselves, if you read them, look more like legal judgments than legislation. The epilogue really reveals the document's primary purpose is the glorification of Hammurabi:
The great gods proclaimed me and I am the guardian governor, whose scepter is righteous and whose beneficent protection is spread over my city. In my bosom I carried the people of the land of Sumer and Akkad; under my protection I brought their brethren into security; in my wisdom I restrained (hid) them; that the strong might not oppose the weak, and that they should give justice to the orphan and the widow, in Babylon, the city whose turrets Anu and Bel raised.
Nevertheless, it is extremely important in understanding the political, social and religious climate, as well as the normative and moral landscapes of the early 2nd millennium Babylonian empire.
Sources: Harper's transliteration and translation of the code. Yoffee 2005, chapter 'When complexity was simplified'.