Power And Justice In Sparta, Egypt, And Mesopotamia

The three ancient cultures I chose to examine and analyze how they balanced power and justice are Sparta, Egypt, and Mesopotamia and will do so with laws and rulers.
To begin the Spartan civilization we should look at their leader and king. The king has powers called royal rights. One of these rights is to declare war on whatever or whoever he wants with no objections by anyone, “and the right of making war against whatsoever land they please, and that no man of the Spartans shall hinder this right, or if he do, he shall be subject to the curse.” (Herodotus, On the Kings of Sparta, Web). This is clearly a sign of a lot of responsibility and power but is countered with almost equal justice, “when they go on expeditions the kings shall go out
Not by paid mercenaries and not by volunteers, but by the extreme training and experience forced upon them as boys growing up, being made to master their skills in combat and building up their natural toughness. “Till their seventh year boys were educated at home: from that time their training was undertaken by the state and supervised by the paidonomos, an official appointed for that purpose.” (Author unkown, 11th Brittanica, Web) Those who were physically unable fight in battle would still be logistical such as a blacksmith or a carpenter so they could still support the Spartan war machine. They also didn’t become citizens until they were probably half way through their lives, “At thirty began the full citizen rights and duties.” (Author unknown, 11th Brittanica, Web) This you could say is cruel forcing young boys into rigorous training or you could say it is ingenious to create an unstoppable and loyal army. Either way this can be seen as a form of justice turning into power, which is an extremely rare case. By training every boy equally they then formed an almost flawless army giving the Spartans
Most of the laws were more based on morals than anything else such as don’t sleep with another man’s wife, do not steal, or do not hit another person. Yet the punishments for these were quite severe, “If the wife of a man go out from her house and visit a man where he lives, and he have intercourse with her, knowing that she is a man's wife, the man and also the woman they shall put to death.” (Author unknown, The Code of Assura, Web) There were even superstitious laws against magic, “If a man or a woman practice sorcery, and they be caught with it in their hands, they shall prosecute them, they shall convict them. The practicer of magic they shall put to death.” (Author unknown, The Code of Assura, Web) There were laws for almost everything even odd ones such as this, “If a woman in a quarrel injure the testicle of a man, one of her fingers they shall cut off. And if a physician bind it up and the other testicle which is beside it be infected thereby, or take harm; or in a quarrel she injure the other testicle, they shall destroy both of her eyes.” (Author unknown, The Code of Assura, Web) So ladies, no low blows in ancient Mesopotamia. Although the punishments varied by whether you, for example, hit a free person or a slave, (harsher punishment for hitting the free person) there was still punishment for hitting the slave. Where in most ancient cultures slaves