The Code of Hammurabi

Hammurabi’s Code Mohandas Gandhi once stated, “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.” Although this may be true for modern times, it seems that the mighty Babylonian king Hammurabi would laugh at such a statement. His response to Gandhi (had they lived even remotely in the same time era) would probably be something like, “Why is my whole kingdom not blind then?” Rewind to about 1772 BC, when king Hammurabi established a collection of principles to move his empire in the right direction. Hammurabi instituted a set of laws that held people both morally and legally accountable through stern values and unique organization he believed could be the backbone of a thriving empire. Before analyzing specific laws and rules of the Babylonian time, it is important to verify the reasons Hammurabi wrote the code and his responsibility in the social system of the empire. To begin, understanding the code of Hammurabi requires a basic knowledge of the Babylonian way of living. An example of this is looking at only the first eight laws in the code, and catching onto the pattern of consequence following these accusations. Six of the first eight laws say that the perpetrator must be put to death for their crimes. This mere fraction of the whole code prominently shows how Babylonian life was vastly different from modern times. The fact that most minor offenses now had deadly consequences in ancient times shows how control must have been different in a Babylonian social system, since a leader had to take into consideration the difficulty in convicting somebody fairly to a crime, and the social class of that person (slave or free)(Reader 13-14). Overall, Hammurabi built his code around a social system that was in need for stability. Following this further, Hammurabi reveals his role of writing within the code. When reading the whole code fully through, any Historian can have a basic knowledge the type of man Hammurabi was and his goal in writing. To illustrate this,