Crime and punishment according to the laws of Hammurabi with examples of articles: table. System of crimes and punishments under the laws of Hammurabi

The unique ruler of Babylon Hammurabi became the author of the code of laws. In fact, every crime and punishment under the laws of Hammurabi, a table made of clay, painted in detail. After all, it was on these clay tablets that articles of instructions were published. In the XVIII century BC. E. There was a monument of history - the laws of King Hammurabi. The crimes and punishments described in the archives are contained in 282 articles. When the reign of Hammurabi turned 35 years old, he ordered to cut the laws on a huge column of black basalt. This column was found during the excavations of Suz in 1901. In the prologue to the vault, it is explained that these are God's laws proclaimed in the name of the king, and they need to follow.

Assigning laws

As the Tsar himself said, laws were needed so that the stronger did not oppress the weak, so that widows and orphans and other oppressed people would receive justice.

Having issued a set of prescriptions, the king consolidated his authority. The system of crimes and punishments under the laws of Hammurabi allowed to annex considerable territories of neighbors and create uniform unified norms of laws for the country. In addition, the then elite of society set the task by legal methods to legitimize privileges and property to the rest of the people. Hammurabi's laws were very useful here. Crimes and punishments, articles with which have reached our days, allow us to judge the degree of development of the Sumerian civilization. On the other hand, laws were also required to smooth tensions in society. The criminal law describing any crime and punishment under the laws of Hammurabi, briefly speaking, was based on the principle: an act that violates the established traditional order is punished.

Own

In the laws of Hammurabi, an attempt was made to regulate property rights. As it recognized the land, buildings, slaves and movable property.

The earth could be owned by the state (the tsar), the community, temples, private individuals.

Private property was fixed. An important part of the property, whose protection was given increased attention, were considered slaves.

Law of Obligations

Various obligations under the code were derived from treaties. The system of treaties was settled by the realities of life and law. Although the written conclusion of the agreements was not mandatory, they could not be concluded without witnesses. Since the written language was widely distributed in the country, literate people entered into contracts in the form of a record on an earthen plate. Some agreements required vows of parties and the presence of priests.

Violation of the contract was punished in a variety of ways, including slavery.

For purchase and sale, a written contract was required. When the thing was transferred to the new owner, the object was symbolically touched with a stick. You could sell movable property, buildings and slaves.

Also, employment contracts were practiced. With their help, they hired things, services and people. Widespread land rent. At the same time, the rent was collected by harvest, sometimes reaching half of it.

Although the work of slaves was widely used in Babylon, contracts of personal hiring were not uncommon. Numerous documents prove the hiring of builders, shepherds and joiners. For doctors it was considered shameful not to provide medical assistance to the poor, even if he had nothing to pay.

The law protected the accurate performance of duties by the employee. For example, if a building built by a bricklayer collapsed, it had to produce a restoration at its own expense.

With the development of monetary operations, banks began to appear with which the loan agreements were concluded. The interest for the loan was huge, amounting to 100% of the borrowed amount. An insolvent debtor in punishment could lose his freedom. However, since the peasants and craftsmen suffered most, Hammurabi softened the laws, liquidating life-long debt slavery and setting a period of 3 years to work off the debt. In addition, a number of provisions were introduced into the laws that protect the debtor from the arbitrariness of creditors.

Family law

Family law was based on patriarchal traditions reigning in Babylon. Girls married at an early age, barely 12 years old. In Babylon, the girl was considered equal with the man in marriage, unlike neighboring states. In addition to the wedding ceremony, a marriage contract was required.

The law specifies in detail what happens to the property of spouses in various situations in family relations. It was allowed to contract a marriage of free citizens with slaves. Children born in such a marriage were considered free.

Monogamous marriages prevailed. However, in some circumstances, the husband could have a second wife. Although in the legal sense, a woman was equal to a man, in a family she was in an oppressed position.

The husband had the opportunity to beat her and even sell her into slavery. The laws of Hammurabi regulated the punishment for the betrayal of his wife.

Also, prostitution was widespread in Babylon. It could be a household and a temple. Some categories of women without husbands engaged in sacred prostitution in the temples. The income from these classes was appropriated by the temple.

Although the priestesses of love did not experience public condemnation, the laws protected the morality of society.

Inheritance law

At the initial stage of the formation of legislation, as in other countries with legalized slavery, heirs were usually considered sons, one of whom had a priority. Daughters inherited property only when there were no sons. Later, children of different sexes received equal rights to inheritance. If children died before their parents or refused to inherit, this right passed to the grandchildren. Children who were adopted by the family had the same hereditary rights with their own children.

Proceeding from the fact that the property should not leave the frontiers of the family, the law granted the right of inheritance of married sons. About the married daughters of the law was silent.

The widow after her husband's death returned the dowry and gifts made by her husband. She could live in the house of her deceased husband. If the mother of the family was dying, the dowry, which was given for her, was received not by the husband, but by the children in equal shares. All that the slave had, with his death went to the owner.

The will was not provided. True, some of his features were already visible. For example, it was possible to give priority to individual heirs, and there was also the possibility to deprive the sons of the inheritance that were guilty of anything entirely or some part of it.

The system of crimes and punishments according to the laws of Hammurabi is quite slender.

Crimes

The designation of a criminal act in the law of Hammurabi is not, however, by the very content of articles it can be understood that the crime was the situation when the prescriptions of laws were violated. Legal culture of the inhabitants of Babylon was not enough to consolidate the predominant principles of criminal law: the types of guilt, the definition of complicity, the concept of attempting to commit a crime, mitigating and aggravating circumstances. However, certain features of the future of harmonious legislation have already been traced. Thus, a distinction is made between intentional and unintentional crimes, the concept of complicity, concealment of the crime and incitement to it is defined. For example, the beatings that are inflicted on the victim during a fight that caused her death do not always require the punishment of the culprit with the death penalty as prescribed by customary law or as required by blood feud. In Babylon, for such a crime, the perpetrator was punished with payment of a fine, the amount of which was determined by the social situation of the victim. If the wound in the fight was inflicted unintentionally, the guilty party was released from responsibility. In this case, extremely harsh, burning alive, looting was punished in case of fire. The murder of a woman by her husband on order was punishable by the fact that the woman sat down on the stake.

Types of crimes and punishments under the laws of Hammurabi are given below.

Crimes against the person

To this category of crimes it is possible to carry murder (intentional or unintentional). Examples of such crimes are the murder of one of the spouses of another, the operation of a doctor, leading to death, intentional infliction of bodily harm, verbal abuse or insult, libel.

Property crimes

Particular attention was paid to the protection of the temple property and the property of the tsar, the penalty for attempted abduction was the death penalty without any conditions . And the value of property that is stolen does not matter. People who bought stolen goods were also cruelly punished.

The article on stealing cattle, which seems to be somewhat contrary to the penalties for the crimes cited above, was formulated somewhat differently. Theft of an ox, a sheep, a pig or an ass is punished by the fact that the stolen returns thirty times. Punishment seems too soft, if you do not take into account the fact that such a high penalty is equivalent to the death penalty, since it is almost impossible to find a way to pay a fine. As a result, the offender was forced to pay with his head.

Some crimes related to property, according to the laws of Hammurabi, allowed the use of lynch. These norms existed under the influence of customary law, referring to lynching as the most fair measure of punishment. The kidnapper, who managed to grab at the scene of the crime in the room, where he penetrated through the breach made by him, was sentenced by the masters to instant execution and burying right on the spot of the capture.

Among the property crimes were robberies, the removal of slavish stigma from a slave, damage to another's property, the destruction of crops by livestock.

Crimes Against Morality

The most frequent crimes in this category were crimes that violate family traditions: incest, adultery of the wife, debauchery of the wife, rape. This included crimes related to the theft or substitution of children, the escape of his wife from his wife, the theft of a woman who is married.

Crimes against justice

Such misconduct includes false testimony during the trial. This crime was punished, based on the principle of equal retribution. The law also regulated the punishment of judges who changed court decisions in any matter due to pressure or money. Provision was made for the removal of the judge from office. In addition, the judge had to pay 12 times the value of the amount of the claim.

Crimes on the professional basis

This category includes criminal acts of doctors, builders, tenants, shepherds.

Among the crimes there are also state crimes. A person who has given refuge to a criminal is liable to punishment, as well as who did not report, after learning about the plot. Death was punished by the refusal of soldiers to march. They did not even have the right to offer another person in return for their candidacy.

The Penalties

The punishments were extremely cruel. More than thirty types of crimes were punished by death. Unintentional murder or murder by imprudence entailed the death of the accused. In addition to the death penalty, corporal punishment, self-mutilation, compensation of property in multiple sizes, punishment based on equal retribution (the principle of talion), penal sanctions were used.

The laws of Hammurabi gave a number of privileges depending on the social status or gender of the attacker. Similar crimes were punishable by different punishments for the slave and free man. Although most often the laws of Hammurabi punished for crimes individually, in a number of situations, there remained a mutual guarantee - a relic of tribal relations. So, if the kidnapper could not be detained, the community had to reimburse the property stolen in the territory where she lived.

Types of punishment :

• The death penalty in the form of burning, landing on a stake, drowning;
• Self-mutilation in the form of cutting off the tongue, fingers, hands and tongue;
• Expulsion from the settlement;
• Fines imposed for damage to property, for verbal abuse and insults by action.

In the code of laws of Hammurabi, the principle of talion is often used (retribution equal). For example, if the perpetrator is guilty before the son of a person, then the son of the culprit is liable to punishment. From the standpoint of the current law, such an interpretation seems meaningless, but in ancient times, children were considered as father's property, and such compensation for damage seemed legitimate.

Trial

At the court session, the crime and punishment under the laws of Hammurabi was considered. The court and the trial passed in a mode of competition. The case was initiated by the injured party. In Babylon, procedural law was already in place, requiring that judges not only hear witnesses, but also investigate the circumstances of the cases.

The guilt was considered proven, if the culprit confessed to the deed, there were documents and testimonies of witnesses proving guilt, there were evidence and signs of illegal actions.

Table of articles of the laws of Hammurabi

Excerpts from the vault, where each Crime and punishment under the laws of Hammurabi with articles , you can read below.

Completely every crime and punishment under the laws of Hammurabi with examples of articles was not restored. Up to now, not all the provisions of the laws have reached.