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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

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Class from how Stuff Works dot com.

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Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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editor Candice Gibson, joined as

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always by writer Jane McGrath.

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Hey there, Hey Jane. Have you ever been

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to the Loop? I have once. Actually

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I had to rush through it because I didn't have much time. But

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I did see the Mona Lisa. Oh, well,

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did you see the Code of Hamma Robbie.

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I didn't. I didn't get around to that. It's one

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of those things that isn't as aesthetically

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appealing as the Mona Lisa

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or the sundry other works of art hanging

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in the Loop, but it's a pretty important

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piece of well, big black

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stone. It's basically a big stilla,

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which just means monument. Basically, I

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just kidding. It's more important than that. It

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stands about a little over seven ft tall. The

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monument itself isn't as important as

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what actually has written on it, and it

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has about three hundred laws

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on It's all written in sort of a conditional

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if this then that format,

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and it's really it's it's fascinating

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for archaeologists and historians because it's one of the

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earliest and most intact codes

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of law that has ever been found, and

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it was developed by Himurabi and

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he is synonymous with Babylon, and Babylon

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was really one of the first, really sort of bustling

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empires of the ancient world.

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And he was a really intelligent

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ruler and one of the things that he prided

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himself on was being fair and

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just, and he really

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laid out his expectations for his

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subjects in black and white, and

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the Code of him A Rabi exemplifies this because

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he made them available for everyone

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to see and he displayed them in a very

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public place. So while Himmurabi

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was pretty strict and he held his people

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accountable for their behavior in a very severe

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way, there really was no excuse

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for breaking the law, because you would have seen

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that very clearly. And so the monument,

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like we said today, is in the Louver

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and that's because in nineteen o one

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a French archaeologist found it, and

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he didn't find it in Babylon. He

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actually found it in a

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really mountainous sort of remote region

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of Persia. And presumably

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it's because one of the later conquerors

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who came in every through Babylon would

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have taken the Code back as part

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of the spoils, and it's really trophy

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of symbolic of look at this very

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mighty empire and how it's fallen.

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But what Jane and I are really interested in

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is the code itself and what it means,

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not just in the ancient Babylonian

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society but today. That's

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right, and historians anyone who's

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interested in the history of law in general love

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looking at the Code of Amara because it's one of the

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earliest we know of. To give you an idea

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of how it detailed, these laws can

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get um. You look at number of fifty nine

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says if any man, without the knowledge

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of the owner of a garden, fill a tree in

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a garden, he shall pay half a minor and money.

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This is incredibly detailed, specific

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law, and this is one of the reasons why

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um historians actually don't think the code stood

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on its own and sort of an independent

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of itself, because it has these

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very deep detailed laws like the one I

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mentioned, but it doesn't have some more

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obvious ones that you would expect, more overarching

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laws. This is what happens when you murder

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someone in general, sort of something like that.

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But it's it's very detailed, So historians tend

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to think that it was sort of an addition

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to laws that were already on the book

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so to speak. Um, but that have been lost

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to history, so it's supplemental. And

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like Damon's mentioning, they're so specific,

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one has to wonder if these laws were written

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after some sort of event occurred that

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set up president for needing a certain role.

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Like For instance, one that struck me really

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interesting is this law that

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reads, if a man give

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his child to a nurse and the

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child die in her hands,

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but the nurse, unbeknownst to the father and

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mother, nurse another child, then

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they shall convict her of having nursed another

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child without the knowledge of the father and mother.

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Here's the clincher, and her breasts shall

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be cut off. So have

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I forbid you'd be a wet nurse an ancient

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Babylon But um, a law like

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this, really, it's just sort of smacks of, well,

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something must have happened for them to have written this

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law. It just doesn't see me later that

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Hammer Rabbi would have, you know, written this as one

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of the codes without some sort of precedent. Yeah,

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And I think historians like we actually look at

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this and they say, you know, maybe, um,

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there were laws on the books and everything, but

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that specific cases would come up

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to Hammurabi himself and he would make an executive

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decision that weren't addressed previously in the law.

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And these decisions that he made

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ended up being written because he was

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so proud of how just he is obviously that

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he wrote them on the on the books, on

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his stella. But also another

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reason why historians saying didn't stand on its own

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was because there are some inconsistencies, interestingly

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on the code of Hammurab. For instance,

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if you were an ancient Babylon, you and me, and

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I gave you like a mule for safe keeping.

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Thanks

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um, So if I gave it to you, but

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I didn't have any witnesses and I didn't have a contract,

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in one law it says that I

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the giver, I don't have a claim on the mule anymore.

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But in another instance, a very the exact

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same kind of situation, it

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says that you would be at fault and you would actually be

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a thief and you would be put to death. That's

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what's so funny to me about the Kurd Hamarabi,

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not the inconsistencies. But what you

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were mentioning before, If if I didn't have any

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proof that you had given me this mule, there's

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no room for hearsay. And the code

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evidence is absolutely

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imperative. And so I guess that's

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the good news. If you are an accused

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perpetrator not yet an accused

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criminal. You know, if they say that you've

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stolen something in ancient Babylon, well

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you better have the thing that you

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are thought to have stolen in your possession.

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If they say that you've committed adultery,

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well some peeping tom better have

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seen you, you know, ravishing somebody else's

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wife. There has to be evidentiary

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support. And once

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you were accused as a criminal,

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there were sort of two ways out. One of them

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was death, which will get to in justin

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Mena, and the other was this sort of witchcraft

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trial you could undergo and the Euphrates

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River, and again historians

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conjecture that people in ancient Babylon

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hadn't really mastered the art of swimming,

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so you could wade into the river

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and if you sank and drowned, then you were guilty,

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and you know, good riddence. You were dead. You were put to

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death. But if for

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some magical reason the water was able to convey

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you back to shore and you came out

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alive, then you were innocent and

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you were allowed to keep your life. And it's interesting they're

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they're creative when it came to ways to

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die as well. Um.

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I think it was about twenty eight different crimes

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weren't death in these laws. They've

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ranged from things like robbery, adultery,

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maybe witchcraft similar to what you were

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talking about, and even harboring or runaway

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slave, which kind of warkens back to our podcast

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on the underground Railroad. So in some

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other ways you could die besides this interesting

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witchcraft or whether you sink or swim,

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was burning buried alive,

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which is my personal favorite or least favorite,

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i should say, and also impalement.

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So they were very creative when it came aways to die.

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You say that with such relish, I feel like now I have

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an ally in Maya my interest in medieval

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formship Georgia. Um. Anyway,

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for all of you out there, you think I'm I'm a strange

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bird. Um. The people in ancient

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Babylon had a very specific

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idea of justice, and it was rooted

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in a code called the lex talionis,

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which is the law of

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retaliation or the law of

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retribution. And surely you've all

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heard the expression and I for an eye,

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and that's exactly what lex talionis

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was. It was a form of justice

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based on the idea that whatever wrongdoing

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you pay to your neighbor, your neighbor

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can pay back to you. But an

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important difference under the Code of Hammer

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Rabbi is that if you created

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some sort of affront to your neighbor,

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your neighbor couldn't be the one to turn

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around and pay you back for that misdeed.

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It would have to come directly from the state

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government. And that was to put an

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end to a cycle of wrongdoing

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back and forth because it came

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from a higher power, the sort of retribution.

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That's really interesting. Yeah, And another

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thing that really intrigues historians, especially

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like as soon as they found the quote of Farmer

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Robbie, was that they had

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known the idea of lex talionis before

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from from Mosaic law, you know, from Moses,

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and they thought, well, you know, this outdates

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Moses by a couple of hundred years, So that

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mean that Moses got these ideas from

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the Code of Hammer Robbie or from Babylonia

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in general, and that idea has sort of

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been um pushed aside for the idea that

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they both have a common source among

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them. Uh So it's interesting just

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to see the the differences of similarities

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between the two different ways of handling.

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You know, if someone plucks out your eye, what do you do in

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response? One important difference,

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though, is that under the coat of

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hammer Robbie, class actually made

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a difference. So, for instance, if I

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were among the upper class in

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ancient Babylonia called the Amalu,

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and Candice was a slave in the

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wordy class, and I plucked

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out her eye, shouldn't she couldn't necessarily

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have my eye plucked out as well. But if

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it was the other way around, if Candice plucked out my

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eye, uh, the thing, it would be much

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much harsher on her as a punishment.

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So, just to make sure I understand this, if

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I plucked out your eye, I might

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face certain death. But if you pluck my

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eye out, you might only owe me a small

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monetary mountain compensation exactly,

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But I have to buy a new eye exactly.

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But like if I if it happened between people the

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same class, you would have that eye for an eye thing

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business going on, whereas the Moses Mosaic

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law didn't have that distinction.

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So that's one big thing that that historians.

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It's a point that historians want to make that it's very different.

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So I have a couple of friends in law school,

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and I'm meant to ask them about the kind of

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hamor Abbie over the weekend, and I didn't

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get a chance because I was busy watching the Academy

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Awards. But I'm wondering if any of you

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out there are in law school or any lawyers

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who might be fans of our podcast. Um,

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I'm curious to know what you

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study about the code of Hammurabie, if

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anything in law school. I mean, I'm sure that there's

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a period of time in which you look over laws of the ancient

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world and how they might still be relevant

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today. And I I wonder if

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this eye for an eye business is just sort

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of a a clever phrase

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that people throw around, and if that's all

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it's been reduced to, then I would like to propose

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in its place another clever

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phrase which is due into others as you would

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have done unto you, Because I think the golden rule,

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and this instance at least is pretty similar

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and much nicer, you know, turn

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the other cheek thing. Yeah, I would like to not have

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my eye plucked out, so I'm going to not pluck

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Jain's out.

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It's still has a lot of real events today, I mean, and

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just thinking of at the time, it must have seemed

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very fair, you know. I mean, if

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you look at it from just a cold point

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of view, I mean that that's fair. I guess

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in a weird way of looking at it. But

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I think that the people of ancient Babylon were

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onto something. You can't just have

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your neighbors, you know, sort of propagate

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this this misdeed cycle to

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each other. There has to be a higher level

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of government in place to put an end,

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to deal out the final saying

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retribution. Otherwise you've got a society that devolves

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into complete chaos. And

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it's interesting that Hammarabbi himself found himself

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so just he expresses and there's a prologue

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and epilogue on the stella

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that that contains the code, and he expressed,

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like, oh, I protect the oppressed from the oppressors.

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And it's interesting that he still had these

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laws that they did distinguish between

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the classes too. He was a pretty complex

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guy. And if you want to learn more about

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Hammurabi and his code and

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the peoples of ancient Babylon, be sure

11:58

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