Hammurabi’s Modern Influence

Hammurabi’s Modern Influence

Hammurabi’s code of laws would eventually migrate, whether written or spread by word of mouth into other lands. Eventually they had become some of the most basic influences for the laws of morality, gender and class distinction, and punishment for slavery, in other lands as well. One of the most important influences over the civilizations that Hammurabi’s code was the importance of being civilised; laws written that were not merely only privy to scholars and nobility, but laws that all men and women and children could be familiar with. Each man, woman and child may not have been able to read the laws, this is disputed. However, there is reason to believe that the first time they ever saw a man sentenced to death for stealing from his neighbour, that they were very well versed in the law afterwards. Also, the language that the trials along with the laws, were written and spoken in, was Akkadian, the language spoken daily among the citizens of Babylon. This also serves the people in the aspect that it was specifically for their benefit to know the law.

This code of laws also influenced the significance of changing from hieroglyphic writing and depiction to cuneiform. The reason, is that it promoted literacy among men and women, rather than just among scholar and nobility that had taken the time to learn. Hammurabi’s code also separates punishments by class and social distinction; another practice that would be readily taken up over the years, and some would argue today, that it still is in practice. The man with more money will have a lighter punishment, as will the man with higher connections in the government. For example the eighth law of the Code which reads “If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belonged to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirty fold; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.”