"The Code Of Hammurabi" - читать интересную книгу автора (Johns Rev Claude Hermann Walter)

As late as the accession of Assur-bani-pal and Samas-sum-yukin
we find the Babylonians appealing to their city laws that groups of
aliens to the number of twenty at a time were free to enter the
city, that foreign women once married to Babylonian husbands could not
be enslaved and that not even a dog that entered the city could be put
to death untried.
The population of Babylonia was of many races from early times and
intercommunication between the cities was incessant. Every city had
a large number of resident aliens. This freedom of intercourse must
have tended to assimilate custom. It was, however, reserved for the
genius of Hammurabi to make Babylon his metropolis and weld together
his vast empire by a uniform system of law.
Almost all trace of tribal custom has already disappeared from the
law of the Code. It is state-law; - alike self-help, blood-feud,
marriage by capture, are absent; though family solidarity, district
responsibility, ordeal, the lex talionis, are primitive features
that remain. The king is a benevolent autocrat, easily accessible to
all his subjects, both able and willing to protect the weak against
the highest-placed oppressor. The royal power, however, can only
pardon when private resentment is appeased. The judges are strictly
supervised and appeal is allowed. The whole land is covered with
feudal holdings, masters of the levy, police, &c. There is a regular
postal system. The pax Babylonica is so assured that private
individuals do not hesitate to ride in their carriage from Babylon
to the coast of the Mediterranean. The position of women is free and
dignified.
The Code did not merely embody contemporary custom or conserve
ancient law. It is true that centuries of law-abiding and litigious
habitude had accumulated in the temple archives of each city vast
stores of precedent in ancient deeds and the records of judicial
decisions, and that intercourse had assimilated city custom. The
universal habit of writing and perpetual recourse to written
contract even more modified primitive custom and ancient precedent.
Provided the parties could agree, the Code left them free to
contract as a rule. Their deed of agreement was drawn up in the temple
by a notary public, and confirmed by an oath "by god and the king." It
was publicly sealed and witnessed by professional witnesses, as well
as by collaterally interested parties. The manner in which it was thus
executed may have been sufficient security that its stipulations
were not impious or illegal. Custom or public opinion doubtless
secured that the parties would not agree to wrong. In case of
dispute the judges dealt first with the contract. They might not
sustain it, but if the parties did not dispute it, they were free to
observe it. The judges' decision might, however, be appealed
against. Many contracts contain the proviso that in case of future
dispute the parties would abide by "the decision of the king." The
Code made known, in a vast number of cases, what that decision would
be, and many cases of appeal to the king were sent back to the
judges with orders to decide in accordance with it. The Code itself
was carefully and logically arranged and the order of its sections was