Ancient laws

Ancient Laws

Throughout human history, there have been many legal monuments – sources of knowing law. As legal monuments we understand documents that help us to know type and content of laws of different states in different epochs: legal texts, customs, legal cases (lawsuits), annals, etc.

Some basic sources of law:

• Hammurabi's code
• Manu’s code
• Code of XII tables – principle of Roman law

One of the most detailed ancient legal codes was drawn up in about 1758 B.C. by Hammurabi, a king of Babylonia. The entire code, consisting of 282 paragraphs, was carved into a great stone pillar, which was set up in a temple to the Babylonian god Marduk so that it could be read by every citizen.

The pillar, lost for centuries after the fall of Babylon in the 16^th century B.C., was rediscovered and now you can see it in the Louvre museum in Paris.

The laws laid down by Hammurabi they  covered crime, divorce and marriage, the rights of slave owners and slaves, the settlement of debts, inheritance and property contracts; there were even regulations about taxes and the price of goods.

Punishments under the code were often harsh. The cruel principle of revenge was observed: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (criminals had to receive punishment precisely those injuries and damages they had inflicted upon their victims). Many offenders and even innocent people faced the death penalty. In addition, the new laws took account of the circumstances of the offender as well as the offence. So a lower ranking citizen who lost a civil case would be fined less than an aristocrat in the same position.

In the seventh century B.C., Draco drew up Greece’s 1^st written code of laws. Under this code death was the punishment for most offences. Draco’s laws were so severe that they were written not in ink but in blood.