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Law Code of Hammurabi
Code of Laws - paragraphs 1-65
1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove
it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.
2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the
river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take
possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty,
and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to
death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house
that had belonged to his accuser.
3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does
not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be
put to death.
4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall
receive the fine that the action produces.
5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in
writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own
fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he
shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit
there to render judgement.
6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put
to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put
to death.
7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses
or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass
or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be
put to death.
8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it
belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; 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.
9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if
the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me,
I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will
bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the
merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the
owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall
examine their testimony--both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid,
and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then
proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article
receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the
estate of the merchant.
10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before
whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then
the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the
lost article.
11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is
an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.
12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the
expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared within the six
months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of the pending case.
[editor's note: there is no 13th law in the code, 13 being considered and
unlucky and evil number]
14. If any one steal the minor son of another, he shall be put to death.
15. If any one take a male or female slave of the court, or a male or female
slave of a freed man, outside the city gates, he shall be put to death.
16. If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the
court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of
the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.
17. If any one find runaway male or female slaves in the open country and
bring them to their masters, the master of the slaves shall pay him two shekels
of silver.
18. If the slave will not give the name of the master, the finder shall bring
him to the palace; a further investigation must follow, and the slave shall be
returned to his master.
19. If he hold the slaves in his house, and they are caught there, he shall
be put to death.
20. If the slave that he caught run away from him, then shall he swear to the
owners of the slave, and he is free of all blame.
21. If any one break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put
to death before that hole and be buried.
22. If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to
death.
23. If the robber is not caught, then shall he who was robbed claim under
oath the amount of his loss; then shall the community, and . . . on whose ground
and territory and in whose domain it was compensate him for the goods
stolen.
24. If persons are stolen, then shall the community and . . . pay one mina of
silver to their relatives.
25. If fire break out in a house, and some one who comes to put it out cast
his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of
the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.
26. If a chieftain or a man (common soldier), who has been ordered to go upon
the king's highway for war does not go, but hires a mercenary, if he withholds
the compensation, then shall this officer or man be put to death, and he who
represented him shall take possession of his house.
27. If a chieftain or man be caught in the misfortune of the king (captured
in battle), and if his fields and garden be given to another and he take
possession, if he return and reaches his place, his field and garden shall be
returned to him, he shall take it over again.
28. If a chieftain or a man be caught in the misfortune of a king, if his son
is able to enter into possession, then the field and garden shall be given to
him, he shall take over the fee of his father.
29. If his son is still young, and can not take possession, a third of the
field and garden shall be given to his mother, and she shall bring him up.
30. If a chieftain or a man leave his house, garden, and field and hires it
out, and some one else takes possession of his house, garden, and field and uses
it for three years: if the first owner return and claims his house, garden, and
field, it shall not be given to him, but he who has taken possession of it and
used it shall continue to use it.
31. If he hire it out for one year and then return, the house, garden, and
field shall be given back to him, and he shall take it over again.
32. If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" (in war),
and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if he have the
means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself free: if he have
nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he shall be bought free by
the temple of his community; if there be nothing in the temple with which to buy
him free, the court shall buy his freedom. His field, garden, and house shall
not be given for the purchase of his freedom.
33. If a . . . or a . . . enter himself as withdrawn from the "Way of the
King," and send a mercenary as substitute, but withdraw him, then the . . . or .
. . shall be put to death.
34. If a . . . or a . . . harm the property of a captain, injure the captain,
or take away from the captain a gift presented to him by the king, then the . .
. or . . . shall be put to death.
35. If any one buy the cattle or sheep which the king has given to chieftains
from him, he loses his money.
36. The field, garden, and house of a chieftain, of a man, or of one subject
to quit-rent, can not be sold.
37. If any one buy the field, garden, and house of a chieftain, man, or one
subject to quit-rent, his contract tablet of sale shall be broken (declared
invalid) and he loses his money. The field, garden, and house return to their
owners.
38. A chieftain, man, or one subject to quit-rent can not assign his tenure
of field, house, and garden to his wife or daughter, nor can he assign it for a
debt.
39. He may, however, assign a field, garden, or house which he has bought,
and holds as property, to his wife or daughter or give it for debt.
40. He may sell field, garden, and house to a merchant (royal agents) or to
any other public official, the buyer holding field, house, and garden for its
usufruct.
41. If any one fence in the field, garden, and house of a chieftain, man, or
one subject to quit-rent, furnishing the palings therefor; if the chieftain,
man, or one subject to quit-rent return to field, garden, and house, the palings
which were given to him become his property.
42. If any one take over a field to till it, and obtain no harvest therefrom,
it must be proved that he did no work on the field, and he must deliver grain,
just as his neighbor raised, to the owner of the field.
43. If he do not till the field, but let it lie fallow, he shall give grain
like his neighbor's to the owner of the field, and the field which he let lie
fallow he must plow and sow and return to its owner.
44. If any one take over a waste-lying field to make it arable, but is lazy,
and does not make it arable, he shall plow the fallow field in the fourth year,
harrow it and till it, and give it back to its owner, and for each ten gan (a
measure of area) ten gur of grain shall be paid.
45. If a man rent his field for tillage for a fixed rental, and receive the
rent of his field, but bad weather come and destroy the harvest, the injury
falls upon the tiller of the soil.
46. If he do not receive a fixed rental for his field, but lets it on half or
third shares of the harvest, the grain on the field shall be divided
proportionately between the tiller and the owner.
47. If the tiller, because he did not succeed in the first year, has had the
soil tilled by others, the owner may raise no objection; the field has been
cultivated and he receives the harvest according to agreement.
48. If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or
the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he
need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water and
pays no rent for this year.
49. If any one take money from a merchant, and give the merchant a field
tillable for corn or sesame and order him to plant corn or sesame in the field,
and to harvest the crop; if the cultivator plant corn or sesame in the field, at
the harvest the corn or sesame that is in the field shall belong to the owner of
the field and he shall pay corn as rent, for the money he received from the
merchant, and the livelihood of the cultivator shall he give to the
merchant.
50. If he give a cultivated corn-field or a cultivated sesame-field, the corn
or sesame in the field shall belong to the owner of the field, and he shall
return the money to the merchant as rent.
51. If he have no money to repay, then he shall pay in corn or sesame in
place of the money as rent for what he received from the merchant, according to
the royal tariff.
52. If the cultivator do not plant corn or sesame in the field, the debtor's
contract is not weakened.
53. If any one be too lazy to keep his dam in proper condition, and does not
so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he
in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace
the corn which he has caused to be ruined.
54. If he be not able to replace the corn, then he and his possessions shall
be divided among the farmers whose corn he has flooded.
55. If any one open his ditches to water his crop, but is careless, and the
water flood the field of his neighbor, then he shall pay his neighbor corn for
his loss.
56. If a man let in the water, and the water overflow the plantation of his
neighbor, he shall pay ten gur of corn for every ten gan of land.
57. If a shepherd, without the permission of the owner of the field, and
without the knowledge of the owner of the sheep, lets the sheep into a field to
graze, then the owner of the field shall harvest his crop, and the shepherd, who
had pastured his flock there without permission of the owner of the field, shall
pay to the owner twenty gur of corn for every ten gan.
58. If after the flocks have left the pasture and been shut up in the common
fold at the city gate, any shepherd let them into a field and they graze there,
this shepherd shall take possession of the field which he has allowed to be
grazed on, and at the harvest he must pay sixty gur of corn for every ten
gan.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree
in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money.
60. If any one give over a field to a gardener, for him to plant it as a
garden, if he work at it, and care for it for four years, in the fifth year the
owner and the gardener shall divide it, the owner taking his part in charge.
61. If the gardener has not completed the planting of the field, leaving one
part unused, this shall be assigned to him as his.
62. If he do not plant the field that was given over to him as a garden, if
it be arable land (for corn or sesame) the gardener shall pay the owner the
produce of the field for the years that he let it lie fallow, according to the
product of neighboring fields, put the field in arable condition and return it
to its owner.
63. If he transform waste land into arable fields and return it to its owner,
the latter shall pay him for one year ten gur for ten gan.
64. If any one hand over his garden to a gardener to work, the gardener shall
pay to its owner two-thirds of the produce of the garden, for so long as he has
it in possession, and the other third shall he keep.
65. If the gardener do not work in the garden and the product fall off, the
gardener shall pay in proportion to other neighboring gardens.
[Here a portion of the text is missing, apparently comprising thirty-four
paragraphs.]
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