Stele of Hammurabi, Louvre, Paris.
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PROLOGUE: "to cause justice to shine in the land, to destroy the
wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak....[Marduk]
commissioned me to guide the people of the land aright, I established
right and justice in the language of the land, thereby promoting the
welfare of the people."
If a man strikes out the eye of a patrician, they shall strike out his
eye; if he has broken a patrician’s bone, they shall break his
bone;...if he has struck out the eye of a man’s slave or broken the
bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay half his price.
If a builder has built a house for a man and has not made his work
sound, so that the house he has made falls down and causes the death of
the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death. If it causes
the death of the son of the owner of the house, they shall kill the son
of that builder.
EPILOGUE: In order that the strong might not oppress the weak...I wrote
my precious words on my stele...I set it up to administer the law of the
land, to prescribe the ordinances of the land, to give justice to the
oppressed. Let the wronged man who has a cause to go before my statue
named ‘King of Justice’, and let him have read out my inscribed
stele and let him hear my precious words; let my stele show him his
cause, let him see his judgment, let his heart be at ease. [Let future
rulers] pay attention to the words which I have inscribed on my stele
that [they] may thus make straight the way for his Black-headed Ones,
that he may judge their causes and decide their decisions, that he may
pluck out the evil and the wicked from his land, and make the flesh of
his people glad.
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