Babylonian law is a subset of cuneiform law that has received particular study due to the large amount of archaeological material that has been found for it. So-called "contracts" exist in the thousands, including a great variety of deeds, conveyances, bonds, receipts, accounts, and most important of all, actual legal decisions given by the judges in the law courts. Historical inscriptions, royal charters and rescripts, dispatches, private letters and the general literature afford welcome supplementary information. Even grammatical and lexicographical texts contain many extracts or short sentences bearing on law and custom. The so-called "Sumerian Family Laws" are preserved in this way.
Other cultures involved with ancient Mesopotamia shared the same common laws and precedents extending to the form of contracts that Kenneth Kitchen has studied and compared to the form of contracts in the Bible with particular note to the sequence of blessings and curses that bind the deal. The Maxims of Ptahhotep and Sharia Law,Conduct of a Physician, Adabo alto-Tabibo, by Ishsāq ibmn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī also include certifications for professionals like doctors, lawyers and skilled craftsmen which prescribe penalties for malpractice very similar to the code of Hammurabi.
The discovery of the now-celebrated Code of Hammurabi (hereinafter simply termed "the Code") has made possible a more systematic study than could have resulted from just the classification and interpretation of other material. Fragments of other Ancient codes exist and have been published, but there still remain many points whereof evidence is still lacking. There survive legal texts from the earliest writings through the Hellenistic period, but evidence on a particular point may be very full for one period and almost entirely lacking for another. The Code forms the backbone of most reconstructions. Fragments of it recovered from Assur-bani-pal's library at Nineveh and later Babylonian copies show that it was studied, divided into chapters, entitled Ninu ilu sirum from its incipit (opening words), and recopied for fifteen hundred years or more.
Much Babylonian legal precedent remained in force, even through the Persian, Greek and Parthian conquests, which had little effect on private life in Babylonia; and it survived to influence Romans. The laws and customs that preceded the Code may be called "early"; that of the Neo-Babylonian empire (as well as the Persian, Greek, etc.), "late". The law of Assyria was derived from the Babylonian, but it conserved early features long after they had disappeared elsewhere.
History
Tribal influence The early history of Mesopotamia is the story of a struggle for supremacy between the cities. A metropolis demanded tribute and military support from its subject cities but left their local cults and customs unaffected. City rights and usages were respected by kings and conquerors alike. When the ancient Semitic-speaking peoples settled in the cities of Mesopotamia, their tribal customs passed over into city law.
As late as the accession of Assur-bani-pal and Shamash-shum-ukin, we find the Babylonians appending 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 multi-ethnic 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.
Hammurabi's Code
By Hammurabi's time, almost all trace of tribal custom had already disappeared from the law of the Code. It is state law—self-help, blood-feud, and marriage by capture, are all absent; though code of family solidarity, district responsibility, ordeal, and the lex talionis (an eye for an eye), 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. Judges are strictly supervised, and appeal is allowed. The whole land is covered with feudal holdings, masters of the levy, police, etc. 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.from Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910-11
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 records of judicial decisions and that intercourse had assimilated city custom. The universal habit of writing, and perpetual recourse to written contract, further modified primitive custom and ancient precedent.
If the parties themselves could agree to the terms, the Code as a rule left them free to make contracts. Their deed of agreement was drawn up in the temple by a notary public and confirmed with 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 executed may have been sufficient guarantee that its stipulations were not impious or illegal. Custom or public opinion doubtlessly ensured that the parties would not agree to "wrong". If a dispute arose, 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. 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 returned to the judges with orders to decide in accordance with it. The Code itself was carefully and logically arranged, its sections arranged by subject matter. Nevertheless, the order is not that of modern scientific treatises, so a somewhat different order than either is most convenient for our purpose.
See also: English translation of Hammurabi's Code
Three classes
The Code contemplates the whole population as falling into three classes: the avilum, the mushkenu and the ardu.
The avilum was originally a patrician, a man from an elite family, possessed of full civil rights, whose birth, marriage and death were registered. He had aristocratic privileges and responsibilities, and the right to exact retaliation for corporal injuries, but was liable to a heavier punishment for crimes and misdemeanours, higher fees and fines. To this class belonged the king and court, the higher officials, the professions and craftsmen. Over time, the term became a mere courtesy title—already in the Code, when status is not concerned, it is used to denote anyone. There was no property qualification, nor does the term appear to be racial.
It is most difficult to characterize the mushkenu exactly. The term in time came to mean "a beggar", and that meaning has passed through Aramaic and Hebrew into many modern languages; but though the Code does not regard him as necessarily poor, he may have been landless. He was free but had to accept monetary compensation for corporal injuries, paid smaller fees and fines, and even paid less offerings to the gods. He inhabited a separate quarter of the city. There is no reason to regard him as specially connected with the court, as a royal pensioner, nor as forming the bulk of the population. The rarity of any references to him in contemporary documents makes further specification conjectural.
The ardu was a slave, his master's chattel, and formed a very numerous class. He could acquire property and even own other slaves. His master clothed and fed him and paid his doctor's fees, but took all compensation paid for injury done to him. His master usually found him a slave girl for a wife (the children were then born slaves), often set him up in a house (with farm or business) and simply took an annual rent of him. Otherwise, he might marry a free woman (the children were then free), who might bring him a dower that his master could not touch, and at his death, one-half of his property passed to his master as his heir. He could acquire his freedom by purchase from his master, or might be freed and dedicated to a temple, or even adopted, when he became an amelu and not a mushkenu. Slaves were recruited by purchase abroad, from captives taken in war, or by freemen degraded for debt or crime. A slave often ran away; if caught, the captor was bound to restore him to his master, and the Code fixes a reward of two shekels that the owner must pay the captor. It was about one-tenth of the average value of a slave. To detain or harbour a slave was punishable by death. So was aiding him to escape the city gates. A slave bore an identification mark, removable only by a surgical operation, that later consisted of his owner's name tattooed or branded on the arm. On the other hand, on the great estates in Assyria and its subject provinces there were many serfs, mostly of subject race, settled captives, or quondam slaves; tied to the soil they cultivated and sold with the estate, yet capable of possessing land and property of their own. There is little trace of serfs in Babylonia, unless the mushkenu is really a serf.
Citizens tenants of gods The god of a city was originally considered the owner of its land, which encircled it with an inner ring of irrigable arable land and an outer fringe of pasture; the citizens were his tenants. The god and his vice regent, the king, had long ceased to disturb tenancy and were content with fixed dues in naturalia, stock, money or service.
One of the earliest monuments records the purchase by a king of a large estate for his son, paying a fair market price and adding a handsome honorarium to the many owners, in costly garments, plate, and precious articles of furniture. The Code recognizes complete private ownership of land but apparently extends the right to hold land to votaries and merchants; but all land sold was subject to its fixed charges. The king, however, could free land from these charges by charter, which was a frequent way of rewarding those who deserved well of the state.
It is from these charters that we learn of the obligations lying upon land. The state demanded men for the army and the corvée, as well as dues in kind. A certain area was bound to provide a bowman, together with his linked pikeman (who bore the shield for both), and to furnish them with supplies for the campaign. This area was termed a "bow" as early as the 8th century BC, but the practice goes back much earlier. Later, a horseman was also due from certain areas. A man was only bound to serve a certain number of times, but the land still had to find a man annually. This service was usually discharged by slaves and serfs, but the amelu (and perhaps the mushkenu) also went to war. The bows were grouped together in tens and hundreds. The corvée was less regular. Special liabilities also lay upon riparian owners to repair canals, bridges, quays, etc. The letters of Hammurabi often deal with claims to exemption. Religious officials and shepherds in charge of flocks were exempt from military duty.