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The Code of Hammurabi

Welcome! I'm really excited to explore this ancient masterpiece of justice with you today.

To help me tailor our session, could you let me know what sparked your interest in the Code of Hammurabi, and if you have any background knowledge on it already?

I've heard 'an eye for an eye' and want to know where it came from.

It's awesome that you're curious about "an eye for an eye"! That famous phrase actually traces right back to the , a highly sophisticated legal text created in ancient around 1750 BCE.
To understand where this code came from, we have to look at the man who ordered it to be carved: King Hammurabi. He ruled Babylon from roughly 1792 to 1750 BCE, a time when Mesopotamia was a chaotic patchwork of city-states constantly fighting for power. Hammurabi's big goal wasn't just to conquer his neighbors, but to unite them under one stable system. By carving his laws in public view, he made sure everyone—from the wealthy elite to the average laborer—knew exactly what the rules of the empire were.

Continue to see how 'an eye for an eye' actually worked in his code

To understand how "an eye for an eye" actually functioned, we have to look at the legal principle of , which is Latin for the law of retaliation. While the punishments in the Code of Hammurabi can seem incredibly brutal to us today, this principle was actually designed to scale back violence, serving as an ancient form of damage control.
Before these laws were chiseled into stone, a simple dispute between two families could easily trigger an escalating blood feud that lasted for generations. By declaring that the state would step in to execute a punishment that was exactly equal to the offense—and absolutely no greater—Hammurabi successfully capped the cycle of runaway vengeance. It was a mathematical approach to justice: the penalty must balance the scale of the crime, replacing unchecked rage with predictable, state-regulated retribution.

Did this law apply equally to everyone in Babylon?

To answer your question directly: no, the law absolutely did not apply equally. While "an eye for an eye" sounds like a universal rule, in reality, justice in was strictly dictated by a rigid, three-tiered social class system.
Your place on the social ladder decided exactly how much your eye—or your life—was worth under the law. Babylonian society was split into three distinct legal classes:
  1. The Amelu: This was the elite ruling class, consisting of patricians, government officials, priests, and wealthy landowners.
  2. The Mushkenu: These were free commoners. They were working-class citizens, such as farmers, merchants, and artisans. They had legal rights, but held far less influence than the elite.
  3. The Ardu: These were the slaves. They were viewed legally as property, though they were still allowed to own some property of their own and even marry free people under certain conditions.
Because of this divide, the exact same crime would have three completely different outcomes depending on who did what to whom. If an elite amelu blinded another elite, the state took their eye as direct retribution. But if that same elite blinded a commoner, they didn't lose an eye—they just had to pay a cash fine of one mina of silver (roughly $500 today). And if they blinded a slave, they only had to pay the slave's owner half of the slave's market value in cash to cover the "damaged property."

Tell me history of slaves

To understand the history of slaves in Babylon, we have to look at the legal status of the , who occupied the very bottom of the Babylonian social hierarchy.
Under the Code of Hammurabi, enslaved people were legally treated as the personal property of their masters. This meant that if an elite or commoner harmed an ardu, the financial compensation went directly to the owner, not the enslaved person, because it was viewed as damage to property. However, unlike chattel slavery in later historical periods, Babylonian slaves still possessed some distinct legal rights, such as the ability to marry free citizens, run businesses, and eventually buy their own freedom if they accumulated enough wealth.