iting to a Greek audience in the early 4th Century B.C., does not appear to have been aware of Hammurabi. He focuses on conquest of the city of Babylon by the Persian kings Darius and Cyrus, in the 6th Century B.C. (Herodotus 117-18).
Hayes, Baldwin, and Cole cite "what was to become a remarkable centralized administration" under Hammurabi, even though the Babylonian Empire fell into factional disarray fairly quickly after his death, opening the way for the Hittite destruction of Babylon in 1750 B.C. (8). But the failure of the first Babylonian Empire does not dilute the contribution that the Code made to the development of social organization in Mesopotamia.
Historians agree that the Code represented a systematic attempt to foster disinterested, impartial state governance--at least as the concept was understood in a context of the fusion of autocracy, patriarchy, and theocracy. Wells cites Hammurabi's enunciation of the Code in terms of "the utmost politeness to the gods" (184). An inscription shows Hammurabi receiving the Code from its "nominal promulgator, the god Shamash" (Wells 184), evidence of the fusion of divine and secular authority.
Class distinctions were recognized. There were wealthy landed magnates, a priest class, petty landowners, tenants bound to the soil . . . Slavery also existed. Punishments, often severe, and . . . based on the primitive "eye for an eye" principle, were graded accordingly. But . . . [w]oman's position was generally higher than in other lands . . . Thus, although . . . religion and government were theoreti cally inseparable and the king's power was considered to be of divine origin, a regard for individual rights and prop erty moderated an otherwise autocratic governmental system (Hayes, Baldwin, and Cole 10).
The Code text reflects practical realities of the physical environment of Babylonia, which was dominated by subsistence agriculture. Wells describes farmers in both Babylonia and...