Hammurabi Hierarchy

The Code of Hammurabi was written by King Hammurabi, who had begun ruling the Babylonian Empire in 1800 BC. Hammurabi used his military leadership skills to conquer many smaller city-states. He believed that the Gods chose him to bring justice and order to his people. Shortly after Hammurabi’s rise in power he created his code of laws known as “The Code of Hammurabi”, which were written to upheld honesty, protect property rights, maintain social hierarchy and define all relationships and aspects of life. The laws were publicly displayed so that everyone would have the equal opportunity to understand and study them. The laws were expected to be followed by everyone. The punishment for breaking the laws were very severe, however they aided in the compliance of the citizens of the Mesopotamian society. Based on the way that these codes were written, Hammurabi assumed that everyone in the kingdom had the same values and morals that
Hammurabi made it very known of the class structure that he had, and the code was created with a certain structure in mind. The authority to mandate more severe punishments was given to the upper class people of the Mesopotamian society, however, they did receive harsher punishments if they broke the laws of the code of Hammurabi also. In addition, the middle class did not receive as much punishment or had to pay as much money for breaking the laws than any other class. The middle class civilians of the Babylonian society were not allowed to speak freely about religion, but more so they had to give money to the people they hurt and injured. For example, if a seignior struck the cheek of a member of the aristocracy, they shall cut off his ear. Since a slave has no money and is not as wealthy as the average upper class or middle class citizen, it made sense in Hammurabi’s thinking for them to sacrifice their body parts because they have nothing else to offer