The Oldest Code of Laws in the World by King of Babylonia Hammurabi (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

§ 195.  If a man has struck his father, his hands one shall cut off.

§ 196.  If a man has caused the loss of a gentleman’s eye, his eye one shall cause to be lost.

§ 197.  If he has shattered a gentleman’s limb, one shall shatter his limb.

§ 198.  If he has caused a poor man to lose his eye or shattered a poor man’s limb, he shall pay one mina of silver.

§ 199.  If he has caused the loss of the eye of a gentleman’s servant or has shattered the limb of a gentleman’s servant, he shall pay half his price.

§ 200.  If a man has made the tooth of a man that is his equal to fall out, one shall make his tooth fall out.

§ 201.  If he has made the tooth of a poor man to fall out, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

§ 202.  If a man has struck the strength of a man who is great above him, he shall be struck in the assembly with sixty strokes of a cow-hide whip.

§ 203.  If a man of gentle birth has struck the strength of a man of gentle birth who is like himself, he shall pay one mina of silver.

§ 204.  If a poor man has struck the strength of a poor man, he shall pay ten shekels of silver.

§ 205.  If a gentleman’s servant has struck the strength of a free-man, one shall cut off his ear.

§ 206.  If a man has struck a man in a quarrel, and has caused him a wound, that man shall swear ‘I do not strike him knowing’ and shall answer for the doctor.

§ 207.  If he has died of his blows, he shall swear, and if he be of gentle birth he shall pay half a mina of silver.

§ 208.  If he be the son of a poor man, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

§ 209.  If a man has struck a gentleman’s daughter and caused her to drop what is in her womb, he shall pay ten shekels of silver for what was in her womb.

§ 210.  If that woman has died, one shall put to death his daughter.

§ 211.  If the daughter of a poor man through his blows he has caused to drop that which is in her womb, he shall pay five shekels of silver.

§ 212.  If that woman has died, he shall pay half a mina of silver.

§ 213.  If he has struck a gentleman’s maidservant and caused her to drop that which is in her womb, he shall pay two shekels of silver.

§ 214.  If that maidservant has died, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

§ 215.  If a doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a bronze lancet and has cured the man, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman with the bronze lancet and has cured the eye of the gentleman, he shall take ten shekels of silver.

§ 216.  If he (the patient) be the son of a poor man, he shall take five shekels of silver.

§ 217.  If he be a gentleman’s servant, the master of the servant shall give two shekels of silver to the doctor.

§ 218.  If the doctor has treated a gentleman for a severe wound with a lancet of bronze and has caused the gentleman to die, or has opened an abscess of the eye for a gentleman with the bronze lancet and has caused the loss of the gentleman’s eye, one shall cut off his hands.

§ 219.  If a doctor has treated the severe wound of a slave of a poor man with a bronze lancet and has caused his death, he shall render slave for slave.

§ 220.  If he has opened his abscess with a bronze lancet and has made him lose his eye, he shall pay money, half his price.

§ 221.  If a doctor has cured the shattered limb of a gentleman, or has cured the diseased bowel, the patient shall give five shekels of silver to the doctor.

§ 222.  If it is the son of a poor man, he shall give three shekels of silver.

§ 223.  If a gentleman’s servant, the master of the slave shall give two shekels of silver to the doctor.

§ 224.  If a cow doctor or a sheep doctor has treated a cow or a sheep for a severe wound and cured it, the owner of the cow or sheep shall give one-sixth of a shekel of silver to the doctor as his fee.

§ 225.  If he has treated a cow or a sheep for a severe wound and has caused it to die, he shall give a quarter of its price to the owner of the ox or sheep.

§ 226.  If a brander without consent of the owner of the slave has branded a slave with an indelible mark, one shall cut off the hands of that brander.

§ 227.  If a man has deceived the brander, and has caused him to brand an indelible mark on the slave, that man one shall kill him and bury him in his house, the brander shall swear, ‘Not knowing I branded him,’ and shall go free.

§ 228.  If a builder has built a house for a man and has completed it, he shall give him as his fee two shekels of silver per sar of house.

§ 229.  If a builder has built a house for a man and has not made strong his work, and the house he built has fallen, and he has caused the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.

§ 230.  If he has caused the son of the owner of the house to die, one shall put to death the son of that builder.

§ 231.  If he has caused the slave of the owner of the house to die, he shall give slave for slave to the owner of the house.

§ 232.  If he has caused the loss of goods, he shall render back whatever he has caused the loss of, and because he did not make strong the house he built, and it fell, from his own goods he shall rebuild the house that fell.

§ 233.  If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not jointed his work, and the wall has fallen, that builder at his own cost shall make good that wall.

§ 234.  If a boatman has navigated a ship of sixty gur for a man, he shall give him two shekels of silver for his fee.

§ 235.  If a boatman has navigated a ship for a man and has not made his work trustworthy, and in that same year that he worked that ship it has suffered an injury, the boatman shall exchange that ship or shall make it strong at his own expense and shall give a strong ship to the owner of the ship.

§ 236.  If a man has given his ship to a boatman, on hire, and the boatman has been careless, has grounded the ship, or has caused it to be lost, the boatman shall render ship for ship to the owner.

§ 237.  If a man has hired a boatman and ship, and with corn, wool, oil, dates, or whatever it be as freight, has freighted her, that boatman has been careless and grounded the ship, or has caused what is in her to be lost, the boatman shall render back the ship which he has grounded and whatever in her he has caused to be lost.

§ 238.  If a boatman has grounded the ship of a man and has refloated her, he shall give money to half her price.

§ 239.  If a man has hired a boatman, he shall give him six gur of corn per year.

§ 240.  If a ship that is going forward has struck a ship at anchor and has sunk her, the owner of the ship that has been sunk whatever he has lost in his ship shall recount before God, and that of the ship going forward which sunk the ship at anchor shall render to him his ship and whatever of his was lost.

§ 241.  If a man has taken an ox on distraint, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

§ 242.  If a man has hired a working ox for one year, he shall pay four gur of corn as its hire.

§ 243.  If a milch cow, he shall give three gur of corn to its owner.

§ 244.  If a man has hired an ox or sheep and a lion has killed it in the open field, that loss is for its owner forsooth.

§ 245.  If a man has hired an ox and through neglect or by blows has caused it to die, ox for ox to the owner of the ox he shall render.

§ 246.  If a man has hired an ox and has crushed its foot or has cut its nape, ox for ox to the owner of the ox he shall render.

§ 247.  If a man has hired an ox and has caused it to lose its eye, he shall pay half its price to the owner of the ox.

§ 248.  If a man has hired an ox, and has crushed its horn, cut off its tail, or pierced its nostrils, he shall pay a quarter of its price.

§ 249.  If a man has hired an ox, and God has struck it and it has died, the man who has hired the ox shall swear before God and shall go free.

§ 250.  If a wild bull in his charge has gored a man and caused him to die, that case has no remedy.

§ 251.  If the ox has pushed a man, by pushing has made known his vice, and he has not blunted his horn, has not shut up his ox, and that ox has gored a man of gentle birth and caused him to die, he shall pay half a mina of silver.

§ 252.  If a gentleman’s servant, he shall pay one-third of a mina of silver.

§ 253.  If a man has hired a man to reside in his field and has furnished him seed, has entrusted him the oxen and harnessed them for cultivating the field—if that man has stolen the corn or plants, and they have been seized in his hands, one shall cut off his hands.

§ 254.  If he has taken the seed, worn out the oxen, from the seed which he has hoed he shall restore.

§ 255.  If he has hired out the oxen of the man or has stolen the corn and has not caused it to grow in the field, that man one shall put him to account and he shall measure out sixty gur of corn per gan of land.

§ 256.  If his compensation he is not able to pay, one shall remove the oxen from that field.

§ 257.  If a man has hired a harvester, he shall give him