The Place of the Code in Comparative Law.
As early as October and November, 1902, there appeared Le Code Babylonien d’Hammourabi in the Journal des Savants (Paris, Hachette), by R. Dareste, giving a luminous account of the subject-matter of the Code, illustrating it by comparison with a number of ancient legislations. He, of course, based his conclusions entirely upon Scheil’s translation, but his work still remains most valuable. In 1903 appeared Schmersahl’s Das älteste Gesetzbuch der Welt: Die Gesetze Hammurabis in the Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, pp. 111 ff. R. Dareste also published Le Code Babylonien d’Hammourabi in the Nouvelle Revue historique de droit français et étranger (Paris, Larose, January and February, 1903). Hammurapi und das Salische Recht, by H. Fehr (Bonn, Marcus & Weber, 1910), is a very remarkable study.
A first-rate work was G. Cohn’s lecture, Die Gesetze Hammurabis (Zürich, Füssli, 1903). Kohler and Müller (see pp. 67, 69) have to be weighed.
C. Stooss in his article Das babylonische Strafrecht Hammurabis, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Strafrecht, vol. xvi (Basel, Georg, 1903), took up the question of ‘Crimes and Punishments’, on which see also the article with that title by T. G. Pinches in The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, iv, pp. 256 ff.; and Imprisonment, by the same author, iv, pp. 260 ff. Die peinlichen Strafen im Kriegs-und Rechtswesen der Babylonier und Assyrer, by J. Jelitto (Breslau, 1913), adds considerably to the subject. Compare also Zum ältesten Strafrecht der Kulturvölker, by Th. Mommsen and others (Leipzig, Duncker, 1905).
The judicial procedure remains in many points obscure despite the fine Essai sur l’organisation judiciaire de la Chaldée à l’époque de la première dynastie babylonienne, by Ed. Cuq, in the Revue d’Assyriologie, 1910, pp. 65-101, which records most known facts; Commentaire juridique d’un jugement sous Ammiditana, by the same author in the same journal, 1910, pp. 129-38; and again Un procès criminel à Babylone sous le règne de Samsou-iluna, 1911, pp. 173-81. P. Dhorme discussed in the same volume, p. 99, Un appel sous Samsou-iluna. A Legal Episode in Ancient Babylonian Family Life, in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1910, pp. 81-92, 129-42, is by W. T. Pilter.
The tenure of land was elucidated by H. Winckler in Zum babylonisch-chaldäischen Feudalwesen, in Altorientalische Forschungen, i, pp. 497-503. La Propriété foncière en Chaldée, by Ed. Cuq (Paris, Larose, 1907), chiefly deals with later developments; as do the articles by J. OPPERT, Le droit de retrait lignager à Ninive in the Comptes rendus of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Paris, 1898), and Das assyrische Landrecht in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, xiii, pp. 243-76 (Weimar, 1898).
The position of some classes or castes named will be dealt with under the Lexicography of the Code, pp. 74 ff. The Consecrated Women of the Hammurabi Code is an important essay by D. G. Lyon in the Studies in the History of Religions presented to Crawford Howell Toy (New York, The Macmillan Co., 1912), pp. 341-60. See also Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden aus der Zeit der Hammurabi-Dynastie, by S. Daiches (Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1903).
The view of law as sworn contract has importance enough to be specially considered. It was early discovered in the so-called contracts which were once regarded as legal decisions. We may refer to Sworn Obligations under Egyptian and Babylonian Law, by E. and V. Revillout, and Sworn Obligations in Babylonian Law by the same authors in The Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. i, no. 7, and vol. ii, no. 1. A. Ungnad pointed out Eine neue Form der Beglaubigung in altbabylonischen Urkunden in the Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung, 1906, cols. 163-4. The whole subject was taken up by S. A. B. Mercer in his dissertation on The Oath in Babylonian and Assyrian Literature (Munich, 1911).
The idea underlying the appeal to the ordeal is closely allied to that of the oath, and F. E. Peiser wrote Zum Ordal bei Babyloniern in the Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung, 1911, cols. 477-9.
The importance of the family in the Code and Babylonian Law in general has led to several monographs. Le Mariage à Babylone, by Ed. Cuq (Paris, Lecoffre, 1905), and Zur Terminologie im Eherecht bei Hammurabi, by D. H. Müller, in the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, xix, pp. 352-8, deal chiefly with the Code. L. Freund’s Zur Geschichte des Ehegutrechtes bei den Semiten (Vienna, A. Hölder, 1909) chiefly deals with Jewish custom. Liebe und Ehe im alten Orient, by F. Freiherr von Reitzenstein (Stuttgart, Franckh, 1909), devotes pp. 51 to 70 to the Babylonian side. Of course, W. Robertson Smith’s Kinship and Marriage will be consulted in its new edition by S. A. Cook (London, A. & C. Black, 1903).
Closely connected are other questions as to the status of women. Already in 1892 J. Oppert was able to make out much about Liberté de la femme à Babylone in the Revue d’Assyriologie, ii, pp. 89-90. V. Marx discussed Die Stellung der Frauen in Babylonien in the Beiträge zur Assyriologie, iv, pp. 1-77.
Slavery in Babylonia was very different from either Roman or modern ideals. As long ago as 1888 J. Oppert had made out much from the legal documents of later times in his article La condition des esclaves à Babylone in the Comptes rendus of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres for that year. Br. Meissner had written a dissertation in 1882, De servitute babylonico-assyriaca (Leipzig), which still deserves to be consulted. M. Schorr wrote Arbeitsruhetage im alten Babylonien in Revue Sémitique, 1912, pp. 398-9.
The questions of guarantee, security, &c., are finely treated by P. Koschaker in his work, Babylonisch-assyrisches Bürgschaftsrecht (Leipzig, Teubner, 1911).
Business in general is well dealt with by Fr. Delitzsch in his Handel und Wandel in Altbabylonien (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1910). Die Commenda im islamischen Rechte, by J. Kohler (Würzburg, Stahel, 1885), is to be compared.
Aus dem altbabylonischen Recht, by Br. Meissner, in Der alte Orient, vii, Heft 1, 1905 (Leipzig, Hinrichs), is excellent.
On the whole subject of Babylonian law a valuable treatise is P. Koschaker’s article, The Scope and Methods of a History of Assyrio-Babylonian Laws in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1913, pp. 230-43. Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts, and Letters, by the present writer, in The Library of Ancient Inscriptions (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1904), and the articles on Babylonian Law, by the same author, in The Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. iii, 1910, may be consulted, pp. 115-21, and in The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. The French jurist, Ed. Cuq, in his Notes d’épigraphie et de papyrologie, published in the Nouvelle Revue historique du droit français et étranger (Paris, L. Larose), 1906-1909, discussed many points of Le Droit babylonien au temps de la Première Dynastie de Babylone.