Hammurabi

“ If a chieftain or a man is captured on the "Way of the King" (in war) , and a merchant buy him free, and bring him back to his place; if he have the means in his house to buy his freedom, he shall buy himself free: if he have nothing in his house with which to buy himself free, he shall be bought free by the temple of his community; if there be nothing in the temple with which to buy him free, the court shall buy his freedom. His field, garden, and house shall not be given for the purchase of his freedom. ”

“ Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, who keeps aloft all ways of life, the master of the courage of life, shall break up his kingdom, shall not carry out his right, shall stop his road, shall destroy the courage of his troops, in his dreams face bad prophecies with the extermination of the foundations of his throne and prophesy the downfall of his country. ”

“ If a man obtain money from a merchant and give (as security) to the merchant a field to be planted with grain and sesame (and) say to him: "Cultivate the field, and take to thyself the grain and sesame which is produced;" if the tenant raise grain and sesame in the field, at the time of harvest, the owner of the field shall receive the grain and sesame which is in the field and he shall give to the merchant grain for the loan which he had obtained from him and for the interest and for the maintenance of the tenant. ”

“ May she create disorder and sedition for him, strike down his warriors, that the earth may drink their blood, and throw down the piles of corpses of his warriors on the field; may she not grant him a life of mercy, deliver him into the hands of his enemies, and imprison him in the land of his enemies. ”

“ If a man take a wife and she give this man a maid-servant as wife and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her for money, but he may keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the maid-servants. ”

“ May Nergal, the mighty among the gods, whose contest is irresistible, who grants me victory, in his great might burn up his subjects like a slender reed-stalk, cut off his limbs with his mighty weapons, and shatter him like an earthen image. May Nin-tu, the sublime mistress of the lands, the fruitful mother, deny him a son, vouchsafe him no name, give him no successor among men. ”

“ But if a father during his lifetime have not said to the children which the maid servant bore him: "My children;" after the father dies, the children of the maid servant shall not share in the goods of the father's house with the children of the wife. The maid servant and her children shall be given their freedom. The children of the wife may not lay claim to the children of the maid servant for service. The wife shall receive her dowry and the gift which her husband gave and deeded to her on a tablet and she may dwell in the house of her husband and enjoy (the property) as long as she lives. ”

“ If a state slave or the slave of a freedman marries anyone's daughter, and after he has married her and she has moved into that one's house, taking with her the dowry of her father's house, they both have settled down and founded a household of their own, have acquired wealth, and thereupon that slave dies, then this freeborn woman shall take her dowry and all that which she and her husband have acquired since their settling down ”

“ If a man wish to separate from a woman who has borne him children, or from his wife who has borne him children: then he shall give that wife her dowry, and a part of the usufruct of field, garden, and property, so that she can rear her children. When she has brought up her children, a portion of all that is given to the children, equal as that of one son, shall be given to her. She may then marry the man of her heart. ”

“ If any one owe a debt for a loan, and a storm prostrates the grain, or the harvest fail, or the grain does not grow for lack of water; in that year he need not give his creditor any grain, he washes his debt-tablet in water [a symbolic action indicating the inability to pay] and pays no rent for this year. ”

“ Judgment of Shamash shall overtake him at once, up among the living, cast down his spirit to the earth. He shall let him do without water among the living, without his spirit under the earth. Sin, the lord of the lord of the heaven, the god-father, whose sickle flares up among the gods, shall deprive him of crown and royal throne; the heavy guilt, the great offence, he will not soften ”

“ If a man's wife, who lives in his house, wishes to leave it, plunges into debt, tries to ruin her house, neglects her husband, and is judicially convicted: if her husband offer her release, she may go on her way, and he gives her nothing as a gift of release. If her husband does not wish to release her, and if he take another wife, she shall remain as servant in her husband's house. ”

“ If that prince heeds my words which I have written in my inscription and does not injure my law, and does not misunderstand my words, does not injure my memorial, so may to that prince as to me, the king of righteousness, Shamash, make his rule long, his subjects he shall rule in justice. If that prince does not heed my words which I have written in my inscription he shall have my curse and contempt ”

“ If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death. ”

“ Istar, the goddess of battle and slaughter, who frees my weapons, my generous protecting deity, who loves my kingdom, in her angry heart, in her great grimness, shall she curse his kingdom, shall turn his benevolence into misfortune and break his weapon at the place of slaughter and battle. ”