THE TEXT OF THE CODE
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Hammurabi, King of Babylonia and Johns, C. H. W. (Claude Hermann Walter)
§ 194. If a man has given his son to a wet nurse, that son has died in the hand of the wet nurse, the wet nurse without consent of his father and his mother has procured another child, one shall put her to account, and because, without consent of his father and his mother, she has procured another child, one shall cut off her breasts.
§ 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.