Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/129

judges, at the head of whom was a president. his parents should lose his or her tongue. The facts in the case were learned through In general the Old Testament principle of witnesses and written documents. The care an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" taken in this regard is evident from the fol is consistently carried out in this Babylonian lowing example: "If anybody has bought, or code. Among other things it says: "If a man received as a deposit, silver, or gold, or a knock out the eye of a freeman, his own eye male slave, or a female slave, or a steer, or a j shall be forfeited. If he break one of the sheep, or an ass, or anything else from a free members of a man, his own member shall be man or a slave without witnesses or written removed." But this rule applied only in the documents, he is to be treated as a thief and case of freemen. If the suffering party were shall be killed." a slave, a payment of money could make In some cases there was even an appeal good the wrong: the same was true of a freedmen. On the other hand, if an inferior to divine judgment. The accused was com pelled to go down into a stream of water, and struck a superior, he was punished with fifty if the river seized him" he was guilty; but lashes, and if he was a slave his ear was cut "if he remained in good health, he was in off. The lex talionis was carried so far that if nocent. In this way those charged with a surgeon was unsuccessful in performing an witchcraft and women accused of infidelity. operation, he was not entitled to any pay. If the patient died under the hand of the sur but not caught in the act, were tried. The punishments inflicted were severe. geon, the latter lost his hands, in case the Death was the penalty for witchcraft or for patient was a free man. If a slave died under false oath in capital cases, or for robbing a his hand, he must 'buy another. In case a temple or royal possessions. Any person builder made a failure of a structure he was who permitted a slave to escape, or harbored also punished with death. Whether impris an escaped slave, was punished by death, as onment was one method of punishing wrong was an official who failed to attend to his doers does not appear, but evidently if at all applied it was of comparatively small import duties himself but intrusted these to a sub stitute. The death penalty was inflicted ance. Money fines were, however, very com either by fire, or drowning, or impaling. The mon, and were proportionate to the wrong first method was applied in the case of those done. He who falsely claimed that another who during a fire had stolen goods. Drink- | was indebted to him must pay one-third of a mina. Freemen fighting were fined one mina. ing-pi aces were seemingly as much in dis credit at that age as they are now. We learn; Theft of an animal was punishable by a fine of thirty times its value. that such places were generally kept by wo men, and that they were headquarters for Hammurabi was much concerned for the dangerous political agitations. The code safety of his highways. A robber who at declares that if the landlady failed to report tacked a person on the public road was killed, dangerous inmates to the authorities, she or if he could not be found, then the commu was to die. A priestess was not allowed to nity in which the crime had taken place was enter such a drinking-place under penalty of fined a mina, in case the life of a human being death. Death by drowning was applied in had been lost. In addition to these forms of the case of an adulteress, "unless the husband punishment, transgressing officials could be grants his wife her life, and the king does the removed from office or banished from the city or the state. Some of the paragraphs same to his servant." Crimes of a less seri ous character were sometimes followed by throw strange light on the state of sexual loss of some member of the body, it being the morals in that period. Among other things, the priestesses and rule to cut off that member which had been guilty of the offence. In this way an adopted hierodule system, so imperfectly known daughter or adopted son who said to his from classical writers, are here for the first foster-father and mother that they were not time seen in their proper light.