Hammurabi’s Code, written almost 3,700 years ago, tried to achieve a balance between crime and punishment. The Code was based on the concept of lex talionis, a written code of retaliation. The phrase "an eye for an eye" was first written in the Code of Hammurabi. It meant that if one man poked out the eye of another, then he should lose his own eye. He should not, that is, have his home burned down and his family killed. Hammurabi’s code tried to balance crime and punishment.
The Ten Commandments of the Israelites added another dimension to the concept of punishment--divine retribution. According to the Israelites, anyone who broke one of the Ten Commandments would face divine retribution--vengeful punishment from God for breaking His laws.
Both of these legal codes were created well before Greek or Roman civilization emerged. It was the Greeks, however, who first introduced the practice of using juries to determine guilt and decide punishment. The Romans adopted the Greek legal code and made changes to it. Try this Hidden Answer activity to learn more, click on the legal system to reveal the result.
| The Event | The Legal System | The Result: Greece or Rome? |
| Socrates was found guilty of ungodliness. | He was condemned to death. | Greece; The philosopher was narrowly convicted by a jury of worshiping gods other than those of his city, and of corrupting the youth of Athens. He drank poisonous hemlock. |
| A man is convicted of a crime. | He is sentenced to exile. | Rome; This was a harsh sentence almost as bad as death. It was illegal for anyone to give an exiled man food or shelter, and illegal for him to make a fire or use drinking water. |
| Men are attending a trial out of curiosity. | They are recruited to serve as jurors | Greece; There was no limit to the number of men who could serve on a jury; there are records of up to 2,000 men being involved (men only—women and slaves could not participate in the legal system). |
| A minor crime is committed. | The criminal is sentenced to death. | Greece and Rome; Minor crimes such as calling someone a name in public could be punished with the same harshness as murder. |
| A law is written. | It must represent what the society considers to be natural law. | Greece and Rome; The Greeks developed the concept of natural law, which they felt reflected the will of the gods. This was opposed to secular law, based on principles of objective justice, which developed later. |
Question
How do the criminal penalties of the Greeks and Romans differ from those in the Code of Hammurabi?
