Abstract
Hammurabi’s Code placed great value upon the slave as property, not as a human being. The slave’s value appeared to be measured by the degree to which he or she could perform work for the slave-owner. Grave punishments were inflicted upon a man who deprived another of his slave. While assaults upon freemen resulting in injury or death were punished in draconian fashion, monetary damages were the measure of reparation for the injury or wrongful death of a slave and were payable not to the slave or his family, but to the slave-owner. Liability for professional malpractice or negligence resulting in the injury of a slave was not punishable in the “eye for an eye” manner of much of the Code, but by monetary penalties reflecting loss of services to the slave-owner. Slaves could be pawned and redeemed like chattel.
The Code of Hammurabi placed great value upon the slave – as property, not as a human being. An examination of the sections of the Code that deal with slaves will demonstrate that slaves were valued as chattel.
A man who participated in the escape of a slave, male or female, of the palace or of a commoner, or who harbored any fugitive slave in his home and did not reveal the presence of that slave when demand was made, would be put to death, so valuable an asset was the slave considered to be to the slave-owner (Code, §§15 and 16). Conversely, if a man captured a runaway slave and returned him to his owner, he would be rewarded with silver (Code, §17). If a captured runaway slave refused to identify his owner, the man capturing him was obligated to turn the slave over to the authorities so that the owner could be found. If a man retained a slave who would not identify his owner in his own home and the slave were discovered there, the man would forfeit his life (code, §§18-19). However, if a captured slave escaped, the man who captured him need only swear an oath to the slave-owner that the slave had escaped and he would not be liable (Code, §20).
However, it appears that the slave was valued only as property, an asset that could perform useful labor, not as a human life. If the slave were killed or injured, the penalty imposed was not payable to the slave or his family for the loss of life or limb, but was payable to the slave-owner in an amount commensurate with the damage to the slave-owner’s property as loss of services of the slave. For example, if a man’s freeborn servant were imprisoned by a creditor and died in prison of maltreatment, the master of the slain servant could bring the creditor before a judge. The creditor’s son would be put to death. However, if the imprisoned debtor were a slave, the master would receive gold. This illustrates the disparity of the intrinsic value placed upon the life of a free man and that of a slave (Code, §116). Similarly, if a freeman should blind another freeman or break his bone, his own eye would be put out or his own bone would be broken (Code, §§196 and 197). If a freeman blinded a mere commoner or broke his bone, he was liable only for a set amount of silver (Code, §198). If similar offenses were committed by a freeman against a freeman’s slave, the offender would be liable for one-half the value of that slave (Code, §199). It is not stated how the slave’s value would be calculated, but one suspects that the value was based upon the work the master could extract from that slave. Oddly, the Code specifies that the penalty for knocking out the tooth of another freeman was the loss of a tooth (Code, §200) and for the tooth of a commoner, a set amount of silver (Code, §201), but specifies no penalty for knocking out the tooth of a slave. Presumably, the loss of a tooth would not significantly impair the slave’s productivity and therefore warranted no penalty. On the other hand, a mere blow to the body of a freeman by a slave merited removal of the slave’s ear (Code, §205), as did telling the slave-owner that he was not his master (Code §282).
The value of medical services and the penalty for medical malpractice were also calculated differently, depending upon the status of the patient. If a physician effected a surgical cure, he would receive five shekels for a freeman but only two for a slave (Code, §§216 and 217). If a physician set a broken bone or successfully treated a soft tissue injury, he would receive three shekels for a freeman (Code, §222) and two shekels for a slave (Code, §223). On the other hand, if a physician had the misfortune to have a patient die or suffer blindness as a result of the surgery, the physician’s hand would be severed if the dead or blind patient were a freeman (Code, §218). However, if the slave of a commoner died during surgery, the physician was responsible for replacing him with a slave of comparable value (Code, §219). If the slave of a commoner were blinded during surgery, the physician had only to pay half the slave’s value in silver (Code, §220). Should a barber cut off the slave hairlock (a sign of slavery) of a slave not his own, his hand would be severed (Code §226), but if another falsely told the barber that the slave’s owner had given permission, that person would be put to death and hung in his own doorway (the barber need only foreswear that he did not knowingly cut it off to be released) (Code, §227).
A builder’s negligence was also differentially punished. If a builder constructed a house which, due to improper construction, crumbled and killed the owner, the builder would be put to death (Code, §229). In the “eye for an eye” fashion of the Code, should the house crumble and kill the owner’s son, the builder’s son would be killed (Code, §230). However, if the owner’s slave were killed, the builder would have to pay the owner “slave for slave” (Code §231).
Even liability for death by beast of the field was calculated differently. If an ox with a propensity to gore did not have his horns bound and killed a freeman, the owner of the ox owed one-half of a mina (presumably to the family of the deceased) but only one-third of a mina if a slave were killed (presumably to the slave-owner) (Code §§251 and 252).
Finally, other sections of the Code are even more explicit indicators that slaves were regarded as chattel. The Code at §118 stated that if a man owed money, he could turn over his slave in payment to the creditor, who could rent the slave to another or sell him without objection from the slave-owner. If the debtor turned over a female slave who had borne him children, he could redeem her for money, as one would a pledge or a pawn (Code §119).
In conclusion, the slave was valued as property and for the services he or she could render. Personal injury to or wrongful death of a slave was not compensable to the slave or his family, but only to the slave-owner, as measured by his loss of services.
References
IF YOU NEED TO CITE ANY REFERENCES, YOU MAY CITE CHAPTER ONE OF THE ORIGINS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION (THE FILE YOU SUBMITTED). FOR ANY SECTIONS OF THE CODE TO WHICH I HAVE REFERRED THAT ARE NOT CONTAINED IN THE CHAPTER, YOU MAY CITE:
Hammurabi. (n.d.) (translated by King, L.W.). Hammurabi’s Code of Laws. Retrieved from http://eawc/evansville.edu/anthology/hammurabi.htm.
