That’s right: “The Illustrated Guide to Law — Proving everything
you thought you knew is wrong, since 2012.”
Constitutional Law
Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”
Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”
105. Hammurabi Ruins Everything
Panel 1: A line drawing of Hammurabi, in scale armor and helmet, holding a shield and wielding a spear over a background of his part of the globe.
NARRATAION:
Hammurabi was another brilliant military commander and charismatic leader like Sargon had been.
Like Sargon, Hammurabi conquered and unified all of Mesopotamia under his personal rule.
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Panel 2: A little puff of smoke.
NARRATION:
But also like Sargon, Hammurabi’s empire would disintegrate soon after his death.
PUFF OF SMOKE: Pfft.
NARRATION:
Not the first time this would happen…
…and nowhere near the last.
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Panel 3: Hammurabi gesturing in front of a hanging banner/tapestry with the words “The Art of the Stele” and an image of a law stele.
NARRATION: But not for lack of trying. To get all the Mesopotamian peoples to accept his rule as legitimate, Hammurabi co-opted (and copied) their traditional “law codes.”
HAMMURABI:
This’ll be the greatest code you ever saw.
All the best words, from all the best codes, all in one place.
Do I need a monument? I don’t think so. Many, many people are saying my rule is legitimate already.
But we’re going to do this. We’re gonna have the best government ever.
So legit. So legit.
It’s gonna be amazing. You’re gonna love it.
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Panel 4: Narration box.
NARRATION:
Law-code monuments may have worked for local city-state priest-kings, but an outsider like Hammurabi?
If he was going to get all those conquered peoples to accept his rule and dominion, he was going to need a lot more than a mere symbolic gesture.
The code of Hammurabi failed to foster the necessary sense of legitimacy.
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Panel 5: A fresh grave. The gravestone has an image of a skull, and the words “Here lies the law code. We just can’t believe it.” A shovel is sticking out of the dirt. Voices are coming from the grave.
NARRATION: When Hammurabi’s empire collapsed, that just proved how meaningless and ineffective his code had been.
VOICE 1: And that killed any cultural association of law codes with a sense of rulers’ natural authority.
VOICE 2: After that, nobody bothered making them ever again.
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Panel 6: Stick figures show a class of young scribes seated on the ground inscribing their clay tablets, as one student hands his to the standing teacher.
NARRATION: Hammurabi’s code would live on, however, as a practice text used for training apprentice scribes.
TEACHER (to student): No, no. Get a fresh tablet and start over.
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Panel 7: A view of a Mesopotamian city-state’s temples and grand architecture alongside a river.
NARRATION: For the next 1,200 years and more, countless scribes made countless copies, and the Code of Hammurabi joined the literary canon familiar to all educated Babylonians… then Assyrians… Hittites… Neo-Assyrians… Neo-Babylonians…
VOICE 1: It’s an empirical study.
VOICE 2: Epic.
NARRATION: And not just educated locals, either.
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Panel 8: On the walkway of a battlement before the Ishtar Gate, two men lean against the blue crenellations. The grandeur of Babylon can be seen beyond them
NARRATION: During the 6th century B.C., for example, Hammurabi’s old law code made a big impression on a new ethnic group—one which had recently relocated to Babylon from the hill country away off to the southwest.
DISTANT VOICE 1:
Heh. “Impression.” I get it. Because we write cuneiform by making impressions in wet clay and-
DISTANT VOIE 2 (interrupting):
Shush, apprentice. Get back to practice.
MAN 1 (to Man 2):
A symbolic tool, you say?
Intriguing.
It occurs to me that Hammurabi only ruined law codes for kings who had already been using them.
I wonder if the idea would work back home.
NARRATION: Wherever could we be going next?
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FOOTNOTE:
That’s right: “The Illustrated Guide to Law — Proving everything you thought you knew is wrong, since 2012.”