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Legal Systems Evolution

Excerpts from Hammurabis Code Society A
1. If anyone steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives
the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.
2. If anyone break a hole into a house (break in to steal), he shall be put to death before that hole and be buried.
3. If anyone is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.
4. If a builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in
and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.
5. If it kill the son of the owner the son of that builder shall be put to death.
Excerpts from the Code of Justinian Society B
6. A person who takes a thing belonging to another by force is liable for theft, for who can be said to take the
property of another more against his will than he who takes it by force? The thief, if caught within a year after
the robbery, will owe to his victim quadruple the value of the thing taken; but if brought after the expiration of a
year, then the single value only may be brought even against a person who has only taken by force a single
thing, and one of the most trifling value.
7. As soon as the sale is contracted, that is, in the case of a sale made without writing, when the parties have
agreed on the price, all risk attaching to the thing sold falls upon the purchaser, although the thing has not yet
been delivered to him. Therefore, if a slave dies or receives an injury in any part of the body, or a whole or a
portion of a house is burnt or collapses, or a whole or a portion of land is carried by the force of a flood, or is
diminished or deteriorated by an inundation, or by a tempest making havoc with the trees, the loss falls on the
purchaser, and although he does not receive the thing, he is obliged to pay the price, for the seller does not
suffer for anything which happens without any design or fault of his.
a. To which laws from Society A does Law 6 from Society B match up with?

b. To which laws from Society A does Law 7 from Society B match up with?

c. Which society do you think had punishments for the breaking of its laws more similar to the laws of our modern
society or to the society that you designed in class? Explain.

d. Under which societys laws would you rather live? Explain.