by H A CULLEY
‘Have you some concrete proposals for us to consider now?’ This time it was Sin-Bel-Alim, the foreign minister who opened the proceedings.
‘The situation has changed, lord king,’ one of the emissaries began uncomfortably.
‘Oh, in what way?’ This time it was Hammurabi who spoke, suddenly worried that his act of playing hard to get might have antagonised the Sumerians.
‘It appears that Elam is mobilising in order to attack Eshnunna, not Sumeria.’
Chapter Nine – The Code of Hammurabi – 1783 to 1781 BCE
A few months later Hammurabi began to receive reports from Dadusha about pinprick raids on villages in the east of his country. The long war between Assyria and the tribes in the northern part of the Zagros Mountains was drawing to a close with the subjugation of the tribes, mainly because most of their men had been killed and it would take them a generation to recover. The border to the north was therefore quiet.
However, those raiders captured when the troops from Eshnunna had the odd success against them turned out to be from an area further south, around the Rivers Choaspes and Eulaeus, tributaries of the Tigris, which flowed through the central part of the mountains. This confirmed Hammurabi’s suspicions that Elam was behind these attacks as the Elamite city of Susa lay close to the two rivers.
Whilst the only aggression by Elam consisted of probing raids on the eastern border of Eshnunna, Hammurabi was content to let Dadusha deal with them. However, he did ask Sin-Bel-Alim to intensify his efforts to obtain information from Susa.
In the meantime he concentrated his efforts on completing his code of laws so that they could be carved into stelae to be erected in every city he ruled. Adiar still treated the concept of rigid laws and punishments with disdain; it was one of the few things that she and her husband couldn’t agree on. She regarded the right to dispense justice in accordance with the king’s will on any particular day as fundamental to the rule of a monarch. She eventually accepted that her husband would not be dissuaded from the project, so they agreed to differ.
This was a cause of regret on the king’s part. His code of over two hundred and eighty different laws, dealing with everything from murder to the duty of a son to obey his father, were complex and he could have done with her help. He was also wedded to two principles for dispensing judgement: the right to a trial at which both sides could produce evidence and call witnesses and the right to appropriate retribution, which Adiar disparagingly called “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”.
As he couldn’t call upon Adiar for help in drafting his laws, he increasingly relied on Mannui-Qipi to obtain Marduk’s guidance and, more importantly, on the priests of Shamash, the Sun God. So profound was the influence of the latter on the code of laws that the rumour spread that these laws weren’t Hammurabi’s laws, but were given to him by Shamash personally. Had this been the case, Hammurabi thought wryly to himself, it would have saved years of hard work on his part and on the part of the stone-cutters, who recorded the laws on the stelae.
One of the first cases to be tried in accordance with the new code was that of a builder. The man was prone to cut corners and use the cheapest materials he could find, but people used him because he undercut his rivals. The man’s son was more honourable than his father and, declining to join him in the building trade, he chose to join the standing army, where his diligence and natural ability meant that he was promoted to be a leader of a hundred fairly rapidly.
When the new house that the builder was constructing for a merchant collapsed and killed the merchant’s eldest son, who was making a site visit on behalf of his father, the builder was brought before the courts. There could be no doubt as to his guilt. He had used sub-standard bricks that were brittle and crumbled under pressure. The brick maker was also charged for selling them cheaply instead of destroying them, but it was the builder who was held responsible for the death of the merchant’s son.
The penalty under Hammurabi’s Code was quite clear. The son of the builder must be executed as retribution for the death of the merchant’s son. As it was the eldest son who had been killed, it should have been the builder’s eldest son who paid the penalty, but Tarhunda intervened and pleaded that the young man was one of his best soldiers and Babylon couldn’t afford to lose him. The judges accepted the commander’s plea and ordered that the builder’s second son, a boy of fourteen, should die instead.
However, the builder loved the boy, whereas he was estranged from his eldest son, and so he appealed to the king to overturn the judgement and to execute his eldest instead. So Hammurabi sent for the builder.
‘Why do you wish me to overturn the ruling of my judges?’
‘Because my second son is only fourteen and my wife and I love him dearly.’
‘Whereas you would not mourn the loss of your eldest?’
‘We would, of course, but we are not close to him and the eldest should pay for the death of the eldest.’
‘Let me ask you something: if you were me and you were faced with the choice of executing a young man who was a very promising leader of soldiers, and thus valuable to Babylon, or a boy of no proven worth as yet, who would you choose?’
The builder’s heart sank. The answer was obvious, so he said nothing.
‘Your silence answers my question, I think. The object of the punishment is to make you atone for your crime in causing the death of another. It is obvious to me that the greater punishment for you would be the death of your younger son so that is the correct choice, quite apart from their respective value to me and to Babylon.’
Two days later Hammurabi heard that the builder’s eldest son was so incensed by the execution of his brother that he had gone back to the family home and had a bitter argument with his father. In the course of the row the young man had punched his father before storming out.
He was hauled before the courts and found guilty of striking his father, the penalty for which was normally the removal of the hand that did the striking. However, in this case Hammurabi ruled that, as the man had been effectively disowned by his father in the earlier case, it should be treated instead as a man of socially inferior status striking a man of higher status. The penalty for this was sixty lashes with an ox whip. At least this way the man could return to duty after he had recovered. The army had no use for a man with one hand.
Of course, this incident had only increased Adiar’s cynicism about her husband’s new laws.
~#~
The other matter that jostled for attention in the king’s mind was the city of Babylon itself. Apart from the enlarged ziggurat with its new temples and the military camp that he had constructed south of the city, development had tended to concentrate on irrigation projects, bringing more land under cultivation and improving farm productivity. Hammurabi hadn’t paid much attention to the city itself or to his royal palace. Adiar had nagged him about how crowded the place was becoming within the defensive walls and how shabby and cramped the palace was.
Hammurabi had to admit that, compared to Mari or Eshnunna, his palace was small, somewhat basic and hardly likely to impress anyone with its grandeur. The channels that brought fresh water into the city and the pipes that took the waste out again were inadequate and the place was beginning to smell. Eventually he gave into Adiar’s nagging and started to draw up plans to expand the city. As the fresh water came in upstream and the waste went out downstream, it didn’t make any sense to enlarge the city to the north or south; the whole sanitation system and water supply to the existing city would be compromised.
‘Why don’t you build on the west bank of the Euphrates and construct a bridge to join the two?’ Adiar suddenly suggested.
‘Because I don’t want to live on the west bank, away from the temple, markets, council chamber and everything I need close at hand.’
‘No, not us! Build new houses over there for all those who will be displaced by the expansion of the palace. We can leave plenty of room for further expansion too.’
The king thought about his wife’s idea for several minutes. ‘You know, you may have something there. The other thing we need is a strong citadel to retreat into if the city should ever fall to invaders. We could site that between the palace and the outer wall to the north, once the houses are cleared.’
The more he pondered the idea, the more excited he became. Two weeks later work started on the bridge that would link the two halves of the city. When completed, the bridge would be shaped like a shallow arch so that sailing boats could be towed underneath with their mast stowed. This also gave Hammurabi the chance of making some extra money by charging a toll for this service. Once the bridge was finished work started on the walls around the new part of the city. It was only then that Hammurabi allowed work to commence on the new houses.
Towards the end of the year Hammurabi caught a mysterious illness. Adiar was pregnant with their third child and had to cope with worry about her husband, a difficult pregnancy and ruling the kingdom, as Hammurabi had designated her as regent.
Neither the physicians nor the priests seemed to know what was wrong with the king. He suffered bouts of delirium and could keep little down. He was never fat but he quickly became gaunt. Samuditana, now six, and little three year old Samsu-Iluna were kept away from their father for fear of catching whatever it was that he was suffering from. However, no-one else went down with the illness, so the physicians came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t contagious.
Two weeks later he became very feverish and everybody thought that he would die. Adiar sat with him throughout that long night, cooling his brow and signalling to two slaves to hold him down when he started to thrash about. Eventually, as the sun started to rise, the fever broke and he fell into a deep sleep.
After that he slowly started to recover but, even a month later, he was too weak to do more than sit in a chair on a balcony overlooking the city and the boats on the River Euphrates in the distance. He thought to himself how many more there were now, compared to when he had taken the throne a mere ten years previously.
Adiar continued to run the kingdom but then, two months into the new year, she went into labour. By this time the king was able to walk again with the aid of a stick and didn’t feel nearly so tired all the time. With the help of Isiratuu he took over the government again whilst Adiar gave birth to a daughter, but she was a sickly child and died after a couple of months.
Her death hit Adiar hard but she did her best to hide her distress from her recovering husband. By the middle of the year Hammurabi was back to his old self, but his illness had given everyone a shock. He insisted that they plan for his succession. It was obvious that a small boy as king would leave Babylon prey to invasion, even with Adiar as regent. Sin-Bel-Alim had heard various reports that Sumeria was preparing to invade should Hammurabi die and Elam had even moved an army up to the border with Eshnunna. The obvious choice was Arishaka, now sixteen - the age when Hammurabi had become king; but his brother surprised him by flatly refusing to be named as his heir.
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because my only interest is the army. I see what you have to cope with each day: sensitive relationships with our neighbours, disputes with small-minded men, taxation, irrigation and agriculture, lengthy, boring council meetings and so on. None of that interests me, nor do I think I have the stamina for it. I am perfectly happy being Tarhunda’s second-in-command. My only ambition is to succeed him one day; hopefully a day that is in the distant future.’
‘I see. So what if I had died instead of recovering? What do you think would have happened then?’
‘Samuditana would have been crowned king and, as happened in Eshnunna, a council of regency would have ruled until he was old enough to do so.’
‘So you don’t think that having a strong king is important; a council can rule instead? You know that we were nearly invaded when I was ill.’
‘I didn’t say that. The people need a leader, but Adiar could be that person as head of the council, as she was when you were ill. We were only seen as vulnerable because you were incapacitated. It would be different if you were dead. It removes uncertainty from the situation.’
Hammurabi sighed. ‘I can see that I am wasting my breath. Very well, I will confirm Samuditana as my heir with Adiar as regent until he reaches seventeen. I have no option, it seems.’
‘Let’s hope it never comes to that and you rule for decades to come.’
The two brothers smiled at one another before Arishaka bowed low and left the room. Hammurabi was left wondering how he could have ever have seen him as a threat.
~#~
Ashlatum looked out from the top of Upi’s newly constructed West Gate at the procession making its way towards the embryonic city. She had seen few horses in the past so the screen of thirty horsemen who led the way looked very strange to her. They were followed by twenty chariots, again pulled by horses. One flew the blue banner of Babylon and one a blood red one; Hammurabi had continued to use red for his personal banner in memory of his father.
Behind the horse-drawn light chariots came twenty more traditional versions, drawn by onagers. Then, bringing up the rear came a train of camels carrying the baggage, escorted by thirty war camels carrying archers.
As they approached the partly constructed governor’s palace, Ashlatum was delighted to see that Hammurabi had brought Arishaka with him. Like Tarhunda, he was mounted on a horse. At sixteen he was everything a young man should be: tall - certainly taller now than his brother - handsome and confident. He was dressed in a bronze chainmail vest, linen kilt and bronze greaves. His shield and a bronze helmet hung behind him on either side of his horse. He sat on a multi-coloured blanket made of goats’ hair and controlled his horse through leather reins attached to a bronze bit in the animal’s mouth.
Hammurabi, on the other hand, was dressed in civilian robes. He rode in one of the new chariots, as did Adiar. As she stepped down from the chariot flying the blue banner, Ashlatum was delighted to see that Adiar had brought Samuditana, now seven, with her. The little boy looked around him at the half completed buildings and the work going on with a bright interest.
‘Congratulations, mother. It seems that you are developing Upi even quicker than you did Kid-nun.’ He embraced her and stepped back to look at his mother. She was now forty and streaks of grey had appeared in her long black hair. Her face was looking older and more careworn as well. He decided that, after Upi was completed, he wouldn’t ask any more of her. ‘Have you had any problems?’
‘The only real concern is recruiting enough people who want to come and live here. Your kingdom has expanded so quickly that we are running out of settlers to populate all these new cities and farms.’
‘But I thought we were attracting new individuals and families from elsewhere who wanted to improve their lives in Babylonia?’ Hammurabi used the word that was now being used to describe his kingdom. No longer was he king of a city state and a few nearby cities. The original three, Kish, Borsippa and Sippar had now been joined by six others, including the two developed by Ashlatum.
‘Perhaps the kings of Sumeria, Eshnunna and Mari aren’t quite so pleased to see their subjects rushing off to populate Babylonia.’ Adiar joined them with Samuditana; then Arishaka came striding up and the conversation turned to more mundane matters.
The next day Ashlatum took the visitors on a tour of the farms surrounding the new city.
‘Why are the farms all situated near the river?’ Arishaka wanted to know. ‘Couldn’t you farm the land further away and use irrigation channels to water the crops?’
Ashlatum smiled at her son’s naïve question. ‘It’s obvious that your only interest is the army. We rely on the annual inundation of the land each spring to spread alluvial soil on the farm land. The soil is otherwise barren and it would be a waste of water to try and make crops grow there.’
‘Oh, I see. How do you know how far the land will flood during the annual inundation?’
‘We don’t;
it does vary from year to year so we only farm the areas that get flooded that year. This can mean that we have to extend the irrigation channels and it rather depends on whether we think it’s likely to be worth doing it. The river does drop in level as the year progresses and so water becomes scarcer. It’s all a question of judgement and experience.’
‘I didn’t realise that farming was so complicated.’ Arishaka smiled at his mother. ‘You’ve become something of an expert.’
‘I’ve had to get to know all about agriculture because the viability of a new city depends on it; not only to feed itself, but also to produce enough to trade and so produce an income.’
The next day Hammurabi set off again towards Eshnunna. The column crossed over the Tigris at a ford near the small Eshnunnan city of Akshak beyond the navigable part of the river and followed it north to the junction with the tributary that came down the lush valley of Diyala. They passed another small city, called Tutub, and made their way up the valley towards Eshnunna. A few miles beyond Tutub one of the horsemen who had been deployed as scouts can riding back to the king’s chariot to say that there were men running down the valley towards them.
‘How many?’ Hammurabi wanted to know.
‘Difficult to say, lord king. But they look for all the world like an army in headlong flight.’
Soon the first of the running men reached the Babylonian column. A few paused long enough to confirm what Hammurabi already feared: the Elamites had attacked Eshnunna. Dadusha had led his army out of the city to meet the enemy, rather than be besieged, and had been defeated. No-one knew the fate of the king, or of the queen, Hammurabi’s sister, who had remained behind in the city.
Hammurabi sent Adiar and his young son back to Upi with an escort of ten of the onager-drawn chariots and the most of the baggage train, whilst he pressed on with thirty each of chariots, horsemen and camel borne archers. She was reluctant to go, wanting to find out what had happened to her brother, but accepted that the safety of Samuditana took precedence.