Hammurabi: The Ancient Lawgiver Who Created the Babylonian Empire

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now and now today's video foreign Bell Lord of Heaven and Earth committed the rule of mankind Marduk when they pronounced the lofty name of Babylon when they made it famous among the quarters of the world and in its mid-established neverlasting kingdom whose foundations were firm as Heaven and Earth at the time Anu and Bell called me Hammurabi the exalted Prince to cause Justice to Prevail in the land to destroy the wicked and the evil to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak and to lighten the land and to further the welfare of the people Hammurabi Am I who brought about plenty and abundance those Eternal words serve as the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi an ancient legal text that marks one of the first known attempts to govern a society through the rule of law this might represent Hammurabi's lasting Legacy but let's not forget that he took a minor city state that was completely surrounded by bigger kingdoms and turned it into one of the most powerful empires in ancient history Hammurabi was born sometime during the end of the 19th century BC and the amarite dynasty that ruled over Babylon his exact birth year is unknown but it is placed around 1810 BC because he was a young man when he became king in 1792. his father was the king of Babylon sin mobileitz while his mother's identity was unknown nowadays we might remember Babylon as one of the main powers in Mesopotamia but it was Hammurabi who set it on this course at that time there wasn't a single Empire powerful enough to claim hegemony over the region the last one to do so was the third dynasty of uh okay the neo-sumerian Empire but they had been destroyed by the combined forces of the alamites and the amorites about 200 years earlier since then nobody had been able to Crown themselves the Undisputed heavyweight champion of Mesopotamia so the region consisted of countless city-states that sometimes port and sometimes fractionized with each other in the middle of this political brouhaha where the amorites a group of 11 teen Semitic people who migrated and occupied large parts of southern Mesopotamia however they were not United it under a single ruler instead preferring to establish multiple unrelated dynasties each centered around a city-state that is what happened in Babylon when the amorites took over Babylon was just a tiny village on the banks of the Euphrates but it steadily grew over the course of two centuries and by the time Hammurabi came into the picture it had become a moderately sized Kingdom that incorporated some of the neighboring cities such as quiche and borsippa we don't know much about what his father Sin mobile did during his Reign but we do know that the king managed to repel an attack from lhasa one of the biggest Sumerian neighbors then his health started to fail him so he abdicated Circa 1792 BC and Hammurabi became the new king of Babylon as he took the throne abarabi couldn't help but notice that his kingdom was surrounded by threats on all sides there was still latter to the South-East ruled by King Rim sin who had already tried to invade once and would undoubtedly try again when the time is right to the West and Northwest there were the kingdoms of Mari and ashnuno who weren't exactly mortal enemy enemies of Babylon but both had their desires to expand their territories which meant they couldn't be trusted but the biggest danger was posed by The elamites Who ruled over a large Kingdom to the east although they were the most powerful entity in the region they were naturally isolated from the Rest by the Tigris River and the zagras mountains therefore instead of trying to permanently conquer neighboring land the elements preferred to demand tribute influence Royal successions and lead the occasional raid just to remind everybody whose boss with all these threats looming Hammurabi knew that conflict was inevitable not that it was against it per se since he had his own Ambitions of Conquest but he thought it wise to get his own house in order before knocking next door he actually spent the first two and a half Decades of his Reign avoiding any major conflicts while undertaking new projects in Babylon such as building temples and higher City walls in case anyone got any ideas he canceled debts which was standard practice at the time whenever a new king took the throne he constructed Bridges across the Euphrates so that his City could expand focused on agriculture by building granaries and irrigation canals to make the lands more fertile all of this hard work paid off and in just a few decades Hammurabi transformed Babylon from just another minor city-state into one of the key players in the region the Babylonian King also searched for allies in the area since he knew that he could not take everyone at once he found one in shamshi adad the first a powerful King based in Assyria who ruled over most of upper Mesopotamia although shamshi a dad was also interested in expansion he was busy feuding with the kingdoms of Maori and ashnana which were situated between his domain and Babylon so he and tamarabi had no reason to be whole star towards one another but yet at least for now Hammurabi had a different enemy to contend with [Music] Hammurabi's burspo was also his strongest alarm the two sides actually started off as allies but as you soon find out alliances during this time weren't worth the tablets that they were chiseled on the trigger over their conflict was the death of the aforementioned King shamshi a dard Circa 1776 BC which had a series of repercussions in the region as his former Empire splintered in the years that followed during his Reign shamshi Haddad had managed to bring Mari under his Rule and installed his son on the throne however the sun didn't have the same juice to keep power without his father's help so he was overthrown by the previous Amorite Dynasty which installed zimri Lim as the new king of Mari at the same time the kingdom of eschenuna took advantage of the chaos in the region and gained ground fast following the death of shamshi adard by capturing many cities and expanding its domain it was the re-emergence of eschnuna as the regional power that did not sit well with alarm because the two kingdoms shared a large border and were not on friendly terms of one another therefore the alamide king siwi polar kupak began courting other local leaders just to gauge how fond they were of ashnana fortunately for him the answer was not very fond at all Mari and ashnano were hostile towards each other so King zimmery Lim of Mari entered an alliance with ilam not wanting to miss out on the fun Hammurabi did as well and the trio declared war on ishna the Coalition proved to be too much to handle for ish no no which was conquered and became part of the elami Kingdom the annexation was somewhat unexpected because up until that point alarm seemed uninterested in expanding into the Mesopotamian Plains preferring instead to exert its influence indirectly everyone was expecting sui balar to plunder a few cities tear down a few walls install a friendly puppet King and then bugger off back to alarm this time was different though as it was becoming increasingly clear that Tsui palar had grander Ambitions in minds of assuming control over the entire region not only did he conquer but the alamite king then demanded to Hammurabi that he surrendered the cities that Babylon had occupied during the war furthermore he then announced his intention babylon's old Foe and requested more troops from Hammurabi to Aid him but sui pallor gambled on a risky strategy as he sent a similar message to King rimlin of Lhasa asking for his help in conquering Babylon he did not pull off his deception as both Hammurabi and rimson realized that the alamite ruler had no intention of stopping at just one of their kingdoms or any other oh would be sitting right there right for the plucking sui Pilar wanted to play the two warring nations against each other but he accomplished the exact opposite he United them against him even more bad news for alarm was on the way because King zimri Lim of Mari was getting fed up with them as well initially he stayed loyal but sewi Palace hubris made him confident that he could do anything he wanted in the region and get away with it some of his armies attacked settlements that were loyal to Mari and under their protection and King zimmri Lim was angered by sweet ballars and differenced towards their actions therefore when Hammurabi reached out with an offer of an alliance to take on alarm he accepted and started raising an Army alarm made the first move laying Siege to the city of UPI or one of the settlements The Babylon had taken from ishna it was a victory for the alamites as Hammurabi could not send reinforcements in time but the good times didn't last long afterwards they Advanced on hiratum which was bigger and a much more important city on the northern border of Babylon this time though the elements had to contend not only with a sizable Babylonian Force but also with the Marriott reinforcements and that was not all because the people of ishananda did not want to live under the element yoke they rebelled and drove the alamite Army from the lands electing one of their own as the new ruler a commoner named silicon all of a sudden the alamite forces found themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place the Babylonians at the front and the rebel Army of a Schnitz at the back with little Choice the now humbled sweeper law sued for peace with Hammurabi and retreated with his tail tucked between his legs back to alarm and the safety afforded by the zagras mountains it was a glorious victory for Hammurabi as his own steel proudly proclaimed with help of the great Gods Hammurabi had defeated the armies of alarm which had Arisen against him as a great mass and he established the foundations of Suma and a card but let's be honest if the reality was a bit different than how Hammurabi chose to remember it it was his good fortune that the elamide king had managed to piss off everyone else in the region before launching his invasion if sui Pilar would have attacked from the outset directly from alarm chances were good that Babylon would have been conquered and barely remembered as a minor city state that was once part of a larger Kingdom but as things stood Babylon had repelled the elamite attack and Hammurabi was now the one feeling cocky and he wanted to go on the offensive foreign was no longer a concern sure losing one battle wasn't exactly total Annihilation but it did convince the elements to revert back to their old ways of tributes and influence instead of direct Conquest therefore Hammurabi turned his attention to the next biggest threat La sir he and King rimson might not have fallen for alarm strategy to play them against each other but this hardly made them BFFs in fact rimson refused to send any troops to Babylon when alarm invaded despite making promises that the two nations would fight side by side therefore immediately after repelling alarm Hammurabi turned his army around and marched into loss to settle their old rivalry once and for all he was still assisted by the Marriott Army and the two forces made pretty short work of their enemy they quickly captured several settlements on their way to the city of Latter where King rinzin awaited over the bulk of his forces the city did not fall after a pitched battle but rather after a prolonged siege that lasted as long as six months before the people inside ran out of food at that point the gates were opened and the armies made Hammurabi came flooding in officially bringing the kingdom of Lhasa under Babylonian control as for Remsen himself he was captured and taken prisoner he died soon after which wasn't terribly surprising since he was an old man but the records don't make it clear if he died of natural causes or was executed by Hammurabi as far as lhasa was concerned Hammurabi did not raise it although he did tear down its walls he did not want to Simply plunder the kingdom he wanted to add it to his own so he played the benevolent ruler card he canceled debts he constructed new temples and he resided in the local Palace all the surviving inscriptions made it sound like Hammurabi simply succeeded rims in as the new King instead of conquering and overthrowing him with this Victory Hammurabi now ruled over all of southern Mesopotamia but this was not nearly enough so the Babylonian King turned his sights toward the north eschner was the next stop on the Hammurabi Conquest tour technically speaking the two nations were allies Hammurabi even married one of his daughters to Sila sin the new king of ashnan to help cement this new Union but he would not let such a minor detail get in the way of his vision of a United Mesopotamia under the rule of Mighty Babylon as far as Hammurabi was concerned alliances were ephemeral here today gone tomorrow in fact the Babylonian ruler also put the kingdom of Mari on his Hit List he probably would not have conquered Larsa or even pushed back the alamite assault without their help but Hammurabi adopted the well what have you done for me lately Mantra when it came to determining the value of an alliance but before we judge Hammurabi too harshly it seems that his counterpart from eschner was busy with his own Shenanigans and was just as eager to double cross Babylon cilicin had been in contact with various other kingdoms big and small trying to persuade them to break their treaties with Babylon and not send Hammurabi any troops he also convinced a group of people that we haven't mentioned so far the Guardians to conduct raids into lhasa most likely an attempt to make the territory rebel against Hammurabi's control and last but not least ashuna bribed alarm with a giant shipment of grain to stay out of whatever was going to happen so it's pretty clear that cilicin saw the conflict was inevitable but whether he did all of this as a defensive strategy to try and limit harabi's power or he intended to strike a Babylon himself his mystery in fact most of the details surrounding the war are a mystery all we know is that Hammurabi defeated King silicon and his allies thanks to an inscription that said he overthrew in battle the army of ashnana sabatu and gutian the land became part of the ever-growing Babylonian Empire although it did Rebel later during Hammurabi's 38th regnal year and as punishment was destroyed by a great plot whether this was a metaphorical flood of death disease and destruction a literal flood caused by divine intervention or even an artificial flood caused by diverting the cause of rivers and canals to inundate the city of eschner on purpose we just don't know what we do know is that Hammurabi had no intention of stopping there with a schnitter out of the way Hammurabi turned his attention to Northern Mesopotamia as we previously mentioned this region used to be all under the rule of one king named shamshi adart but once he shuffled off his mortal coil the sons were not strong enough to keep his domain together so it splintered into many small kingdoms and city-states these proved to be no match for the power of Babylon and today many of them are only remembered as names on tablet inscriptions listing off Hammurabi's conquests some of them willingly became vassals While others were forcefully integrated into the Babylonian State once this was done only one real Target remained the kingdom of Mari in the past Hammurabi and King zimri Lim had been close allies fighting together against ishnuna ilam and lhasa in fact almost all the military information we just presented came from the marry oats and they were much more diligent record Keepers than the Babylonians and King zimri Lim and King zimmri Lim received detailed reports on all of Hammurabi's comings and goings this might be because zimrulin had realized a while back that there would come an unavoidable time or when the two last Regional Powers would Clash to determine one king to rule them all and spoiler alert that King was Hammurabi the lands of Maori were too rich fertile and strategically valuable for someone like him to Simply let them go unfortunately while we know the outcome of this war we are completely in the dark about the specifics the Marriotts were the ones who wrote down everything that Hammurabi was doing and on this particular occasion they didn't need to write it down since they saw it firsthand what we do know is that Hammurabi assembled two armies on the borders of Mari and tried to act all innocent by claiming that they were headed to a different Kingdom called akalitum but nobody was buying it even with his foolproof deception exposed Hammurabi didn't find it too difficult to conquer Mari the Mario historical record disappears suddenly just four months after the Babylonian conquest of ashnana which indicates that the Takeover occurred pretty swiftly zimmery Lim completely vanishes from the records at this time so his fate is unknown a similar mystery surrounds the city of Maori itself evidence suggests that Hammurabi raised it and turned it to Rubble but that this did not happen immediately instead the Babylonian King took this drastic step a few years later when the Mario oats tried to Rebel if true this is consistent with the fate of eschner suggesting that Hammurabi had a strict one strike and you're out policy when it came to cities that tried to escape his hegemony anyway after being raised Bari still lived on as a minor settlement but it never again reached the same Heights as before with this last Conquest Hammurabi's vision of the first Babylonian Empire had finally come to fruition it was in his 33rd regnal year that Hammurabi returned to Babylon as ruler over most of Mesopotamia proclaiming himself King of the amorites and the king who made the four quarters of the earth obedient strictly speaking the earliest Sumerian Empire was little big as a Hammurabi didn't quite manage to assemble the largest Empire that the world had ever seen but his feet were still remarkable especially Owen you took into account just how inconsequential Babylon was when he first took power what's perhaps even more impressive was that Hammurabi managed to maintain his Empire which is often times the hardest part ruling over a large territory that consists of multiple cultures and Languages by most accounts it was a good ruler one preoccupied with improving the lives of his subjects remember that all the warring and conquests only lasted for about four years out of a 40-plus year reign the rest of the time Hammurabi spent building all sorts of construction projects beautifying cities fortifying walls improving food production and of course revolutionizing legal history yes only now have we reached Hammurabi's True Legacy that of a law Giver empires have come and gone since his time many of them much larger than Babylon but the Code of Hammurabi still lives on in a place of pride inside the Louvre Museum as a seven-foot pillar made out of black basalts as well as multiple copies located inside the U.S Capitol the headquarters of the United Nations and other prominent places put simply the Code of Hammurabi is an ancient legal text that is often hailed as the oldest known law code in the world but that's not actually correct that distinction belongs to the Sumerian text called the code of uanamu but Hammer Abi's code is certainly the most detailed most famous and best preserved legal texts that we have from that time while the code of UR namu for example only has five legible laws the Code of Hammurabi has 282 rules and statues that showed that Hammurabi was a king whose ideal Society was one built on Law and Order applicable to everyone although not necessarily in equal measure so what do you want should we start with the good the bad the ugly okay here's the good first the Code of Hammurabi had some revolutionary Concepts that are still found in law codes today it was one of the first examples of innocent until proven guilty it included benefits for marginalized groups such as widows and orphans and even provided a form of alimony payments it established a minimum wage for certain workers such as doctors Shepherds and field laborers and gave women the authority to conduct a business and own property and even pursue careers such as scribes the bad stuff has to do with the punishments for breaking the law which were exceedingly harsh more often than not someone would be getting their hands chopped off or being thrown into the Euphrates River Hammurabi was a firm believer in the eye for an eye approached Justice even when it involved innocent people if for example a house collapsed and killed the son of the homeowner then the son of the Builder would also be put to death as punishment even though he had nothing to do with it so if you were a kid in Babylon you'd better pray to mardok that your father was good at his job the ugly which let's be honest is just the bad stuff under a different name is that punishments were not dispensed equally as they varied based on social status and gender the husband could have a mistress but not the wife if a nobleman hit another nobleman he would be flogged in public if however he had a commoner that was just fine if doctor killed a man then off with his hands if the victim was a slave however then the doctor just had to replace him and he got on with his day so obviously the code was far from perfect but it's almost 4 000 years old so some allowances should be made Hammurabi's Empire slowly started crumbling following his death Circa 1750 BC but his law code ensured a long-lasting place in history for him as one of the world's Premier lawmakers foreign [Music]