Hammurabi's Babylonia
by Elaine Landau
Hammurabi was one of the kings of Babylonia and while he was in his throne Babylonia flourished. They developed mathematics, algebra and geometry. They also developed trade and agriculture. But this big community needed laws to obey so the order would be kept. Hammurabi's laws were no more no less than 280 but they were not all fair. Some of them had a really tough punishment. They were so strict because they said 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. That means that they did to the person the same thing as he did and sometimes it was really unfair. For example, a rule was (according to the author) "A builder who sells a poorly constructed house that collapses and kills its owner may be put to death. If the owner's son rather than the owner is killed in the collapse, the builder's son would be killed." In my opinion this is not fair because the builder didn't do it on purpose (probably) but that is sometimes good because builders make sure that the houses are constructed carefully and are safe.
They were a lot of unfair rules like this but most of the rules were fair. Don't you think that if a son kills the dad his hand may be cut of? I think it is fair but a little bit strange and tough for this days. Hammurabi was trying to be fair to all of the people but I don't think he really made it cause sometimes the rule was not fair to the person that stole but it was fair to the person that was robbed! So in my opinion some of his rules were fair but some of them weren't but it doesn't really matter now because laws and governments have changed (most of the countries don't have kings) but the greatest thing is that there are not as many slaves as they were back in that time. 