What Were the Earliest Laws Like?
8 comments
·July 15, 2025lwansbrough
Defletter
I guess that's an interesting distinction: what's the difference between a law and a rule. I think there are two main differences:
1. In your example, the group of buddies all created the rules and consented to them. This is not true for laws which instead invent concepts like the social contract to justify itself.
2. When you break the law, say murder, the ultimate victim is the state. The person you murdered is just evidence in the state's case against you. This is why there are Victims Right's movements. This is not really true with such buddie rules: breaking them may hurt your friends' feelings, but there wont really be an equivalent to it harming the social fabric.
3. Laws imply law enforcement, which implies use of force. Are you and your buddies willing to enforce your rules on each other with lethal force?
ivape
A lot of how we live today will be illegal in a sophisticated society a few generations from now.
irrational
Earliest historical laws. By definition, anything before writing is pre-history.
ChrisMarshallNY
I really like that story!
I appreciate it being shared.
I had no idea about this chap.
mcphage
One thing I’ve heard historians mention, that is like to know more about, is that these law stelae, while impressive, aren’t actually referenced in legal cases during their time. So they’re the laws as written, not actually the laws as practiced.
protocolture
I think I read that these might even just be proposals or a statement of ideals, especially in Hammurabi's case.
w10-1
TLDR: earlier than Hammurabi's eye-for-an-eye justice was Urukagina, who presented himself as a savior for the people, including getting them out of debt and protecting them from corrupt officials. (But OP is most excellent and worth reading.)
It reminded me of Solon's changes in Athens, to broker some fairness, wipe prior debts and outlaw debtor's prisons, require military service (paid for the lower classes), and of course opening decisions beyond to hereditary aristocrats (land owners) to those with wealth (traders). In both cases, leaders seemed to be responding to stasis borne of economic oppression.
However, ideology is not evidence of justice; both Putin and Xi present themselves as champions of the people against the corrupt bureaucracy (and discipline their governments via discretionary application of high standards).
But the brutality of eye-for-an-eye might obscure the point: Hammurabi seems to be distinct in not associating power with the person, but establishing settled expectations so people could sort out their differences directly (freeing the leader from the no-win situation of judging disputes). That makes it easier for the laws to continue largely the same, regardless of the style of government (much as we in the US and EU still apply English and Roman law).
It's a shame our sampling of ancient governance is limited to stone and clay tablets from the middle east. There's evidence of other societies of a similar sophistication but without the hierarchical dependence on gods and beer.
I’m supposed to believe these were the first guys to make laws? Put 10 guys in a small room for a few hours and I guarantee some rules will develop. There are thousands of years we’re missing records for!