The Code of Hammurabi · 11 of 12

Laws 260–282

260.If he has stolen a watering bucket or a harrow, he shall pay three shekels of silver.

261.If a man has hired a herdsman for the cows or a shepherd for the sheep, he shall give him eight GUR of corn per annum.

262.If a man, ox, or sheep to [this section is defaced].

263.If he has caused an ox or sheep which was given him to be lost, ox for ox, sheep for sheep, he shall render to their owner.

264.If a herdsman who has had cows or sheep given him to shepherd, has received his hire, whatever was agreed, and his heart was contented, has diminished the cows, diminished the sheep, lessened the offspring, he shall give offspring and produce according to the tenour of his bonds.

265.If a shepherd to whom cows and sheep have been given him to breed, has falsified and changed their price, or has sold them, one shall put him to account, and he shall render cows and sheep to their owner tenfold what he has stolen.

266.If in a sheepfold a stroke of God has taken place or a lion has killed, the shepherd shall purge himself before God, and the accident to the fold the owner of the fold shall face it.

267.If a shepherd has been careless and in a sheepfold caused a loss to take place, the shepherd shall make good the fault of the loss which he has caused to be in the fold and shall pay cows or sheep and shall give to their owner.

268.If a man has hired an ox, for threshing, twenty KA of corn is its hire.

269.If he has hired an ass, for threshing, ten KA of corn is its hire.

270.If he has hired a calf (goat?), for threshing, one KA of corn is its hire.

271.If a man has hired oxen, a wagon, and its driver, he shall give one hundred and eighty KA of corn per diem.

272.If a man has hired a wagon by itself, he shall give forty KA of corn per diem.

273.If a man has hired a labourer, from the beginning of the year till the fifth month, he shall give six SE of silver per diem; from the sixth month to the end of the year, he shall give five SE of silver per diem.

274.If a man shall hire an artisan—

(a) the hire of a . . . five SE of silver

(b) the hire of a brickmaker five SE of silver

(d) the hire of a stone-cutter . SE of silver

(e) the hire of a . . . SE of silver

(f) the hire of a . . . SE of silver

(g) the hire of a carpenter four SE of silver

(h) the hire of a . . . four SE of silver

(i) the hire of a . . . SE of silver

(j) the hire of a builder. . . SE of silver per diem he shall give.

275.If a man has hired a (boat?) per diem, her hire is three SE of silver.

276.If a man has hired a fast ship, he shall give two and a half SE of silver per diem as her hire.

277.If a man has hired a ship of sixty GUR, he shall give onesixth of a shekel of silver per diem as her hire.

278.If a man has bought a manservant or a maidservant, and he has not fulfilled his month and the bennu sickness has fallen upon him, he shall return him to the seller, and the buyer shall take the money he paid.

279.If a man has bought a manservant or a maidservant and has a complaint, his seller shall answer the complaint.

280.If a man has bought in a foreign land the manservant or the maidservant of a man, when he has come into the land, and the owner of the manservant or the maidservant has recognised his manservant or his maidservant, if the manservant or maidservant are natives without price he shall grant them their freedom.

281.If they are natives of another land the buyer shall tell out before God the money he paid, and the owner of the manservant or the maidservant shall give to the merchant the money he paid, and shall recover his manservant or his maidservant.

282.If a slave has said to his master ‘Thou art not my master,’ as his slave one shall put him to account and his master shall cut off his ear.

* * * * *

The judgements of righteousness which Hammurabi the mighty king confirmed and caused the land to take a sure guidance and a gracious rule.

The following three sections, which are known to belong to the Code from copies made for an Assyrian king in the seventh century B.C., are given here for the sake of completeness. They obviously come within the space once occupied by the five erased columns.