The Big Book of Pain: Torture & Punishment through History by Mark P Donnelly, Daniel Diehl Read Free Book Online

heavier sentence than when committed during daylight hours. When the crime involved stealing another man’s crops, if the act was carried out during the day the sentence was a fine of ten silver shekels, if it took place during the night the sentence was death.
    Similarly, there is a problem determining how the Eshunnans dealt with female criminals as opposed to males, because their written language seems not to have been sexually differentiated – he and she appear to be interchangeable. Hence, the law stating: ‘The day a woman will be seized in the lap of a man, [he/she] shall die, [he/she] shall not live’, leaves us in no doubt that adultery was a very serious crime, but uncertain as to which of the offenders was executed. All things considered, it is reasonable to assume that it was the woman who got the short end of the stick.
    The problem with assessing institutionalised torture in early societies is that justice, and the punishment accompanying conviction, were random things, handed out at the whim of a local judge or tribunal. One of the earliest known attempts to codify laws and specify particular punishments for particular crimes came about in Babylon toward the end of the reign of King Hammurabi (reigned 1792–1759 BC). To make his 282 laws, and their associated punishments, understandable by all, Hammurabi had them carved on a 6ft-tall (2m) stone column, copies of which were erected in major cities throughout the empire. While many of the punishments might seem barbaric by modern standards, personal vendettas were outlawed as was the mistreatment of both slaves and women. In many cases, punishments were in the ‘eye for an eye’ tradition known as the talio ; if a person broke another person’s bones, they were to have the same bones broken or if he purposefully put out another man’s eye, his own eye would be put out. Of particular interest is a law stating that if a physician killed, or maimed, a patient during an operation the doctor would have his hands cut off – obviously preventing such malpractice in the future. Worthy of note in Hammurabi’s code were specific rights given to women, such as no-fault divorces and protection from rape; the punishment for sexual assault being castration for the guilty party. If a man accused his wife of adultery he was required to provide absolute proof of her guilt before casting her off, but if she were found guilty she was to be thrown into the Euphrates River. Should the gods deem her innocent, she would safely find her way to the opposite bank; if guilty she would undoubtedly drown. This watery trial by ordeal would find an echo millennia later in the persecution of women accused of witchcraft.
    Slaves were also given protection from unwarranted abuse by their owners, but not surprisingly slaves had fewer rights than free men and women, particularly in regards to how serious an offence had to be in order to demand the death penalty. The death penalty could be incurred for a vast array of crimes including theft, knowingly receiving stolen goods, arson, kidnapping, harbouring run-away slaves, murder, adultery – surprisingly applicable to both men and women – and keeping a disreputable tavern. Of particular interest are such eye-for-an-eye punishments as being convicted of arson or robbing a house after a fire. In both cases the miscreant was to be thrown into a fire.

     
This image, albeit depicting a late medieval scene, shows the sort of ‘swimming’ prescribed by Hammurabi’s Code. The accused is bound hand and foot and thrown into the river. If they successfully manage to cross the open expanse of deep water and somehow crawl out on the opposite bank, they are deemed innocent. If they drown (as most surely did) then they were righteously found guilty.
     
    For all of its primitive qualities, Babylonian justice under King Hammurabi was surprisingly even handed. No one could be convicted on less than rock-solid proof, perjurers were punished by