Hammurabi
Codice di Hammurabi

I start from afar. But how could it be otherwise if we're talking about something like 'The Code,' which in practice would be almost four thousand years old.

'Verba volant, scripta manent,' says the famous Latin phrase attributed to Caio Tito, and what better way to somehow crystallize words, something, and any concept over time than to carve it in stone.

Hammurabi was a great ruler, king of Babylon, who unified under his rule the entire region of southern Mesopotamia and governed for about forty years according to historical reconstructions. Was he one of the greatest kings of the ancient age? Who knows. I mean, my historical knowledge is limited. I consider myself not a scholar but more of an enthusiast, simply interested in historical facts as I could be in music, cinema, or literature. I like to know things. That's all. However, I can't present facts of any scientific relevance in this sense, and anyway, what would be the parameters to define the greatness of a king? Like any other individual for that matter. The variables at play would be so many that beyond x and y, even z wouldn't suffice. And then everyone might have something to object to and consider some parameters more relevant than others and vice versa.

What can I tell you? Think what you like, but there's one thing that in some way has delivered this great king to the history of humanity and that somehow connects all of us who put our thoughts and ideas on paper or simply write about what happens to us. That is, the famous Code.

Now I don't know if this was the first time (it seems so) that a king or ruler, a high institution, took the trouble to put into writing and establish rules, which he certainly instituted himself, uncontested because he held absolute power granted to him through descent and directly from the gods, but that for this reason, because he wrote them, he committed himself to follow and have enforced. Besides, I wouldn't bet on him always enforcing them to the letter himself, but it's clear that four thousand years later, well, this thing isn't that important.

And anyway, I want to focus on what his intent was. Why would an absolute sovereign take the responsibility towards himself and others to establish rules? He surely did so to impose order, it was a political choice and in some way a sign of the times, as organized and more complex social structures were beginning to form, but also certainly as what could be considered a manifest declaration of intent. A manifestation of will that, as such, for him had and should have had over time a personal historical significance, regardless of the fact that I, we are here commenting on it four thousand years later.

I will not delve into the content, which dealt with issues that I would consider the subject of civil and jurisprudential legislative matter, relatively historically relevant like the status quo and the determination of wages, as well as the certainly more famous norms. Those of 'criminal' matter. The so-called law of retaliation: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A penal code that ironically, damn, after four thousand years, we can afford to define as 'stern, but fair.' Effective. As the choice was to enact the code and put it in writing effective and successful. Which, mind you, was a revolutionary act.

No. I wouldn't talk of any form of even primitive democracy, and then ultimately even today, there are those who consider laws something designed exclusively to damage the weaker to favor the powerful, but I, who am not a quibbler nor a carrier of capons, must say that frankly, I don't think so, and indeed I believe I live within a democratic system.

The point is that we live in a democratic system, but how active are we within it? And let's then shift the focus from the system as a whole to the individual. Hammurabi wasn't a champion of democracy, but in some way, by putting into writing the famous code, he and he alone somehow brought into question himself before being discussed by history. And how many times would he have reviewed his entire existence, reliving it like an old videotape whose images rewind rapidly, confused and fragmented, but how could it be otherwise in a flash of surprising self-awareness for a man who lived four thousand years ago, and how many times would he have been wrong and thought that what he had written could be right or wrong.

Scripta manent, but it's the same for everything we do in our lives day after day, and who knows if even some apparently irreparable act, like the cutting off of a hand, cannot somehow be reasoned. Discussed. Reevaluated. After all, the law is law and as such must be unequivocal and fully understandable and accessible to everyone, but it also lends itself to interpretation. So act, for God or Marduk if you prefer, carve the facts of your existence in stone, and if you betray yourselves, if you step outside those rules you established, continue to live anyway because ultimately that's what Hammurabi did. We don't remember him for his magnanimity or greatness and adherence to his personal code. But for the simple fact that he did it, and whether it was right or wrong, it remained instead of being hidden or destroyed, perhaps even by the will of its creator. If he was wrong, well, patience, he was the king, and rightly so, he could do whatever the heck he wanted. There are no tablets holding sway. After all, laws are also made to be broken. Then it's all just a matter of balance.