This seminar explores the laws and legal practices of six ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Israel, Greece and Rome. This page contains a full course description, a list of required readings and hyperlinks.
This seminar will introduce students to the very beginnings of Western legal history. Through a comparative examination of the legal systems and practices of ancient Mesopotamia (including Hammurabi's Babylon, c. 1700 B.C.), ancient Egypt, ancient Israel, ancient Anatolia (the Hittite Empire, c. 1500 B.C.), ancient Greece and ancient Rome, we will investigate the historical origins of "law" as an idea. We will see how each of these societies created law in the image of its own beliefs and needs. We will look at what differentiated the resulting legal systems, and what united them. We will examine not merely the ancient "law in the books" (the formal written codes that have received so much historical and philological attention over the years) but also the ancient "law in action" (the performances, rituals and ceremonies that created legal rights and duties in all these proto-literate societies). We will look at some of the earliest surviving trial records. Throughout the seminar, emphasis will be placed on developing a broad interdisciplinary perspective on the ancient legal cultures examined; readings will be drawn not only from the fields of law and history, but also from religion, anthropology, archaeology, literature and communication studies. Evaluation will be based on a paper and a class presentation. Enrollment limited to 12 students.
Listed below are the required readings on the legal cultures of each of the six ancient civilizations studied in this course.
Mesopotamian Law Hittite Law Greek Law Egyptian Law The Law of Ancient Israel Roman Law
Mesopotamian Law
- Cyrus H. Gordon, The Ancient Near East 72-84 (1964)
- E.A. Speiser, "Early Law and Civilization", in Collected Writings (1971)
- J.J. Finkelstein, "Law in the Ancient Near East", 5 Encyclopedia Biblica (1968), reprinted in Jewish Law and Decision-Making: A Study Through Time (Aaron M. Schreiber, ed., 1979)
- J.N. Postgate, "Laws and the Law", in Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History 275-291(1992)
- Theodore J. Meek, trans., "The Code of Hammurabi", in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (J. Pritchard, ed., 1955)
- Jean Bottero, "The Code' of Hammurabi", in Mesopotamia, Writing, Reasoning and the Gods 156-69; 179-184 (1993)
Egyptian Law
- Robert Wenke, "The Origins of Cultural Complexity in Africa", in Patterns in Prehistory 475-487 (1980)
- John A. Wilson, "Authority and Law in Ancient Egypt", Journal of the American Oriental Society (1959)
- Aristide Theodorides, "The Concept of Law in Ancient Egypt", in The Legacy of Egypt (John Richard Harris, ed., 2nd ed., 1971)
- "Edict of Harmheb", in James H. Breasted, 3 Ancient Records of Egypt (1935)
- "Tomb of Rekmire", in James H. Breasted, 2 Ancient Records of Egypt (1935)
- "Records of the Royal Tomb-Robberies", in James H. Breasted, 4 Ancient Records of Egypt (1935)
- "The Protests of the Eloquent Peasant", in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (J.B. Pritchard, ed., 1950)
Hittite Law
- O.R. Gurney, "The Hittites", in The Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations (Arthur Cotterell, ed., 1980)
- O.R. Gurney, "Laws and Institutions", in The Hittites 94-96 (1981)
- E. Neufeld, The Hittite Laws 70-73; 78-79; 94-113 (1951)
- Albert Goetze, trans., "The Hittite Laws", in Ancient Near Eastern Texts (James B. Pritchard, ed., 1950)
The Law of Ancient Israel
- Helmer Ringgren, "Israel", in The Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations (Arthur Cotterell, ed., 1980)
- Robert R. Wilson, "The Role of Law in Early Israelite Society", in Law, Politics and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Baruch Halpen, ed., 1993)
- Michael Walzer, "The Legal Codes of Ancient Israel", 4 Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 335 (1992)
- Exodus 18:13-27; 19:1-25; 20:1-18; 22:1-26; 23:1-12; 24:3-8, 12-18
- Hanoch Reviv, The Elders in Ancient Israel 57-70 (1983)
- Ruth 4:1-12
- Ake Viborg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament 1-6, 146-165 (1992)
Greek Law
- Hans Julius Wolff, "Greek Legal History: Its Functions and otentialities", 1975 Washington University Law Quarterly 395
- Michael Gagarin, Early Greek Law 19-50 (1986)
- Jon Stratton, "Writing and the Concept of Law in Ancient Greece",14 Visible Language 99 (1980)
- Raphael Sealy, The Justice of the Greeks 37-43, 51-58 (1994)
- "The Laws of Gortyn", in Hellenic Civilization(G.W. Botsford and E.G. Sihler, eds., 1965)
- Douglas M. MacDowell, The Law in Classical Athens 24-40, 41-49 (1978)
- Aristophanes, The Wasps
Roman Law
- Hans Julius Wolff, "The Historical and Constitutional Background of Roman Law", in Roman Law: An Historical Introduction (1951)
- Alan Watson, Roman Law and Comparative Law 1-26 (1991)
- Peter M. Tiersma, "Rites of Passage: Legal Ritual in Roman Law and Anthropological Analogues", 9 Journal of Legal History 3 (1988)
- Barry Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law 38-45 (1962) [on Justinian's codification]
- M. Carr Ferguson, "A Day in Court in Justinian's Rome: Some Problems of Evidence, Proof and Justice in Roman Law", 46 Iowa Law Review 732 (1961)
The following links provide connections to ancient law resources on the Internet.
- ABZU (Ancient Near East resources)
- Akkadian Language Page
- Ancient Law (Henry Maine)
- Ancient Near East (map)
- Ancient World Web
- Annual Egyptian Bibliography
- Antiphon on the Murder of Herodes
- Athenian Constitution (traditionally attributed to Aristotle)
- Basilica Julia (reconstruction)
- Cicero Home Page
- Code of Hammurabi
- Code of Hammurabi (image)
- Cuneiform Writing
- Deir el-Medina (image)
- Deir el-Medina Database
- Diotima (Women and Gender in the Ancient World)
- Duke Papyrus Library (images of Late Egyptian legal documents)
- Egyptian Gods (Amun, Ma'at, etc.)
- Egyptian Legal Documents
- Egyptology Resources
- Hittite Home Page
- Inscription of Mes
- Judicial Papyrus of Turin
- Karnak Temple
- Laws of Eshnunna (excerpts)
- Legal Status in the Roman World
- Life of Solon (Plutarch)
- Mesopotamian Cylinder Seal
- Mesopotamian Judgment Tablet
- Perseus Project (Classical Greece)
- Roman Empire (map)
- Roman Law
- Roman Law Resources
- Temple of Amun at Karnak (image)
- Treaties and Legal Contracts from the Ancient Near East
- The Twelve Tables
- Will of Naunakhte
- Women in Ancient Egypt
