236. If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of the boat another boat as compensation.
Continuing The Code of Hammurabi.
The Code was chiseled on an oblisk by Hammurabi. The Code is presented in twelve easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.
Previously in The Code of Hammurabi.
Time: 1754 BC
Place: Babylon
CC BY-SA 3.0 image from Wikipedia.
234. If a shipbuilder build a boat of sixty _gur_ for a man, he shall pay him a fee of two shekels in money.
235. If a shipbuilder build a boat for some one, and do not make it tight, if during that same year that boat is sent away and suffers injury, the shipbuilder shall take the boat apart and put it together tight at his own expense. The tight boat he shall give to the boat owner.
236. If a man rent his boat to a sailor, and the sailor is careless, and the boat is wrecked or goes aground, the sailor shall give the owner of the boat another boat as compensation.
237. If a man hire a sailor and his boat, and provide it with corn, clothing, oil and dates, and other things of the kind needed for fitting it: if the sailor is careless, the boat is wrecked, and its contents ruined, then the sailor shall compensate for the boat which was wrecked and all in it that he ruined.
238. If a sailor wreck any one’s ship, but saves it, he shall pay the half of its value in money.
239. If a man hire a sailor, he shall pay him six _gur_ of corn per year.
240. If a merchantman run against a ferryboat, and wreck it, the master of the ship that was wrecked shall seek justice before God; the master of the merchantman, which wrecked the ferryboat, must compensate the owner for the boat and all that he ruined.
241. If any one impresses an ox for forced labor, he shall pay one-third of a mina in money.
242. If any one hire oxen for a year, he shall pay four _gur_ of corn for plow-oxen.
243. As rent of herd cattle he shall pay three _gur_ of corn to the owner.
244. If any one hire an ox or an ass, and a lion kill it in the field, the loss is upon its owner.
245. If any one hire oxen, and kill them by bad treatment or blows, he shall compensate the owner, oxen for oxen.
246. If a man hire an ox, and he break its leg or cut the ligament of its neck, he shall compensate the owner with ox for ox.
247. If any one hire an ox, and put out its eye, he shall pay the owner one-half of its value.
248. If any one hire an ox, and break off a horn, or cut off its tail or hurt its muzzle, he shall pay one-fourth of its value in money.
249. If any one hire an ox, and God strike it that it die, the man who hired it shall swear by God and be considered guiltless.
250. If while an ox is passing on the street [market?] some one push it, and kill it, the owner can set up no claim in the suit [against the hirer].
251. If an ox be a goring ox, and it is shown that he is a gorer, and he do not bind his horns, or fasten the ox up, and the ox gore a free-born man and kill him, the owner shall pay one-half a mina in money.
252. If he kill a man’s slave, he shall pay one-third of a mina.
253. If any one agree with another to tend his field, give him seed, intrust a yoke of oxen to him, and bind him to cultivate the field, if he steal the corn or plants, and take them for himself, his hands shall be hewn off.
254. If he take the seed-corn for himself, and do not use the yoke of oxen, he shall compensate him for the amount of the seed-corn.
255. If he sublet the man’s yoke of oxen or steal the seed-corn, planting nothing in the field, he shall be convicted, and for each one hundred _gan_ he shall pay sixty _gur_ of corn.
256. If his community will not pay for him, then he shall be placed in that field with the cattle [at work].
257. If any one hire a field laborer, he shall pay him eight _gur_ of corn per year.
258. If any one hire an ox-driver, he shall pay him six _gur_ of corn per year.
259. If any one steal a water-wheel from the field, he shall pay five shekels in money to its owner.
260. If any one steal a _shadduf_ [used to draw water from the river or canal] or a plow, he shall pay three shekels in money.
261. If any one hire a herdsman for cattle or sheep, he shall pay him eight _gur_ of corn per annum.
262. If any one, a cow or a sheep … [broken off].
263. If he kill the cattle or sheep that were given to him, he shall compensate the owner with cattle for cattle and sheep for sheep.
264. If a herdsman, to whom cattle or sheep have been intrusted for watching over, and who has received his wages as agreed upon, and is satisfied, diminish the number of the cattle or sheep, or make the increase by birth less, he shall make good the increase and profit which was lost in the terms of settlement.
265. If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been intrusted, be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten times the loss.
266. If the animal be killed in the stable by God [an accident], or if a lion kill it, the herdsman shall declare his innocence before God, and the owner bears the accident in the stable.
267. If the herdsman overlook something, and an accident happen in the stable, then the herdsman is at fault for the accident which he has caused in the stable, and he must compensate the owner for the cattle or sheep.
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