royal measures aimed at the stabilisation of the social balance and the social order
within the state. When, at the beginning of the Old Babylonian period, private
property rights gained increasing significance, the need for such balancing measure-
ments grew also. Already Ishme-Dagan exempted the citizens of Nippur from their
tax-payments and military service. In the Laws of Lipit-Eshtar many stipulations
aimed at stabilising the social order, and in a royal inscription he mentions halving
barley taxes and reducing the periods of compulsory service. Slightly later, in the
archives from the city of Larsa, we have good evidence that king Rim-Sin issued
several royal decrees. One is concerned with the annulment of property transfers,
apparently an attempt to secure the subsistence of the selling families. In Babylon,
the first kings of the dynasty mention either that they had (re-)established ‘just social
order’ or that they cancelled existing debts. Similar stipulations are well attested
later. After Hammurabi, every Old Babylonian king apparently issued such edicts in
the year of his inauguration (Selz 1999 / 2000 ; Renger 2002 ). This was clearly an
attempt to obtain the support of the people.
The main concern of Hammurabi’s laws was, as we have seen above, to establish
‘just order’ in his kingdom. Of particular interest in this context are the edicts of his
successors Samsu-iluna and Ammisaduqa. These edicts deal with the following topics
(Kraus 1984 : 291 ff. and 315 ff.):
The proper act of oblivion with:
cancellation of outstanding payments;
cancellation of private debts;
remission from debt servitude;
remission of the rent for prebend land;
regulations concerning additional income of certain tenants.Additional stipulations in the edict of Ammisaduqa concerning:prohibition of forcible collection of small debts;
business relations between government and merchants;
punishment for certain criminal offences.The first group of these measures are evidently a royal intervention in valid contracts
and somehow challenging the existing legal system (Kraus 1984 : 118 ; Bouzon 1995 :
21 ). Of special interest here is the fact that the king has ordered the ‘destruction of
the tablets concerning debts’ which was evidently understood as a measurement to
establish ‘just order’. Kraus had already linked the popularity of these edicts in Old
Babylonian times to the development of private land holdings. Division of inherited
estates reduced the sizes of the subsistence fields, and people were forced to borrow
money in order to survive. Ultimately, even the income of the palace was at risk,
and such edicts became a necessity for the survival of the entire economic and social
system. Seen from another perspective, the edicts themselves threatened the society
as a whole. The royal intervention in the existing legal order and the annulment of
valid contracts must have provoked legal insecurity among certain circles, and must
have shaken any trust in the binding force of the existing legal regulations. But
— Power, economy and social organisation in Babylonia —