In the 300s b.c.e. the province of Qin adopted legalism.
Th ere its chief advocate was Shang Yang (d. 338 b.c.e.). He
saw to it that even the crown prince of Qin was punished for
a crime. He was known for his cruelty and political treachery.
When the crown prince became king of Qin, Shang Yang had
to fl ee the province. When Zheng of Qin reunifi ed China and
renamed himself Qin Shi Huangdi, he imposed legalism on
the empire. He tried to regulate all of the business of the na-
tion. Some of his eff orts had practical value. For example, a
law that standardized the width for all axles on carts meant
that ruts in roads could be standardized, allowing for greater
speed in transporting goods to market and putting an end
to the tipping over of carts because one wheel was in a rut
while the other was not. Other laws made tax collecting eas-
ier. However, the criminal laws were unbearable. It seemed
that no one could go a day without violating a few laws, and
the punishments for breaking those laws were cruel. Qin Shi
Huangdi took advantage of people’s tendency accidentally to
break laws, amassing a huge force of convicted laborers who
worked on building projects, such as the Great Wall. Legal-
ism was so loathed by the Chinese that they exterminated
Qin Shi Huangdi’s entire family in 210 b.c.e., ensuring that
the Qin Dynasty and legalism would not rise again.
Th e founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, instituted
Confucianism as the philosophy of his government. Th e law
retained some of the doctrines of legalism, such as those en-
forcing taxation and obedience to the emperor, but Confu-
cianism replaced most of the harsh laws of legalism with the
principle of compassion. It took until about 100 b.c.e. for Con-
fucianist magistrates fully to supplant legalist magistrates.
In 145 b.c.e. Governor Wen Weng of the province of
Shu, not satisfi ed with the number of educated people avail-
able for employment in his government, began schools that
taught Conf ucia nism to boys of a l l socia l classes. His idea was
adopted by the empire as a whole, and the schools produced
the magistrates and the law enforcement offi cers of China. A
magistrate was expected to be impartial, with his court be-
ing the one place in the empire where a poor person could
challenge a rich one. People could appeal to higher authori-
ties in government if they lost their cases. Th e emperor was
expected to right wrongly decided cases in order to maintain
his divine right to rule, which the gods could take away from
him if he were unjust, but by 1 c.e. a census showed that there
were nearly 60 million people in China, making it impossible
for the emperor to hear every appeal. Th e emperor’s magis-
trates were expected to memorize the laws they enforced and
to prove themselves knowledgeable before being appointed to
offi ce. Th ese magistrates helped maintain a sense of a single
nation with one legal code through the centuries of upheaval
aft er the Han Dynasty ended, even though there were oft en
three or more governments vying to rule the empire.
A lack of written records for ancient laws makes identi-
fying any laws outside China and India very diffi cult. Many
Pacifi c islands were not yet settled, and those that were settled
were only beginning to form societies governed by laws. Th e
islands of Java and Borneo seem to have begun forming king-
doms late in the ancient era, perhaps in the 200s or 300s c.e.,
but the possible existence of these kingdoms is mostly inferred
from scant Chinese records of trade in southeastern Asia dur-
ing the medieval era. Th e formation of legal systems on these
islands may not have begun before the medieval era.
Th e major nation in Southeast Asia from the 100s to 500s
c.e. was Funan, which controlled territory from the Mekong
Delta into what is now Cambodia. It left behind Hindu tem-
ples, the existence of which suggests to archaeologists that
Funan’s laws probably resembled those of ancient India. Di-
rect evidence of Funan’s laws is scant. Korea was infl uenced by
China, which established trade cities on the Korean peninsula
during the Han Dynasty. In about 384 c.e., when the royal
family of the Korean kingdom of Paekche converted to Bud-
dhism, Chinese forms of government and Chinese laws began
to be adopted by Paekche, and the Chinese legal system moved
through the Korean peninsula over the next 200 years. Ancient
Korea is believed by most historians to have had a strong infl u-
ence on ancient Japan; through Korea, Chinese culture came
to Japan. Th e laws of ancient Japan are not known, but some-
time in the 100s or 200s c.e., the Japanese on the island Ky-
ushu, and probably the island Honshu as well, began adopting
Chinese customs. During the 300s and 400s c.e., governments
on these islands began modeling themselves on Chinese gov-
ernments, and they probably adapted Chinese legal practices
to their own needs. Early Japanese written records from the
medieval era suggest that the laws mostly applied to the upper
classes of Japan and that traditional Japanese tribal customs
prevailed among the rest of the Japanese.EUROPE
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
Th e people of ancient Europe did not record their laws in
writing. Historians have reconstructed ancient EuropeanJade cicada, China (second to fi rst century b.c.e.); jade cicadas were
placed as protection on the tongue of the dead, but full burial suits of
jade were restricted by sumptuary laws to royalty. (© Th e Trustees of
the British Museum)
626 laws and legal codes: Europe