e owner often took the risk of death and flight, but then he
probably charged more hire. At any rate it is clear that the owner is not
named in this law.

It is not profitable to discuss these mere fragments of a code. The most
interesting thing is their existence. We may one day recover the Code in
full. These are not retranslations into Sumerian, by learned scribes, of
late laws. For exactly these words and phrases occur in the contracts of
the First Dynasty of Babylon, before and after the Code of Hammurabi,
which deals with the same cases, but in different words. In fact, this
Sumerian Code is quoted, as the later Code was quoted, in documents which
embody the sworn agreement of the parties to observe the section of the
Code applying to their case. This is indeed the characteristic of the
early contracts: after indicating the particulars of the case, an oath is
added to the effect that the parties will abide by the law concerning it.
Even where no reference is made to a law, it is because either no law had
been promulgated on the point, or because the law was understood too well
to need mention. Later this law-abiding spirit was less in evidence and
the contract became a private undertaking to carry out mutual engagements.
But even then it was assumed that a law existed which would hold the
parties to the terms of an engagement voluntarily contracted.

II. The Code Of Hammurabi

(M62)