The photo to the right, of course, is the scrum of people crowded around the Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci's masterwork on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
I commented upon it after visiting last spring. The crowd was so dense you could feel the humidity coming off their bodies—the gallery where the painting is displayed reminded me of a high school gym.
Now direct your attention to the photograph below, also at the Louvre.
Do you recognize the black basalt column? Don't feel bad if you don't. I imagine most people will draw a blank .
Take a second look.
Any idea?
It's the Code of Hammurabi.
Not the oldest set of laws—though the basalt stele is over 3,000 years old. But the "most complete and perfect extant collection of Babylonian laws" to come down to us, discovered in what is now Iran in 1901.
The code contains 282 laws, related to a range of areas: contracts, marriage, divorce, assault, theft, liability and punishments.
Parts are familiar to this day, such as No. 196, spelling out a classic concept of justice:
"If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If one break a man's bone, they shall break his bone. If one destroy the eye of a freeman or break the bone of a freeman he shall pay one gold mina. If one destroy the eye of a man's slave or break a bone of a man's slave he shall pay one-half his price."
This "eye for an eye" might at first blush seem ancient and brutal to us now, though not as much as we'd like. Known as "lex talionis"—the law of retaliation—to this day it's the justification we use to execute murderers. You took something away from someone, now we're taking the same thing. It's odd. If we merely plucked out an offender's eye, it would be considered barbaric. Yet snuffing out an entire life is somehow less so.
Notice also that the punishment meted out depends not only on the crime, but the person upon whom the crime is committed. The status of the criminal was also significant.
In that way, the code is different than our current laws. In theory. We like to think that we've progressed from days of ancient tyrants, though in this way the code has us beat: status, both of victims and perpetrators, is in practice an important factor, still—maybe the important factor—even though our law pretends it isn't. A death in one part of town is not the same as a death in another. A rich man lawyers up while a poor man sits in jail because of some piddling bond he can't pay.
Maybe we would be better off if we were honest about it and wrote this injustice into our laws. At least then it would be clear.
Though my goal isn't to criticize law; it is the only thing, a thin wall of words, that stands between us an despotism. Even in ancient Babylon they knew that. Nowadays, we tend to forget.
I want you to notice one other thing about the Code of Hammurabi. Look at the photograph again. What's missing? Take a second. Anything not there? Glance back at the Mona Lisa for a hint.
People. The room is completely empty. I sought it out because I knew it was there and wanted to show my wife, a lawyer. I knew she would enjoy seeing it, and she did. But the masses don't bother. They pack into a gallery to see a painting they are already vastly familiar with. And probably don't even know that one of the earliest examples of the framework of law that supports all of our lives is in another gallery, largely ignored.
It's a worrisome neglect, because our fidelity for the law is of the utmost importance, as we in the United States will find out, sooner than later. Do we really value what we have? Do we understand its magnificence?
Between the Mona Lisa and the code, which is the true wonder? Which is the greater example of genius?