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[German version] I. Ancient Near East The Sumerian-Akkadian terminology regarding punishment and criminal law implies that in Mesopotamia, this was already understood to be a consequence of mischief [1. 77 with note 35], directed either against the divine order [2] or the (state-sanctioned) political and social structures [3]. The same is true of Egypt [4. 68]. There was no distinction between civil and criminal law in the modern sense. The relationship between private law and so-called public law (an…

[German version] I. General Neither the states of the ancient Near East nor those of classical antiquity had a word corresponding to the modern, impersonal concept of the state. There was no abstract idea of state separate from the ruler or distinguished by law. In particular, the state did not appear as a perpetrator of action. The use of the term 'state' for these pre-modern societies is none the less justified, because, on the one hand, they did fulfil the minimum formal criteria: permanent state…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient Banks as institutions whose specific task consists of arranging payment transactions, accepting deposits and granting credits, did not exist in the Ancient Orient. There is evidence of deposit and credit operations in ancient oriental societies of differing quantity and intensity, both in the domain of palace and temple economy and in individual private legal and economic transactions, but they were always subordinate to the respectively dominating redistributive an…

[German version] A. Ancient Near East There is evidence of personal (corporal) liability through surety (especially standing surety for another, rarely for oneself) as a means of guaranteeing a contract in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts from the mid-3rd millennium BC [2. 253] into the Hellenistic period [3. 64-69], using different terminologies and in different forms. The Gestellungsbürgschaft ('surety of appearance') was common (promise of the guarantor to deliver the debtor to the creditor for enforcement). In the late Babylonian (6th-4th cents. BC) Stillesitzbürgschaft ('s…

[German version] I. Ancient Near East There is evidence of wages as recompense for work done by labourers hired for limited periods in Mesopotamia from the mid 3rd millennium BC to the late Babylonian period (2nd half of 1st millennium BC), in Hittite Anatolia (2nd half of 2nd millennium BC) and in Egypt (from the Old Kingdom on). In Mesopotamia, the institutional households (Palace; Temple) of the Ur III period in particular (21st cent. BC) supplemented their own labour force (which received rations …

The term aristocracy, when used for ancient societies, must be distinguished from the term aristocracy used in the Middle Ages and in modern times. The aristocracy of antiquity is lacking lordly property as the basis of rule over people who work the land, and also, in principle, an authority that can justify aristocratic status. Heredity and exclusive class thinking are especially weakly pronounced in the Greek areas, even if often through the handing down of property and personal connections, e…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient Certainly there is evidence of the emergence and activity of joint representatives of specific branches of the professions in the Ancient Orient, such as merchants, craftsmen and priests, but there is no proof of PA in the sense of voluntary federations for the protection and defence of political and economic interests [1. 79-82; 2. 161f.]. Neumann, Hans (Berlin) Bibliography 1 A.L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, 1964 2 H.M. Kümmel, Familie, Beruf und Amt im spätbabylonischen Uruk, 1979. [German version] II. Greece and Rome Three different …

[German version] I. General In antiquity homicide is often not yet differentiated from other crimes of killing ( Killing, crimes of). In many ancient laws the special reprehensibility or danger of a behaviour that resulted in the death of another human being was not yet considered a reason for a respective sanction. Thus, in the case of ancient Oriental laws, it would be inappropriate both with regard to the term and the matter to speak of particular offences amounting to homicide within the framework of crimes of killing. Neumann, Hans (Berlin) [German version] II. Greece In archaic Gre…

[German version] I. Ancient Near East The convention in ancient oriental studies is to maintain a distinction between epic and myth in so far as the protagonists of each genre are concerned, even though, in respect of genre theory and style, this remains difficult and contentious [1. 145-153; 2. 1-24]: in epic the actors are (heroicized) people, whereas myths inhabit the realm of the divine. Sumerian epic literature is woven around the legendary kings of the 1st dynasty of Uruk: Enmerkar, Lugalbanda a…

[German version] I. General International treaties (IT) are official and binding agreements under international law between two or more subjects of international law, which are legally binding for the entire citizenship in question. They were stipulated orally or in writing; they took the form of unilateral, bi- or multilateral agreements, and always implied the recognition of the other party under international law. IT were often the result of preliminary negotiations; they required ratification by…

[German version] I. Ancient Near East Mesopotamian cuneiform texts attest to slavery in the ancient Near East from the early 3rd millennium BC [1]. However, at no time were slaves the essential producers in the structure of the total economy [2]. From the 3rd-1st millennia BC, slaves were primarily deployed in private households, and to a lesser extent in institutional households (Palace, Temple). The main sources thus mostly come from the field of private law and governmental legislation [3]. Some of…