While Sumu-la-ilum may have laid the foundations of Babylon's military power, Hammurabi was the real founder of her greatness. To his military achievements he added a genius for administrative detail, and his letters and despatches, which have been recovered, reveal him as in active control of even subordinate officials stationed in distant cities of his empire. That he should have superintended matters of public importance is what might be naturally expected; but we also see him investigating quite trivial complaints and disputes among the humbler classes of his subjects, and often sending back a case for retrial or for further report. In fact, Hammurabi's fame will always rest on his achievements as a law-giver, and on the great legal code which he drew up for use throughout his empire. It is true that this elaborate system of laws, which deal in detail with every class of the population from the noble to the slave, was not the creative work of Hammurabi himself. Like all other ancient legal codes it was governed strictly by precedent, and where it did not incorporate earlier collections of laws, it was based on careful consideration of established custom. Hammurabi's great achievement was the codification of this mass of legal enactments and the rigid enforcement of the provisions of the resulting code throughout the whole territory of Babylonia. Its provisions reflect the king's own enthusiasm, of which his letters give independent proof, in the cause of the humbler and the more oppressed classes of his subjects. Numerous legal and commercial documents also attest the manner in which its provisions were carried out, and we have evidence that the legislative system so established remained in practical force during subsequent periods. It may be well, then, to pause at the age of Hammurabi, in order to ascertain the main features of early Babylonian civilization, and to estimate its influence on the country's later development.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Hogarth, "The Penetration of Arabia," pp. 206 ff.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," pp. 352 ff.]
[Footnote 3: An interesting confirmation of this view has been made by General P.J. Maitland. He points out that the great tanks at Aden, which were hewn out of the solid rock in early Himyarite if not in Sabajan times, are at the present day absolutely dry for four years out of five, and that the heaviest rainfalls since they were discovered and cleared out have not filled them to an eighth part of their capacity; cf. his preface to G. W. Bury's "Land of Uz," p. xii. f.]