The attitude in Babylonian society toward the institution of slavery was distinctly different from that in Rome, but similar to the Egyptian practices. The slave was considered in a more social way than by the Romans. He was frequently regarded as one of the family; he could even become a free member of society. “Slavery was no bar to his promotion.” Moreover, slavery did not necessarily imprint a social stigma upon the slave. The social rights of women were similar to the Egyptian customs. The married woman of the ruling classes possessed definite property rights. She could use the property that she owned as she saw fit; she could even bequeath it as she chose. Her dowry gave her economic independence; it was her absolute property, which she could bequeath by will in any way that she desired. The earliest well-known Babylonian ruler was Hammurapi (2124–2081). He is known best through his famous book of laws, the Code of Hammurapi. The Code bespeaks for the author the desire to rule Babylonian society justly. There are minute regulations of private business and of labor conditions which give the Code some of the characteristics of modern mercantilistic thought. The Code contains perhaps the earliest forms of labor legislation that were enacted. Hammurapi sought through legislation to determine wages for different classes of labor. The Code prescribed severe punishment for anyone who sheltered a runaway slave. In this and similar ways, property rights were protected and human elements subordinated. It was not until the Deuteronomic Code was written that the rights of labor received legislative recognition. Hammurapi stood for a paternalistic control of society. His idea of justice was literally that of an eye for an eye. “If a man has caused the loss of a patrician’s eye, his eye shall one cause to be lost.”[III-3] Justice, moreover, was subject to the law of social gradation. An offense against a man of lower rank might be atoned by paying money. “If a man has caused a poor man to lose his eye, he shall pay one mina of silver.”[III-4] Additional light is thrown on the concept of justice by other passages from the Code, especially by this one: “If a builder has built a house for a man and has not made strong his work, and the house he has built has fallen, and he has caused the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.”[III-5] The intellectual progress and the inventions of the Babylonians are indicative of social status. The development along artistic lines, particularly in architecture and sculpture, must have exerted an indirect but important social influence. Significant advances in surgery had been made preceding the reign of Hammurapi. In medicine, however, the demonic theory of the causes of disease enslaved the people.