Hammurabi’s Code of Law and its impact on human progress
The progress of the human civilization had been a very elemental need for the human beings thousands of years ago (Freud 2015). Some of the things that had been invented in order to make a progress were very much crucial as well. One of that is the Hammurabi’s code of law. It has been found by the archaeologists that the Code of Hammurabi was printed on the black stone stele (King 2014). Hammurabi was the sixth king in the dynasty of Babylon. The region can be identified as the modern day Iraq. He had made some codes of law which the people of his kingdom were supposed to follow. These codes helped the people of the kingdom to get some moral teachings.
However, some harsh punishments have been included this code of law for the people. It is more a collection of the legal precedents for the people to follow (King 2014). Still, the matter remains important that it had been one of the cruelest codes in the history of mankind. Hammurabi believed that he reigned in the kingdom for his just and pious set of rules. These laws are called the ‘laws of retribution’ or ‘an eye for an eye’. A very important aspect has to be highlighted in scenario that the accused people were considered to be as innocent until he was proven to be guilty (King 2014). This is done still today in the modern days. The reputation of Hammurabi stands as the pioneer in making laws that is an extreme needed in the world. So, this was very relevant for the progress of the human civilization.
2.The importance of tracking the timeline for the various historical events has always been a very important thing. The human being shave always been capable of sharing and accounting the past events. Some new methods and techniques have been invented with the time to track the events of the past (Glotz 2013). At a point of time, people used to keep the track of time through the memories. However, these memories were gone after the death of the human beings. These histories were remembered by the oral tradition. By the advancement of time, this process was no more evident in case of tracking historical events (Glotz 2013). It has been addressed that Mnemosyne, the Goddess of memory was considered to be the mother of the nine muses in ancient Greece. The events were written down in chronicles for preserving it. An example of it was Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh (Glotz 2013). The Jewish scriptures were also the mediums for tracking time and historical events.
The importance of tracking time in history
The Christian Bible, Holy Koran was all written down and the events were being tracked as per their writing dates. However, the importance of evidence in tracking the time came to be evident in a number of ways. The societies came to be more connected with the people and this was very much impressive to track the events by discovering the events that had taken place in the contemporary period. The remains of those times could be found after the excavation by the archaeologists (Harris 2014).
3.The question in this part talks about the comparison between the politics of the Confucian gentlemen and the philosopher-king of Plato. The Confucian gentlemen must have some ideas about the harmonious activities of the human beings. Confucius had described that a gentleman is not like an implement (El Amine 2012). He described the gentlemen should be able to versatile and he could improve himself with time. He also said that action should always speak louder than words and he should possess all the necessary knowledge.
The philosopher-king of Plato determines a region or a state where the rulers should be the ideal philosophers (Miller 2012). In the Republic, A design of the ideal city has been designed where the individual soul could be guided by the philosophers. In this context, it can be said that there must be two groups of rulers and the philosopher-king would be guiding the city with addressing what is right and what is wrong (Miller 2012).
In this comparative scenario, the American male should be like the Confucian gentlemen. This is because they are likely to possess the versatile abilities and he should have the capacity to improve with time. He should be able to adjust himself with the changing situations in both his life and the business environments. He should not be a person with only a set of words. Rather his action would justify what he talks (El Amine 2012). This is how it is better for American male to be better as a Confucian gentleman than a philosopher-king.
4.Parthenon has been described is temple of the Greek Goddess Athena and the construction of this temple was completed in the year 432 BC (Connelly 2014). There are many buildings in Houston, Texas which are the parts of the famous architecture of USA. There have been some similarities of these architectural buildings with that of the Parthenon in the ancient Greece.
Comparison of Confucian gentlemen and Plato’s philosopher-king
The Parthenon is about the mythological aspects in Greece. However, the photo that has been given in this paper above reflects some kind of a office building. So, it is obviously a non-residential building. The various things that could be attributed about this building is the fact that a huge number of people come to this place for their work and go away after it is over. The specific segment of the population that this building focuses is the office workers and the professionals in business management. On the other hand, one of the most important buildings is the Parthenon that survives from the ancient Greece. The decorative art is very important in the case of the Greek architecture. This temple was built at a time when the Greek architecture was at its peak (Connelly 2014).
The Doric order is one of the most mesmerizing works of art that will be remembered throughout all the historic documents. The specific segment of this is very relevant since the architecture is very beautiful in this city. The Greek historian Herodotus has tracked the details about the Parthenon in his descriptions (Connelly 2014).
5.The ‘Seize the day’ or the ‘carpe diem’ theme has been one of the most important themes in the modern poetry (Graham 2013). The main thing that this genre says is to live the moment or savor the moment. Many poems especially the love poems have been written by using this form. The metaphysical poems have been written using this thought as the lovers did not want to lose any opportunity to be engaged in the process of love. The people who believed in this theme believed that no one should wait for the future and complete the pending works in the similar way (Evans 2013).
The Roman Empire has been one of the most dominant forces in the world history (Blagg and Millett 2016). They have conquered nations and states one after one and they have defeated one after one of their opponents. They did not wait to invade in any of the regions and most of the areas in the world were conquered by them. The famous emperors in the Roman Empire were always on the hunt to conquer. They did not want to wait for a long time to capture a region rather they used to conquer the regions within a very short period of time. Thus they heeded to the Horace’s theme of ‘seize the day’. They were even successful in this cause as well.
6.The comparison between the Roman Empire and the Chinese empire is very much evident since both of these empires had been very supreme and they both were very powerful indeed. These two empires existed at a time when there was a tussle to gain the supreme power to control the world. The Roman dynasty that was rooted in Europe and the Han dynasty that was rooted in China rose to prominence. The distance between these two historical dynasties was huge and the rivalry between them was huge as well. Both these powers took almost four centuries to gain supreme power (Garnsey and Saller 2014).
The military power of the Roman Empire was its great strength. The tactics and strategies of the military personnel were unique in its own right. The Roman emperors were very skillful administrators (Garnsey and Saller 2014). They had built roads and communication tools with all the areas or regions which they had captured. The entire power was concentrated to the Senate and the Emperor and this was their weakness.
Chinese empire was one of the most powerful forces and their powerful and skilled armed force was believed to be their most powerful strength (Garrett 2012). The development of China in the earlier periods was totally based on the military power of the Han dynasty. There were some cases of the peasant dissatisfaction and this had been a weakness of the Han dynasty. The political system of the Han dynasty was unchanged from that of the Qin dynasty and this had been a weakness as well (Garrett 2012). The Han dynasty was very much enhanced in the fields of science and culture and this can be considered as one of their greatest strengths.
References
Blagg, T.F.C. and Millett, M., 2016. The early Roman empire in the west.
Connelly, J.B., 2014. The Parthenon Enigma. Knopf.
El Amine, L., 2012. The Confucian Conception of the Political.
Evans, W.G., 2013. Carpe diem. South African Dental Journal, 68(2), p.54.
Freud, S., 2015. Civilization and its discontents. Broadview Press.
Garnsey, P. and Saller, R.P., 2014. The Roman Empire: economy, society and culture. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Garrett, V., 2012. Chinese dress: from the Qing dynasty to the present. Tuttle Publishing.
Glotz, G., 2013. Ancient Greece at work. Routledge.
Graham, C.A., 2013. Carpe diem.
Harris, E.C., 2014. Principles of archaeological stratigraphy. Elsevier.
King, L.W., 2014. The code of Hammurabi. Netlancers Inc.
Miller, M.H., 2012. The philosopher in Plato’s statesman (Vol. 2). Springer Science & Business Media.