The genesis of law

Despite the importance of law its manifestation in the form of general codes appears only in about 3000 BC.

Codes of

Hammurabi

It appeared in around 1760 BC, and is one of the earliest instances of a ruler proclaiming a systematic corpus of law to his people so they are able to know their rights and duties

The Byzntine

Roman

Emperor

Justinian

Depicted here in one of the striking mosaics in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna, oversaw the revision and codification of Roman law into the Corpus Juris Civilis, consisting of the Digest (or Pandects), the Institutes, the Codex and the Novellae

The

Napoleonic

Code

French civil code enacted on March 21, 1804, and still extant, with revisions. It was the main influence on the 19th-century civil codes of most countries of continental Europe and Latin America.