The legal treatises administer justice by offering wisdom by means of real or hypothetical decisions that were considered just.13 Today we think of justice as that which conforms to the law. For them justice was that which conformed to traditions reflected in the paradigms. Bottéro concludes that the “code” of Hammurabi “is clearly centered upon the establishment, not of a strict and literal justice, but of equity that inspires justice but also surpasses it.”14
