Babylonia
Hammurabi was a king of Babylon who fought wars. He made Babylonia into an empire by putting Assyria under a vassal (puppet) king. He made the earliest written set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi. It has 280 judgments. It can be seen today in the Louvre, in Paris. The earlier Sumerian punishments had not been harsh, but Babylonian law was quite severe. The death penalty was given for theft, murder, and other crimes.