Bringer of Peace

Hammurabi and so many other rulers that would follow have explained their move to military actions in a most contradictory manner. They have used peace as their justification for war. Hammurabi may not have emphasized the importance of peace before his military actions but he definitely would use it afterwards. In his Epilogue he mentions he made an "end to wars" (line 24), and later he mentions he is "the shepherd who brings peace" (line 32). However these bold statements were at most only true for the few decades that he ruled following his conquests. The Middle East would continue to be dominated by wars and conquests for centuries and even to the present day wars and violence are nearly day occurrences.
Even the argument that Hammurabi established a tradition of empires that ended the era of city states seems inaccurate. Shamshi-Adad of the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia had been able to establish a similar empire just prior to Hammurabi's rise to power, and perhaps there had been another such ruler before him. Hammurabi seems to have simply followed the blue print that had already been established using his allies and aggressive and opportunistic personality to establish himself. Hammurabi was a capable and intelligent leader, but the peace he established was only temporary, as he was just one in a line of short term rulers of the region.