Early Policing

One of early history's codifications of law is The Code of Hammurabi, named for the Babylonian ruler said to have ruled in the eighteenth century B.C.E. The Code stands as empirical evidence of a set of written laws and the penalties for violating those laws. Although there is no direct evidence of a police or law enforcement agency during Hammurabi's rule, logic suggests such existed.

Not until the third century B.C.E. did Roman magistrates appoint individuals to serve as the law enforcement arm in their jurisdiction. This progressed into the Praetorian Guard, and later the Vigiles of Rome, who served as the first firemen and grew into a policing organization. From the Vigiles of Rome come the terms vigilante and vigilance.