Assyrian law, as described in the Code of Assura, or Code of the Assyrians, was an ancient legal code established during the Middle Assyrian Empire, between 1450 and 1250 BCE. This law code built upon the precedents set in Sumerian and Babylonian law. Like previous law codes, the Code of the Assyrians stressed the idea of proportional retribution, especially in cases involving violent crimes. This legal approach, otherwise known as retributive justice, requires offenders receive a punishment for a crime proportional and similar to the offense committed. This idea of proportionality in punishment was reserved for free-born adult men, however. Crimes inflicted against women were punished in a much more lenient way, and female criminal offenders were punished with the utmost severity.