Twelve Tables

The Law of the Twelve Tables (Lex Duodecim Tabularum, more informally simply Duodecim Tabulae) were the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centrepiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum. The Twelve Tables must be carefully distinguished from the unrelated, much older "twelve shields" of King Numa Pompilius.

Related Topics:
Legislation - Roman law - Roman Republic - Mos maiorum - Numa Pompilius

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According to traditional, semi-legendary historical accounts preserved in Livy, during the earliest period of the Republic the laws were kept secret by the pontifices and other representatives of the patrician class, and were enforced with untoward severity, especially against the plebeian class. A plebeian named Terentilius proposed in 462 BC that an official legal code should be published, so that plebeians could not be surprised and would know the law.

Related Topics:
Tradition - Legend - Historical - Livy - Pontifices - Patrician - Plebeian - Terentilius - 462 BC - Legal

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For several years the patricians opposed this request, but in 451 BC a Decemvirate, or board of ten men, was appointed to draw up a code. They allegedly sent an embassy to study legislative system of Greeks, particularly the laws of Solon, possibly in the Greek colonies of southern Italy.

Related Topics:
451 BC - Decemvirate - Embassy - Greeks - Solon - Greek colonies - Italy

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The first ten codes were completed by the first Decemvirate in 450 BC; the last two codes were completed in 449 BC by the second Decemvirate and the Law of the Twelve Tables was formally promulgated. The Twelve Tables were literally drawn up on twelve wooden tablets which were posted in the Forum Romanum so that all Romans could read and know them.

Related Topics:
Decemvirate - 450 BC - 449 BC - Forum Romanum

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The laws of the Twelve Tables are not a comprehensive statement of all law; they are a sequence of definitions of various private rights and procedures. They generally took for granted such things as the institutions of the family, and various rituals for formal transactions. They are somewhat comparable to a Bill of Rights, but the modern observer must be careful not to project a modern understanding of rights and government onto ancient institutions and laws.

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For such an important document, it is somewhat surprising that the original text has been lost. The original tablets were destroyed when the Gauls under Brennus burnt Rome in 390 BC. There was no other official promulgation of them to survive, only unofficial editions. What we have of them today is brief excerpts and quotations from these laws in other authors. They are written in a strange, archaic, laconic, and somewhat childish and sing-song version of Latin. As such, though we cannot tell whether the quoted fragments accurately preserve the original form, what we have gives us some insight into the grammar of early Latin.

Related Topics:
Gaul - Brennus - 390 BC - Archaic - Laconic - Grammar

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Like most other primitive laws, they combine strict and rigorous penalties with equally strict and rigorous procedural forms. In most of the surviving quotations from these texts, the original table that held them is not given. Scholars have guessed at where surviving fragments belong by comparing them with the few known attributions. It cannot be known with any certainty from what survives that the originals ever were organised this way, or even if they ever were organised by subject at all.

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