The Twelve Tables

Roman legal development

Before the Twelve Tables (754–449 BC), private law consisted of the old Roman civil law (j us civile Quiritium), which applied only to Roman citizens. It was closely bonded to religion and it was undeveloped with attributes of strict formalism, symbolism and conservatism, such as the highly-ritualised practice of Mancipatio, a form of sale. The jurist Sextus Pomponius said, "At the beginning of our city, the people began their first activities without any fixed law and without any fixed rights: all things were ruled despotically by kings". It has been suggested that the ancient roots of the Roman Law derive directly from the Etruscan religion, which puts great emphasis on rituality.

According to traditional, semi-legendary historical accounts, during the earliest period of the Republic the laws were kept secret by the pontifices 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.

Patricians long opposed this request, but in 455 CB, the first Decemvirate, or board of ten men, was appointed to draw up the first ten tables. They allegedly sent an embassy to Greece to study the legislative system of Athens, known as the Solonian Constitution, but also to find out about the legislation of other Greek cities. In 450 B.C. the second decemviri started work on the last 2 tables.

The first Decemvirate completed the first ten codes in 450 BC. Here is how Livy describes their creation, "...every citizen should quietly consider each point, then talk it over with his friends, and, finally, bring forward for public discussion any additions or subtractions which seemed desirable." In 449 DC, the second Decemvirate completed the last two codes the Law of the Twelve Tables was formally promulgated. The Twelve Tables were drawn up on twelve ivory tablets (Livy says bronze) which were posted in the Roman Forum so that all Romans could read and know them.

The laws of the Twelve Tables were not a comprehensive statement of all law; they are a sequence of definitions of various private rights and procedures, similar to a bill of rights. They generally took for granted such things as the institutions of the family and various rituals for formal transactions.

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.

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