Twelve Tables

According to Roman tradition, the Law of the Twelve Tables (Latin: Leges Duodecim Tabularum or Duodecim Tabulae) was the legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws.

The Twelve Tables are sufficiently comprehensive that their substance has been described as a 'code', although modern scholars consider this characterization exaggerated. The Tables were 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. The provisions were often highly specific and diverse, and lack an intelligible system or order.

The Twelve Tables of Roman society were said by the Romans to have come about as a result of the long social struggle between patricians and plebeians. After the expulsion of the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, the Republic was governed by a hierarchy of magistrates. Initially, only patricians were eligible to become magistrates and this, among other plebeian complaints, was a source of discontent for plebeians. In the context of this unequal status, plebeians would take action to secure concessions for themselves using the threat of secession. They would threaten to leave the city with the consequence that it would grind to a halt, as the plebeians were Rome's labor force. Tradition held that one of the most important concessions won in this class struggle was the establishment of the Twelve Tables, establishing basic procedural rights for all Roman citizens as against one another. However this tradition cannot be verified, and the drafting of the Twelve Tables may have been fomented by a desire for self-regulation by the patricians, or for other reasons.

Around 450 BC, the first decemviri (decemvirate - board of "Ten Men") were appointed to draw up the first ten tables. According to Livy, they 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. Some scholars dispute the veracity of any claim that the Romans imitated the Greeks in this respect or suggest that they visited the Greek cities of Southern Italy, and did not travel all the way to Greece. In 450 BC, the second decemviri started to work on the last two tables.

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