Twelve Tables of Rome
object · 2 works · 3 mentions · 3 anchored passages
Twelve Tables · the Twelve Tables of Rome
in the texts
Lectures on the Early History of Institutions
Early Roman code of written custom compared to the hypothesised ancient Irish nucleus.
Let it be remembered that the Roman Law, which, next to the Christian Religion, is the most plentiful source of the rules governing actual conduct throughout Western Europe, is descended from a small body of Aryan customs reduced to writing in the fifth century before Christ, and known as the Twelve Tables of Rome.
It is impossible to determine how much new law there was in the Laws of Solon, or in the Twelve Tables of Rome, or in the Laws of Alfred and Canute, or in the Salic Law which is the oldest of the so-called Leges Barbarorum, but in all probability the quantity was extremely small.
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
Early codified Roman law, cited for its ritual content.
Yet the meagre extant fragments of the Twelve Tables of Rome contain rules which are plainly religious or ritualistic:
We are told by Cicero (‘De Legibus,’ 2, 25, 64) that several of these rules contained in the Tenth of the Roman Tables were taken from Greek originals.