Twelve Tables

, years which the Romans believed to mark the creation of the Decemviral Commission and the publication of the Law of the Twelve Tables.

At the close of the history of the Republic there could be shown, in contradistinction to the great secular code of the Twelve Tables, a collection of religious ordinances, believed to be even more ancient than this code, and known as the Laws of the Kings (Leges Regiae).

For, if it is true that Roman Law retained its priestly character and its religious sanctions to a late period of the Republic, then the traditional history of the Twelve Tables is an improbability, and the account given by Cicero and other writers of the legislation and procedure of the Monarchy and early Republic is an anachronism.

We arrive at the era of Codes, those ancient codes of which the Twelve Tables of Rome were the most famous specimen.

But, whatever to a modern eye are the singularities of these Codes, their importance to ancient societies was unspeakable.

From the commencement to the close of its history, the expositors of Roman Law consistently employed language which implied that the body of their system rested on the Twelve Decemviral Tables, and therefore on a basis of written law.

This Novel is the last revision of the older Roman law of Succession after death, which was formed by the fusion of the rules of inheritance contained in the venerable Twelve Tables with the Equity of the Prætor’s Edict;

It was the exclusive principle of the Roman law under the Twelve Tables, and it governed the remoter collateral successions under the law of Athens, which prescribed that agnates should always have precedence over cognates (προτιμα̑σθαι τοὺς ἀπὸ τω̑ν ἄῤῥένων τω̑ν ἀπὸ θηλείων).

Now I, at all events, cannot read the ancient Hindu law-tracts and compare them with such treatises as the Daya-Bhaga and Daya-Krama-Sangraha without being led to the conclusion that, in the interval between the two states of the law reflected in the older and the later books, a change has taken place among the Hindus extremely like that which has occurred among the Romans when the Agnatic Inherit …

and this, surely, is that \"lament\" which the Twelve Tables forbade to be employed at funerals.

He who is so affected the Twelve Tables forbid to be master of his own affairs;

The passage of the twelve tables is well known, undoubtedly taken from the old Athenian Law, “If a thief commit a robbery in the night, and a man kill him, he is killed lawfully.

From hence the substance of the Twelve Tables, and Plato’s maxim in his ninth book of laws were taken.

This interpretation accords with the law of the twelve tables, which forbids any one to kill a thief in the day time, except he defend himself with a weapon.

that the writings of Lycurgus, of Solon, our Twelve Tables are not laws, nor even is it a city or a state unless it be of the wise?

That appeal lay even from the kings the pontifical books declare, our augural ones too signify, and likewise that it is permitted to appeal from every judgment and penalty the Twelve Tables indicate in several laws;

The exact duration of the absence necessary to defeat the Usucapion—three days and three nights—is provided for in the ancient Roman Code, the Twelve Tables, and doubtless the appearance of such a rule in so early a monument of legislation is not a little remarkable.

Many seek words from another age, they talk like the Twelve Tables.

If the Twelve Tables gave an action for damage to ‘trees’ it would not do to say ‘vines’;

the compensation of the civilized law stands instead of a primitive retaliation which was still recognized by the law of the Twelve Tables.