Twelve Tables of Roman Law

Context

Republican Rome during the period called the Conflict of the Orders (494–287 BCE) was rife with social unrest. The constant struggle between the interests of two groups, the patricians and the plebeians, was the primary impetus behind many of the events during this period. Like many elements of very early Roman history, the origins of this class hierarchy are uncertain. According to tradition, the founder of Rome, Romulus, created the first Roman Senate, and from the descendents of those original hundred men, termed patres (fathers), the patrician class came into being. Modern historians are skeptical of that explanation and believe that the patrician class may have come about during the rule of the monarchy and included aristocratic clans from peoples that migrated into or joined with Rome during the regnal period— the time under which Rome was ruled by a series of kings, from the date of the mythical founding of Rome in 753 BCE by Romulus to the overthrow of Tarquin the Proud in 509 BCE.

Regardless of their origin, the patricians monopolized power in the early Roman Republic because of their wealth and influence. In contrast, the plebeian order constituted the remainder of the Roman citizenry, consigned to subordinate positions as the supporters and clients of the patrician class. This distinction was particularly onerous to the plebeians. Although many of them came from families of distinction and privilege, without patrician heritage they were denied the highest offices, particularly those involving membership in the College of Pontiffs—high religious posts that held enormous sway over the maintenance of the Roman state.

Roman religion was highly public and civic in orientation. Its main focus was on the observance of protocol and ritual. The priestly classes were thus nominated from the patrician order. These religious offices were beneficial for a variety of reasons in terms of possible economic benefit and prestige; however, these officials also served as the sole caretakers and interpreters of the law, which at this point consisted primarily of an unorganized mixture of written precedents and a loose system of orally transmitted laws. The plebeians were thus left without any real knowledge of what the law was or what recourse they had if they felt that their rights had been violated.

Prior to the drafting of the Twelve Tables, the rights of the plebeians had been asserted by their repeated withdrawal from public life, termed secessio (secessions), until their demands were met. In 494 BCE the plebeians had reacted against what they saw as the biased and unjust enforcement of laws, especially those regarding debt, and they seceded from the government, encamping on the nearby Aventine Hill until their demands were met. This first secession led to the creation of a new legal post, the tribune of the plebs, designed to safeguard their rights; the pressure generated by it also allowed for the formation of the Concilium Plebis (Plebeian Council) in 471 BCE, a separate legislative assembly with the purpose of allowing the plebeians to elect their own officials and hold trials for noncapital offenses.

The prevailing scholarly view is that though the patricians wished to maintain their hold on political hegemony, they were forced to cede these rights to the plebeians out of necessity: Rome during the first half of the fifth century BCE was constantly warring with neighboring peoples, specifically the Volsci and the Aequi, and plebeian participation in the military was needed for adequate defense of the city. Some theories even suggest that it was this constant warfare that drove the plebeians' desire for a greater understanding of their legal rights—the warfare along Rome's borders hit small plebeian freeholders the hardest. In the aftermath of an enemy excursion, these farmers often found themselves deprived of both their crops and their livestock. To maintain themselves, they resorted to mortgage of their land to patrician lenders in return for resupply, sinking deeper into debt.

According to ancient sources, in 462 BCE a tribune of the plebs, Gaius Terentilius Harsa, first put forth the idea that a committee should be formed to establish the laws publicly, a concept that would not be taken up again until the military and social atmosphere worsened a decade later. With the pressures of war mounting, the plebeian tribunes continued their push for a codification of the existing laws and possibly even pressured the Senate into sending a delegation to Athens to study the laws of Solon, an earlier attempt by the neighboring Greeks to codify their own laws. When the delegation returned, it was decided that in 451 BCE a council of ten men, made up primarily of patricians, would take control of all executive power in Rome and assume the tasks of compiling the existing laws and managing the government.

The efforts of the decemvirs were appreciated by the people, and at the end of the term the council had drawn up ten tables of law. There was a suggestion that another committee of ten men should again be nominated because of the decemvirs' seemingly fair rule and because some felt that the ten tables were insufficient or incomplete. The precise details of the events that surrounded these efforts are inconsistent. The prevailing view of the ensuing events is that Appius Claudius, elected president of the first committee, was seen as a natural fit to lead the second. He utilized his influence among the senators and other patricians to have his supporters nominated as well, turning the body into his personal coterie and, in effect, transforming the Roman government into a dictatorship. Although this ruling body did put forth an additional two tables supplementing the original ten, the once-benign administration quickly devolved. Appius's increasingly arrogant and autocratic behavior gave many in the Roman government pause, though; because the normal apparatuses of government, including all magistracies and the office of the tribune of the plebs, were in hiatus, there was nothing legally to be done. The historians Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus both wrote on this period, recounting legendary exploits of Appius's cruelty and even charging him with the attempted abduction of a young woman named Verginia, daughter of a respected centurion. Contemporary historians regard all references to this act as mythic, yet what can be determined is that the tone of these reports indicate that Appius had a reputation for abusing the power entrusted to him and the decemvirs.

None of these events can be verified by contemporaries, but the tale of what happened next is generally accepted: Because of eventual administrative mismanagement, the decemvirate was abolished, and the government was reinstated. The plebeians, an integral part of this restoration of normalcy, were concerned that a return to the previous form of government would leave them with little or no voice in government; for this reason they seceded for a third time, demanding that the Twelve Tables be ratified officially. Powerless against the demands of so many and still embroiled in border wars, the patricians acquiesced, and the laws were formally promulgated in 449 BCE.