Twelve Tables of Roman Law

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Law of the Twelve Tables is separated into twelve separate sections, each referring to one or more public or private legal concepts in detail. Although the originals were destroyed in 390 BCE, references to them from ancient sources have allowed for their re-creation.

Table I

The ten laws of Table I deal with procedural elements of summonses to court and of the trial itself. They cover the responsibilities of both plaintiffs and defendants in response to a summons, stipulating that if a defendant does not appear, the plaintiff could “seize his reluctant adversary” (Law II); if a defendant was ill or infirm of body, the plaintiff was required to supply “an animal, as a means of transport” (Law IV). However, the plaintiff was not responsible for supplying an expensive litter, or covered chair designed to be carried by attendants.

Furthermore, Law VI expands upon who could act as a “surety” or “defender” of someone in court, whether the plaintiff and defendant could settle the issue themselves, and what their recourse would be if a compromise could not be made. Although it is often referred to as a military rank, the “Praetor” (Law VII) was an official charged with the responsibility of deciding disputes between citizens. A combination of both judge and counselor, the praetor was considered a colleague of the “consul,” or supreme elected leader during the Roman Republic, and charged with being part of the system of courts as well as presiding over the senate and other legislative bodies.

Table II

The eleven laws in this table have to do with the expectations of the plaintiff and the defendant in reference to judgment. Additionally, this table includes specific laws regarding theft and the appropriate actions that could be taken if someone was caught in the act of stealing.

In Law I, rules regarding the postponement of a trial or obtaining a witness are laid out, including allowances for “discharge” of vows to the gods or to “meet an alien.” Vows to the gods were an integral part of Roman religion. The formula followed was that the supplicant asked the gods for their favor in a particular act, good health, safe return from a journey, success in business dealings, and so on; in return, the supplicant would perform certain duties or give offerings to them. Because of the highly formalistic nature of Roman religion, the execution of these vows was considered legally binding. The reference to an “alien” here simply refers to a foreigner or even someone who is not considered to be from the same locality. This is most likely a reference to business dealings made with those from afar and considered important enough to justify a delay in a legal proceeding.

Table II goes on to discuss theft and the laws surrounding it. Particularly noteworthy is the mention in Law VII of detecting theft by means of “dish and girdle.” One of the rights granted by traditional Roman law at the time was that an individual who suspected his neighbor of theft might be allowed to search the neighbor's premises to confirm the theft. The only stipulation was that the accuser would do so wearing solely a “girdle”—a belt or, more specifically, a loincloth or other small piece of clothing. This requirement was meant to prevent theft on the part of the accuser once inside the neighbor's home. The only other item allowed to be brought into the suspect's home was a dish or platter, the explanation of which is uncertain. Some historians believe that it served as a ritualistic method to convey the stolen property out of the home, if it was discovered. Others postulate that it may have served as a screen to hide the accuser's face while inside.

The remainder of the table discusses the potential punishments for various infractions, separating the judgments according to the social status of the perpetrator; the result was that punishment was worse for slaves than for freeman and worse for adults than for minors.

Table III

The third table, made up of ten laws, discusses a topic of intense interest to the Roman citizen, both plebeian and patrician—laws regarding property and debt. The first three laws, which restrict financial transactions, begin the table. In Law III the exacting use of the term usucaption is noteworthy. In Roman law it refers to the process by which someone may acquire rights to the use and ownership of another's property through unrestricted use of it for a predetermined length of time—typically a year or two. However, this extension of “squatter's rights” does not extend to “aliens,” or foreigners. Laws IV–X outline penalties for nonpayment of debt, leading the unfortunate debtor, if he remains unable to pay, reduced to slavery, either to the creditor or “beyond the Tiber,” meaning in a locality beyond the city of Rome's borders.

The severity of the debt laws described here no doubt shocked the plebeians, and it is unsurprising that upon publication of the laws and after their political agitation to have them written in the first place, the plebeians were only more incensed at their lack of political clout. There is no mention specifically of class within their text, yet the consensus of historical opinion is that the laws were drafted with the aim of aiding the recovery of patrician debts to the detriment of plebeian debtors and served to solidify the inequitable status quo.

Table IV

The four laws of Table IV address fatherhood and marriage. Specifically, they outline the extent to which an adult Roman male could exercise his patria potestas (power of fatherhood) over his family. In Roman society the oldest adult male of a family had literal power of life and death over the entire household, including his children, wife, and slaves.

The first law dictates a father's rights regarding his son, stipulating that if the father “sold [him] three times,” his son would be freed from those rights. The law was intended to act as a bulwark against unscrupulous fathers who sold their children repeatedly into slavery. It was also used by men who wished their sons to be free to start their own families and thus possess their own patria potestas. Fathers could thus find friendly buyers to purchase and then sell back their sons until the sons were deemed “free” and able to establish their own families with their own “potestas.”

Table V

Issues pertaining to wills, trusts, and inheritance are discussed in the seven laws of Table V. Law I is unequivocal in stating that heads of households could dispose of their goods in any way they saw fit and their decisions “shall have the force of law”—a stipulation firmly reinforcing an individual's property rights against claims by both family and state.

Additionally, the use of the term agnate in Law II has a specific legal meaning in Roman law, as it still does in legal systems today. In Roman law “agnati” were considered to be only male relations in the father's bloodline (as opposed to “cognate,” which referred to all family relations). The orderly succession of property would then be passed along patrilineal lines; only if there was no living male on the father's side would inheritance pass to the mother's side and then only to the male relatives.

Table VI

The ten laws of Table VI deal primarily with ownership and property and mention both women and slaves in regard to their legal status as possessions under Roman law. Although the category is termed “immovable property,” the reference in Law IV is to land. Land that is unused by its owner can be claimed by usucaption.

Law V states that women were deemed to be under the potestas (power) of any man with whom they cohabited for an entire year. However, if they spent three nights or more per month beyond the confines of their home, it was possible to circumvent the law. This loophole, termed trinoctium (the three-night interval), allowed many Roman women to keep a relative degree of independence, even in a society as patriarchal as that of ancient Rome's.

Table VII

Damages and remedies with respect to crimes are the focus of Table VII, consisting of seventeen laws. Although they are clearly fragmentary, the seemingly random mixture of laws—ranging from issues regarding the responsibilities of an owner if an animal causes damage to punishment for anyone who “by means of incantations and magic arts” prevented another's crops from growing—showcases the “exceptional” nature of the laws. Rather than list clearly the punishments for particular crimes, this table explains the issues for situations that may not have been immediately intuited from oral common law.

There are also penalties for particularly harsh crimes, including the murder of relatives. The mention of the killing of an “ascendant” in Law XV refers to murder of an older relative, either male or female, from whom a person is directly descended—typically, a mother or father. Since the murder of a near relative was considered especially heinous, the perpetrator's placement in a sack was traditionally accompanied by the addition of a dog, cock, viper, or ape before the sack was sewn up and hurled into the water—though the additions are not mentioned in the extant text of this table.

Deterrence by means of brutality was not uncommon in Roman legal formulas, which is further evinced by Laws XII and XVII. The former mentions that anyone giving “false testimony,” that is, lying or acting as a false witness, would be punished by being hurled from the Tarpeian Rock—a steep cliff situated near the southern part of the Capitoline Hill in Rome. This punishment carried with it not only the terror of a death sentence but also the stigma of shame, since it was reserved for those who were deemed to have committed a traitorous act.

XVII mentions that any patron defrauding his client should be “dedicated to the infernal gods,” a statement that utilizes the same phrasing as religious descriptions of human sacrifice. The “infernal gods” were those deities who resided in the underworld, Roman mythology's representation of the afterlife. To be “dedicated” to them meant to be given as sacrificial offering. Although human sacrifice would eventually fall out of favor in Roman religion, it was not officially outlawed until 97 BCE. Thus, in the time surrounding the drafting of the Twelve Tables, it was considered a conceivable remedy for an infraction of what was a highly important aspect of Roman society—the patron/client relationship. The mention of patrons and clients describes a specialized system of social relations whereupon a free person could bind himself to a “patron,” usually a very wealthy, well-connected citizen, in exchange for favors or legal protection, the client, in turn, acting as a political supporter or part of the patron's bodyguard.

Table VIII

Table VIII, made up of nine laws, discusses property and, in particular, how boundaries were established. Rules relating to tree removal and disputes over boundaries between fields and questions of whether someone was permitted to “drive an animal over the land” of those who lived adjacent to the highway point to the highly agrarian nature of Roman society during this period.

Table IX

Table IX is one of the few tables that refer to a broad set of laws with guidelines similar to a bill of rights. Law IV of these seven laws explains that no “decision with reference to the life or liberty of a Roman citizen” should be given except by a greater legislative body, such as the Comitia Centuriata. The implication was that no Roman citizen could be put to death without serious deliberation by “the people,” and the table outlines the rights that would eventually become foundational Western legal concepts.

Table X

The eighteen laws in Table X refer entirely to religious practices and center mostly on the restrictions and procedures regarding burial. The intense focus on burial rules was a by-product of the ever-present desire in Roman society to showcase social status. This desire had progressed to the degree that the compilers of the Twelve Tables thought it necessary to limit the extravagance of funerals, since they had become so overwrought that they impinged on the day-to-day functioning of the city.

Table XI

Added by the second decemvirate in 450 BCE, Table XI contains the contentious clause that no one who was part of the “Senatorial Order,” meaning the patricians, was to “contract marriage with plebeians.” This example of government bias against the plebeians helped spark the demand for secession in 449 BCE, an event that ended the decemvirate and returned the Roman Republic to the governance of the consuls.

Table XII

A miscellany of supplementary laws, Table XII outlines the responsibilities of slave owners for damages caused by their slaves, procedures regarding legal appeals, and a ruling as to whether one could purchase an item considered “sacred” or usable in a religious rite if there was currently a charge against him for nonpayment of a debt or default on a loan.