Twelve Tables of Roman Law

Questions for Further Study

• 1. What impact did the Twelve Tables of Roman Law have on the development of Western legal systems? Why is the document important?
• 2. What impact did class structure have on the development of Roman law in general and on the Twelve Tables of Roman Law in particular?
• 3. Compare the Twelve Tables of Roman Law and Aristotle's summary of the Athenian Constitution. Both Rome and Greece had significant impact on the development of Western democracy. How do the two documents reflect similar conditions and legal concerns? In particular, how does each deal with the issue of debt?
• 4. Numerous “milestone” documents have to do with the establishment of laws and legal codes. Select one such document to compare with the Twelve Tables—possibilities include the Athenian Constitution; the Justice of the Rus; Middle Assyrian Laws; the Constitutions of Clarendon; and the Magna Carta—and explicate how each of the two documents arose from political, economic, and social conditions.
• 5. The Twelve Tables of Roman Law attempted to end, at least in part, the conflict between patricians and plebeians. Did it succeed in this goal? From a human standpoint, why is it so difficult for societies to achieve social equality between and among social classes? How did conditions in the Roman Republic illustrate this difficulty?