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The Twelve Tables

By: Anavitarte, E. J.*

The Twelve Tables was the first written compilation of Law made by Romans on their own law system, it was made with the aim of publicly declare norms that, until that moment, were governed by unwritten customs and rites, around the year 450 BC.

This compilation marks a before and after in the Roman legal history, and it can be said that Roman law, as a new legal─secular─discipline, started since their enactment. Thus they were always for Romans the example of perfect law, both for their simplicity and for their conciseness in regulating the subjects it dealt with.

They were composed of twelve bronze tables, publicly hung in the forum, each of which contained norms and principles on a set of interrelated subjects; one about marriage, another about inheritance, and so on. Unfortunately, only records and some fragments that Roman jurists made of their content have come down to our days.

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Definition of the Twelve Tables

To give a definition of the laws of the twelve tables, at least two aspects must be taken into account: (a) first, the social and political circumstances in which the twelve tables were issued, intended as a definitive pact between all the Roman people, to solve the tension between patricians and plebeians.

Twelve Tables: Basic Law of the Roman Republic, issued between 451 and 449 BC.

And second (b) that these laws withstood the subsequent legal order that the Roman Republic would develop, precisely because it allowed to overcome the social conflict at the time.

Thereby, the twelve tables have a double connotation, similar to that of a constitution, on the one hand a political aspect, which responds to the plebeian-patrician conflict, but on the other, a legal aspect, which responds to the need for public regulations that allow access to the administration of justice, for all citizens in the nascent Roman democracy.

Making them the basic or fundamental─or constitutional─laws that gave life to the new social contract of the Roman Republic.

History of the Twelve Tables

During the beginning of the Roman Republic, and as a consequence of the new republican vocation that the Roman state had taken, plebs began to demand more rights from the patricians, without receiving any measure that they considered really relevant to improve their social conditions; thus, by the year 494 the plebs were organized and, what would later be called the secession of plebeians (secessio plebis) occurs.

Translation of table I
Translation of table I

Despite the fact that there was no longer a king, plebs continued depending on the patricians to know their rights, they had no real opportunities to take legal action against the matters that affected to them, they did not know the auspicious (fasti) or disastrous (nefasti) days, nor the actions or rights that they should claim for.

For them, plebs organized around their own magistracies, creating the Tribune of the Plebs, and their own elections, the Council of the Plebs, and they left the city of Rome in an act of rebellion.

This, triggered the need to find a way to appease their desire for having legal institutions, that were public, consensual, and of common acceptance, therewith in the middle of the V century BC, the city of Rome delegated three senators so that they traveled to Athens and they were illustrated in the form in which Greeks had adopted the republican model.

What triggered, that after his return, with the rules of Solon in hand, the magistracies were suspended at a general level, and ten people, the decenvirs, were delegated as extraordinary magistrates, with the power to compile all Roman regulations, using the Greek example, to give the city a consolidated rule in the style of Solonian constitution.

Thus, being public, any citizen could consult in it what rights they could or could not exercise.

Authors of the Twelve Tables

The laws of the twelve tables, are the creation of ten people elected exclusively for that purpose, called 'decenvirs', for being ten (den-). This allows us to understand the historiographical significance that they had for Roman people, since no other law would require decenvirs for their expedition, but to vote in the comitia.

So these decenvirs had a similar role to that of constituent delegates, and these laws the function of a basic law, as narrated by Tito Livio. [¶]

Of all the members that made up the decenvirate, the most prominent would be the jurist and then consul Apio Claudio, whom sources such as Livy (Ab Urbe Condita, 3.33.7) cite as the guide in this entire process of creating a basic law to the Roman people.

  • First Ten Tables
  • Appius Claudius Crassus (President)
  • Titus Genucius Augurinus
  • Titus Veturius Geminus
  • Gaius Julius Iulus
  • Aulus Manlius Vulso
  • Servius Sulpicius Camerinus
  • Publius Sestius Capitolinus
  • Publius Curiatius Fistus
  • Titus Romilius Rocus
  • Spurius Postumius Albus

These were the authors of the first ten tables, which correspond to the First Decenvirate (451 BC), but later, the plebeians continued to demand that greater reforms be added and incorporated to the laws of the hitherto, ten tables; consequently a Second Decenvirate (450 BC) was summoned again, now personally presided by Appius Claudius.

  • Tables Eleven and Twelve
  • Appius Claudius Crassus (President)
  • Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis
  • Lucius Sergius Esquilinus
  • Lucius Minucius Esquilinus
  • Quintus Fabius Vibulanus
  • Quintus Poetelius Libo
  • Titus Antonius Merenda
  • Kaeso Duillius Longus
  • Spurius Oppius Cornicen
  • Manius Rabuleius

These last ones finishing their work in the year 449 BC, moment in which the normal magistracies were restored, and consuls were again elected to administer public affairs; Thus, 12 Tables were fully delimited, 10 during the First Decenvirate, and 2 more during the Second Decenvirate.

Characteristics of the Twelve Tables

The twelve tables constitute one of the most important events in Roman legal history, to the point that from constitutional law, the twelve tables can be compared with the Constitution of Solon in Athens, in which they were─precisely─inspired.

  • Public
  • Universal
  • Inclusive

And this can be evidenced with three characteristics that differentiated them from the rest of later laws, first (a) in that they form part of the step between the unwritten law─ius non scriptum─to the written law─ius scriptum─in the Roman world, whose main objective was to give publicity or openness to the norms of the civitas.

Second (b) the laws of the Twelve Tables dealt with all the law of the time, from the public to the private, from the penalties to the incapacitated and minors, so that unlike all subsequent laws, they had an organic and universal scope.

And third (c) they constituted the integrating axis of social relations throughout the civitas, at least until well into the imperial period, delimiting the minimum scope of any subsequent norm, governing both patricians and plebeians alike, which was later indispensable to understand the Roman class struggle until full integration with the Lex Hortensia (286 BC).

Importance of the Twelve Tables

The Law, or Laws, of the Twelve Tables, was the response that Romans gave to a very specific social situation: the secessio plebis. And it would end up representing this pact, which the Roman people made as a social unit for at least one thousand more years.

Hence the respect with which classical authors refer to these laws, and the fact that none of their provisions was repealed during the validity of the Roman legal order.

Therefore, after the founding of Rome, the next foundational historical milestone in the Roman collective ideology would be the promulgation of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, which properly found the values ​​of the new Roman Republic.

[...] qui nunc quoque, in hoc immense aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, fons omnis publici privatique est iuris.

(that even now, in this immense heap of laws piled up one on top of the other, are the source of all law, both public and private)

Livy [1]
(Translation from the author*)

In other words, after the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, Romans did not adopt republicanism─if at all it was─as a social ideal, but as a way to again prevent a monarch from desecrating the stability of their people.

So, at least during the half century that followed the expulsion of this Tarquin, between 509 BC and until the secessio plebis, 464 BC, Rome explored how to organize, but there was still no unifying factor, which united the people in general, as the rex would previously .

So these Laws became de facto a constitution, which gave meaning to the new Republic, whereby now, all citizens were subject, no longer to a rex, but to this concept of statutory law, the lex.

To the point that most of the later Roman law, or rather, of the later statutory laws─with the exception of all the honorary law─was a development of this norms that were already established in the Law of the Twelve Tables; which was otherwise very complete.

With it, the written public citizen law would be born, on which the subsequent Roman legal tradition was based, and by extension, the Western civil legal traditions, such as those of Spanish and French speaking countries.

[1]: Tito Livy | Ab Urbe Condita: Lib. 3, Sect. 34, Para. 2.

Content of the Twelve Tables

The Law of the Twelve Tables, as its name indicates, was organized around twelve (12) tables, first of bronze, which contained the most important matters for the regulation of Roman life, whether in civil, criminal, procedural or public law.

The first table, table I, contained the matters of judicial procedure, demonstrating the importance that Romans gave to procedural law as a necessary guarantee of the ownership of substantial rights.

  • I: Judicial procedure
  • II: Organization of the trial
  • III: Obligations
  • IV: Parental powers
  • V: Successions, guardianship and conservatorship
  • VI: Property
  • VII: Easements
  • VIII: Crimes
  • IX: Public law
  • X: Sacred Law
  • XI: Social rules
  • XII: Complementary

The second table regulated the litigation process. The third table shows the execution of the results of the litigation, when a conviction was reached or one of the parties confessed. The fourth table regulated the powers conferred on the paterfamilias. The fifth table regulated family matters such as inheritance, guardianships and conservatorships.

The sixth table regulated property and possession. The seventh table regulated real rights, such as buildings, land and plantations, easements and the delimitation of the right of ownership. The eighth was of criminal content and regulated crimes. The ninth dealt with public law and crimes against Roman public affairs. The tenth table regulated sacred law and religious rituals.

The last two tables were not the work of the first decenvirs, but of a second decenvirate, who consecrated an eleven table, with the prohibition of marriage between patricians and plebeians, and an twelve table on various clarifications.

Roman Law

Table of Contents

  1. Definition
  2. History
    1. Authors
  3. Characteristics
  4. Importance
  5. Content

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Anavitarte, E. J. (2016, February). The Twelve Tables. Academia Lab. https://academia-lab.com/2016/02/12/the-twelve-tables/