The Law of the Twelve Tables Facts & Worksheets

Latin Lex XII Tabularum, often known as the Law of the Twelve Tables, is the first codification of Roman law and is typically dated to about 451-450 BCE. The Twelve Tables were purportedly drafted by ten commissioners (decemvirs) at the request of the plebeians, who believed that their legal rights were violated since court decisions were made in accordance with the oral tradition that was only known to a select few knowledgeable patricians.

See the fact file below for more information on the Law of the Twelve Tables, or you can download our 30-page Law of the Twelve Tables worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

WHAT IS THE LAW OF THE TWELVE TABLES?

• The first group of commissioners got to work in 451, producing 10 tables, which eventually had two more tables added to them. The Roman Forum around 450 saw the official posting of the code, most likely on bronze tablets. 
• The written documentation of the law in the Twelve Tables gave the Plebeians a way to learn about the law and to defend themselves from the abuses of power by the patricians.
• The Twelve Tables did not modernize or liberalize ancient tradition. Rather, they accepted the rights of the patrician class and patriarchal family, the legitimacy of slavery as a form of debt repayment, and the influence of religious tradition in civil disputes.
• The fact that they demonstrate a remarkable degree of liberality for their time with regard to testamentary rights and contracts is likely not the result of any innovations made by the decemvir but rather of advancements made in Rome’s commercial customs during a period of prosperity and active trade.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE LAW OF THE TWELVE TABLES

• The oldest known versions of the Twelve Tables text were produced by early Roman jurists. Sextus Aelius Paetus Catus (consul in 198 BCE) gave a version of the Twelve Tables’ rules, his commentary on them, and the legal formulas (legis actiones) to use them in court proceedings in his book on jurisprudence known as Tripertita.
• Another early translator of the Twelve Tables was Lucius Acilius Sapiens, who lived in the middle of the second century BCE.
• The most thorough descriptions of the development of the laws were supplied by the Roman historians Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In addition, the writings of Diodorus Siculus and Sextus Pomponius contain many versions of the narrative.
• Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus claimed that the laws of the Twelve Tables were the outcome of a lengthy social war between the patricians and the plebeians.
• The Republic was ruled by a hierarchy of magistrates following the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, in 509 BC.
• Plebeians would use the threat of secession in the setting of this unequal status to take action and obtain concessions for themselves. 
• Since the plebeians comprised Rome’s workforce, they would threaten to leave the city, which would have the effect of causing it to come to a complete stop. 
• In 450 BCE, the first decemvirate finished writing the first 10 codes. Livy explains their invention as follows:
• “Every citizen should carefully study each argument, then debate it with his friends before bringing forward any additions or deletions that they see appropriate for public discussion (cf. Liv. III.34)”
• When the second decemvirate finished the remaining two laws and compelled the Senate to accept them by a secessio plebis, the Law of the Twelve Tables was fully established in 449 BCE.
• Livy (AUC 3.57.10) asserts that the Twelve Tables were inscribed on metal, although Pomponius (Dig. 1 tit. 2 s2 4) asserts that they were written on ivory.
• The Twelve Tables of Law served as a platform for the public presentation of the rights that each citizen held in both the public and private spheres.
• The Roman plebeians, who had no education or expertise in comprehending law, were in an unequal position in society to the patricians, who were well-educated and familiar with the rules governing legal transactions. 
• The Twelve Tables gave the public access to society’s unwritten laws, giving Plebeians a way to protect themselves against financial abuse and bringing more equilibrium to the Roman economy.

LAW OF THE TWELVE TABLES

Tables I and II: Procedure for Courts and Judges and Further Enactments on Trials-

• These two tables discuss the processes of the Roman courts. 
• With solutions to hypothetical scenarios such as when age or disease prevents the defendant from appearing, then transportation needs to be organized to help them. Table I details the procedures between the defendant and the plaintiff. It also addresses the following:
• The defendant’s absence from court.
• After noon, if either side fails to show up, the court must rule in favor of the one who is present.
• Provides the trial’s schedule (ends at sunset)
• Offers a schedule for the experiment (it concludes at dusk)
• Table II establishes the financial stake for each side based on the nature of the dispute, what to do if the judge becomes incompetent, and the requirements for who may submit evidence.

Table III: Execution of Judgment in-

• These laws demonstrate how the Romans’ monetary system helped them keep the peace.
• In the book The Twelve Tables, which was authored by an unnamed source due to its collaborative roots including a number of tablet translations and historical allusions, P.R. Coleman-Norton organized and interpreted many of the important aspects of debt that the Twelve Tables codified into law in the fifth century. 
• The Twelve Tables are the recognized sources from which the legal aspects of debt are translated, and they are expressed as follows:

• 1. Thirty days are allotted by law [for payment or settlement] of debts that have been acknowledged and for cases that have been decided in court (in iure).
• 2. A hand will be put on [the debtor] after that [after thirty days without payment] to infect him with Manus. He will be taken before the judge (in ius).
• 3. The creditor will take [the debtor] with him unless he (the creditor) releases the debtor or until someone shows up in court (in iure) to guarantee payment on his behalf. Either a thong or fetters of a minimum weight of fifteen pounds or more, at the creditor’s discretion, must be used to tie the debtor.
• 4. The debtor has the option to live independently. If he does not have the resources to support himself, the creditor holding him in bonds will provide him with a pound of food each day; if the creditor so desires, he will provide even more.
• 5. They (the debtors) will be put in bonds for 60 days until they reach a solution. They must be delivered before [the judge] at the comitia (meeting place) on three successive marketplaces within those days.

Table IV:

• The precise rights of family patriarchs are covered under the fourth of the Twelve Tables. One of the first demands made by Table IV is the prompt euthanasia of children who are “dreadfully malformed.”
• It also explains how sons inherit their family’s wealth at birth. The father himself must put physically and mentally sick babies to death.
• There are several laws in Table IV that do not exclusively benefit the patriarch, such as the one that allows a husband to divorce his wife and “command her to mind her own affairs.” 
• A son gets his independence from a father if the father makes three efforts to sell him.
• Three of the Twelve Tables’ parts, which deal with religion, ownership, possession, estates, and guardianship, provide a fundamental grasp of women’s legal rights.

According to Table V (Estates and Guardianship)

• “Female heirs should remain under guardianship even after they have reached the age of majority, although the Vestal Virgins are granted an exception.”

Table VI (Ownership and Possession)

• States that “a woman, who has not been married to a man in marriage, shall enter into his authority as his legal wife when she stays with him for a whole year without interruption of three nights.”

Table VII: Crimes and Land Rights

The attitudes about property are depicted in the table below. All of the following guidelines pertain to property:

• Outside parties arbitrate boundary disputes.
• Straight sections of the road are eight feet wide, while curves are twice as broad.
• Residents who live close to the road are responsible for keeping it in good condition, but if a road is poorly kept, carts and animals can be driven wherever the riders like.
• When trees are blown onto a property, the owner can ask to have them removed.
• Fruit from a tree that lands on a neighbor’s property is still the original owner’s property.

Table VIII: Injury Laws (Torts and Delicts)

• Tort laws deal with pursuing justice for wrongs committed by citizens. Physical harm is one such instance, and there are other ways to respond, including giving the offender a similar hurt in return or providing financial recompense to the victim.
• Additionally, this table lays out the legal repercussions for damage caused to crops or property by people or animals. The punishment for stealing crops is being hanged as a Ceres sacrifice.
• Additionally, the table lists many anti-theft legislation.

Public law Table IX–

• With the exception of the largest assembly or maximus comitatus, no one is permitted to determine what a citizen of Rome is under this portion of the tables. Additionally, it forbids extraditing a person to hostile countries, bribing judges, and carrying out executions of the innocent.

Table X (Religion):

• “Women must not, throughout the course of a funeral, lacerate their faces, tear their cheeks with their nails, or make loud screams bewailing the dead.”
• The Twelve Tables address a number of topics, including a woman’s place in society and legal status.
•  The use of terms like “ownership” and “possession” in the sections on ownership and possession gives the idea that women were viewed as being comparable to a piece of real land or property.
• Women were thought to be under a sort of guardianship similar to that of minors.

Tables XI and XII in the Supplements-

• No member of a higher class may marry a member of a lower class, as stated in Table XI (Marriage Between Classes).

Table XII (Binding into Law):

• The slave is the one who is entitled to restitution if a slave steals or causes harm while acting in the master’s direction.

IMPORTANCE AND SIGNIFICANCE

• Although legal reform happened soon after the Twelve Tables were put into effect, these ancient rules guaranteed social security and civil rights for both the patricians and plebeians. 
• The Twelve Tables gave an early knowledge of several essential ideas like justice, equality, and punishment. 
• There was a lot of friction between the privileged elite and the common people during this period, which made some kind of social order necessary. 
• The Twelve Tables reduced civic unrest and bloodshed between the plebeians and patricians even though the current rules had significant defects that needed to be rectified.
• The Twelve Tables also continued the concept of property, including various types of money, land, and slaves. 
• Another illustration is the connection between the Twelve Tables and the concept of Jus Commune, which is often known as “civil law” in English-speaking nations but is actually Latin for “common law.”
• Some countries, such as South Africa and San Marino, continue to use aspects of jus commune as the foundation for their legal systems.
• Although they remained a valuable resource throughout the Republic, the Twelve Tables are no longer in existence. 
• The original tablets could have been destroyed in 387 BCE during the Roman city’s burning by the Gauls led by Brennus. 
• Roman Republican thinkers, such as Lucius Aelius Stilo, who instructed both Varro and Cicero, commented on the Twelve Tables from the start of the second century BCE. 
• The rules written on bronze in ancient times were sometimes difficult to read but typically served a symbolic and religious function. It is believed that the law evolved into a literary document somewhere in the fourth century BCE. 
• The Twelve Tables combined stringent and stricter punishments with equally tight and stricter procedural procedures, much like most other early systems of law. 
• The first attempt to retrieve the rules was undertaken by the French legal historian Aymar du Rivail in his Libri de Historia Juris Civilis et Pontificii (1515). 
• Additional writings on the Twelve Tables on the part of Alessandro d’Alessandro (1522) and Johannes Tacuinus (1523) followed (1523). 
• The publication of the legislation of the Twelve Tables by Jacques Godefroy in 1616 contained the main work of the rebuilding of the Twelve Tables. 
• Godefroy’s reconstruction was built around the organization of Gaius’ Ad legem XII tabularum (On the Law of the Twelve Tables), `which was contained in the Digest and from which many of the Twelve Tables’ provisions were handed down to us.’ 
• The first complete English publication of Dirksen’s reconstruction was produced and interpreted by Eric Herbert Warmington in Lucilius, Volume III of the Remains of Old Latin.
• Michael H. Crawford’s Roman Statutes, vol. 1, was one of the most well-known reconstructions of the legislation of the Twelve Tables in recent years. 

The Law of the Twelve Tables Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about the Law of the Twelve Tables across 30 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about the Law of the Twelve Tables, the first codification of Roman law and typically dated to about 451-450 BCE.

Download includes the following worksheets.

1. Law of the Twelve Table Facts
2. Words Collected
3. Law for a Reason
4. Unveil Your Knowledge
5. Define the Words
6. Law In a Table
7. Let’s Justify
8. I’ll Decide
9. Under the Law
10. Our Rights
11. Dig in the Past

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the Law of the Twelve Tables?

The Law of the Twelve Tables was the first written legal code of ancient Rome, created in the 5th century BCE. It was a set of laws inscribed on 12 bronze tablets that were publicly displayed in the Roman Forum. It was designed to be a comprehensive set of laws that applied to all citizens of Rome, regardless of their social status or wealth.

Why was the Law of the Twelve Tables created?

The Law of the Twelve Tables was created to resolve a political crisis in Rome caused by the unequal application of justice to different social classes. The plebeians (the common people) were frustrated by the arbitrary nature of the law and the power of the patricians (the wealthy elite) to bend the law in their favor. The Law of the Twelve Tables was created to provide a clear and fair set of laws that applied to all citizens.

What kind of laws were included in the Law of the Twelve Tables?

The Law of the Twelve Tables included laws on a wide range of topics, including property rights, marriage and divorce, inheritance, and criminal law. It also established certain legal procedures, such as the right to a fair trial and the right to appeal a judgement.

How long did the Law of the Twelve Tables remain in force?

The Law of the Twelve Tables remained in force for several centuries, serving as the basis of Roman law throughout the Republic and into the early Empire. It was still used as a reference in legal disputes even as Rome developed more advanced legal systems.

What influence did the Law of the Twelve Tables have on later legal systems?

The Law of the Twelve Tables had a significant influence on the development of later legal systems, both in the Western world and beyond. Its principles of fairness, impartiality, and the rule of law were adopted and adapted by later legal systems, including the civil law of the Roman Empire, and the common law of England. It also served as a model for later legal codes, such as the Napoleonic Code.

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