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The Twelve Tables, Slides of Law

Law

The Twelve Tables. Translated and arranged by P. R. ... Table I. Proceedings Preliminary to Trial ... Table V. Inheritance and Guardianship.

Typology: Slides

2022/2023

Uploaded on 02/28/2023

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Social Studies – Grade 6 10/30/2014!
The Twelve Tables
Translated and arranged by P. R. Coleman-Norton
Table I. Proceedings Preliminary to Trial
1. If the plaintiff summons the defendant to court, the
defendant shall go. If the defendant does not go, the plaintiff
shall call a witness thereto. Then only the plaintiff shall take the
defendant by force.
2. If the defendant attempts evasion or take to flight, the
plaintiff shall lay hand on the defendant.
3. If disease or old age shall be an impediment, he who shall
summon the defendant to court shall grant him a conveyance; if
the plaintiff shall not wish, the plaintiff shall not spread a covered
carriage with cushions.
4. For a freeholder (taxpayer whose fortune is valued at not
less than 1,500 copper coins) a freeholder shall be surety for his
appearance at trial. For a proletary (non-taxpayer whose fortune
is rated at less than a freeholder's) any one who shall be willing
shall be surety.
5. When the parties come to terms, an official shall announce
it.
6. If the parties do not agree on terms, they shall state their
cases in the comitium [meeting-place] or, in the forum [market-
place] before noon. Both parties shall appear in person and shall
argue the matter.
7. If one of the parties shall not have appeared, after noon the
judge shall adjudge the case in favor of him present.
8. If both parties be present, sunset shall be the time-limit of
the proceedings.
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The Twelve Tables

Translated and arranged by P. R. Coleman-Norton Table I. Proceedings Preliminary to Trial

  1. If the plaintiff summons the defendant to court, the defendant shall go. If the defendant does not go, the plaintiff shall call a witness thereto. Then only the plaintiff shall take the defendant by force.
  2. If the defendant attempts evasion or take to flight, the plaintiff shall lay hand on the defendant.
  3. If disease or old age shall be an impediment, he who shall summon the defendant to court shall grant him a conveyance; if the plaintiff shall not wish, the plaintiff shall not spread a covered carriage with cushions.
  4. For a freeholder (taxpayer whose fortune is valued at not less than 1,500 copper coins) a freeholder shall be surety for his appearance at trial. For a proletary (non-taxpayer whose fortune is rated at less than a freeholder's) any one who shall be willing shall be surety.
  5. When the parties come to terms, an official shall announce it.
  6. If the parties do not agree on terms, they shall state their cases in the comitium [meeting-place] or, in the forum [market- place] before noon. Both parties shall appear in person and shall argue the matter.
  7. If one of the parties shall not have appeared, after noon the judge shall adjudge the case in favor of him present.
  8. If both parties be present, sunset shall be the time-limit of the proceedings.
  1. Both parties shall post sureties and subsureties for their appearance. Table II. Trial
  2. The legal action of solemn deposit demands that each litigant shall wager either 500 copper coins or 50 copper coins: 500 copper coins for solemn deposit when the subject of the dispute is valued at 1,000 copper coins or more, 50 copper coins when estimated at less than 1,000 copper coins. But if the controversy concerns the liberty of a human being, however valuable may be the person, the solemn deposit shall be 50 copper coins.
  3. A dangerous disease or a day appointed for the hearing of a case with an alien, when the latter is a party... If any of these circumstances be an impediment for judge or arbitrator or party, on this account the day of trial shall be deferred.
  4. Whoever shall have need of evidence, he shall go on every third day to cry before the doorway of the witness's house. Table III. Debt
  5. Of debt acknowledged and for matters judged in court thirty days shall be allowed by law for payment or for satisfaction.
  6. After that elapse of thirty days without payment hand shall be laid on the debtor. He shall be brought into court.
  7. Unless the debtor discharges the debt or unless some one appears in court to guarantee payment for him, the creditor shall take the debtor with him. He shall bind him either with thong or with fetters, of which the weight shall be not less than fifteen pounds or shall be more, if the creditor chooses.

acquired rightfully by long usage or long possession, save if these possessions by herself shall have been delivered with the sanction of her guardian.

  1. According as a person shall have ordered regarding his property or the guardianship of his estate, so shall be the law.
  2. If a person die intestate and have no self-successor, the deceased's nearest male agnate shall have possession of the estate.
  3. If there be no male agnate, the deceased's clansmen shall have possession of the estate.
  4. To persons for whom a guardian shall not have been appointed by will, to them their agnates shall be guardians.
  5. If a person be insane, if there be not a guardian for him, rightful authority over his person and over his property shall belong to his agnates and in default of these to his clansmen. If a person be a spendthrift, he shall be prohibited from administering his own goods and he shall be under the guardianship of his agnates.
  6. If a freedman shall have died intestate without self- successor, his patron shall take the inheritance of a Roman citizen-freedman... from said household into said household.
  7. Items which are in the category of debts due to or incurred by a deceased person shall be divided among his heirs by mere operation of law in proportion to their portions of the inheritance.
  8. Apportionment of an estate occurs, when coheirs wish to withdraw from common and equal participation in the inheritance Table VI. Ownership and Possession
  1. When a person shall make bond and conveyance, according as he has specified with his tongue, so shall be the.
  2. Both conveyance and surrender in court are confirmed.
  3. Articles which have been sold and delivered are not acquired by the buyer otherwise than if he has paid the price to the seller or has satisfied him in some other way, that is, by providing a guarantor or a security.
  4. It shall be sufficient to make good those faults which have been named by one's tongue, while for those flaws which the vendor has denied expressly, when asked about these, the vendor shall undergo a penalty of double damages.
  5. For a loyal person and for a person restored to allegiance there shall be the same right of bond and of conveyance with the Roman people.
  6. Against an alien title of ownership shall be valid forever.
  7. A prescriptive title of movable things is completed by one year's possession, but a prescriptive title of an estate and of buildings is completed by two years' possession.
  8. A person who had been a slave and who has been declared to be a free man in a will on some condition, if he shall have given 10,000 copper coins to the heir, although the slave has been alienated by the heir, by giving the money to the purchaser shall enter into his freedom.
  9. If any woman not married be unwilling to be subjected in this manner by possession to the hand of her husband, she shall be absent from his house for three successive nights in every year and by this means shall interrupt the possession of each year.
  1. If rain-water do damage through artificial diversion from its natural channels, the offending owner shall be restrained by an arbitrator.
  2. If a water-course directed through a public place shall do damage to a private person, to the same private person shall be the right to bring an action, that damage shall be repaired for the owner.
  3. Branches of a tree may be lopped all around to a height of fifteen feet. If a tree on a neighbor's farm be bent crooked by the wind and lean over one's farm, one can take legal action for removal of that tree or at least of the offending part of it.
  4. The owner of a tree may gather its fruit which falls upon another's farm. Table VIII. Torts or Delicts
  5. If any person had sung or had composed a song, which caused slander or insult to another person... he should be clubbed to death.
  6. A person who had sung an evil spell...
  7. If a person has broken another's limb, unless he make agreement for compensation with him, there shall be retaliation in kind.
  8. If a person has broken or has bruised a bone with hand club, he shall undergo a penalty of 300 copper coins, if to an injured freeman, or of 150 copper coins, if to an injured slave.
  9. If a person shall have done simple harm to another, penalties shall be 25 copper coins.
  10. If a person shall have caused loss...
  1. If a quadruped shall be said to have caused damage, legal action shall be sanctioned either for the surrender of the animal which made the damage or for the offer of assessment for the damage.
  2. If a person pasture his cattle on a neighbor's land, he shall be liable to a legal action.
  3. He who has enchanted crops... nor should he decoy another's corn...
  4. For pasturing on or for cutting secretly by night another's crops acquired by tillage shall be in the case of an adult hanging and death by sacrifice to Ceres; a person under the age of puberty (under 15 years of age) shall either be scourged at the discretion of the magistrate or make composition by paying double damages for the harm done.
  5. Who shall have destroyed by burning a building or a stack of corn set alongside a house is ordered to be bound, scourged, burned to death, provided that knowingly and consciously he shall have committed this; but if this be by accident or by negligence, either he is ordered to repair the damage or, if he be too poor to be competent for such punishment, he shall be chastised more lightly.
  6. Any person who shall have felled wrongfully other persons' trees shall pay 25 copper coins for every tree.
  7. If theft has been done by night, if owner has killed the thief, the thief shall be held killed lawfully.
  8. It is forbidden that a thief be killed by day... Unless the thief defend himself with a weapon, even though the thief shall have come with a weapon, unless the thief shall use that weapon and shall resist, you shall not kill him. And even if the thief resist, you shall shout, that some persons may hear and assemble.
  1. Whoever shall have allowed himself to be called as a witness or shall have been a scales-bearer, if he as a witness pronounce not his testimony, he shall be dishonored and incapable of giving evidence.
  2. The penalty for false testimonies is that any person who has been convicted of speaking false witness shall be precipitated from the Tarpeian Rock.
  3. If a weapon has sped from one's hand rather than if the wielder has hurled it,... he shall atone for the accidental deed by providing the substitution of a ram as a peace-offering to prevent blood-revenge.
  4. For administering a noxious drug...
  5. No person shall hold nocturnal meetings in the city.
  6. Members of guilds have the power to make for themselves any binding rule which they may wish, provided that they violate nothing in accordance with public law. Table IX. Public Law
  7. Laws of personal exception shall not be proposed.
  8. Laws concerning the person of a citizen shall not be passed except by the greatest assembly and through those whom the consuls have placed upon the registers of the citizenry.
  9. A judge or an arbitrator legally appointed, who has been convicted of receiving money for declaring a decision, shall be punished capitally.
  10. Provisions pertaining to the investigators of murder appointed to have charge over capital cases.
  1. Whoever shall have incited a public enemy or whoever shall have delivered a citizen to a public enemy shall be punished capitally.
  2. It is forbidden to put to death... unconvicted any one whomsoever. Table X. Sacred Law
  3. A dead person shall not be buried or burned in the city.
  4. More than this shall not be done. The funeral pyre shall not be smoothed with the axe.
  5. Expenses of a funeral shall be limited to three mourners wearing veils and one mourner wearing a small purple tunic and ten flute-players.
  6. Women shall not tear their cheeks or have a sorrowful outcry on account of the funeral.
  7. The bones of a dead person shall not be collected that one may make a funeral afterward. An exception is for death in battle or on foreign soil.
  8. Anointing by slaves and every kind of drinking-bout is abolished... there shall be no costly sprinkling, no myrrh-spiced drink, no long garlands, no incense-boxes.
  9. Whoever wins a crown himself or through his chattel or by his valor, a crown is bestowed on him, when he is burned or buried... on him (who has won it) and on his father it shall be laid with impunity.
  10. This also shall not be done: to make more than one funeral and to spread more than one bier for one person.
  1. If a person has taken a thing by a false claim, if he should wish... the magistrate shall grant three arbitrators; by their adverse arbitration... the defendant shall compound for loss caused by paying double damages from enjoyment of the article.
  2. It is forbidden to dedicate for consecrated use any thing of which there is a controversy about its ownership; otherwise a penalty of double the amount involved shall be suffered.
  3. Whatsoever last the people have ordained, this shall be binding and valid. Unplaced Fragments There are extant about a dozen fragments of whose place in the Twelve Tables we are ignorant. In nearly every instance these fragments consist of only one word or phrase, which later Latin antiquarians have preserved to illustrate an ancient spelling or to explain an archaic usage or to point a definition. The longest fragment only is worth reproduction for the present purpose: To appeal from any judgement and sentence is allowed. END OF TEXT The Twelve Tables translated by P. R. Coleman-Norton. In the public domain.