>>23364324In the Forum, "The Twelve Tables" stated the rights and duties of the Roman citizen. Their formulation was the result of considerable agitation by the plebeian class, who had hitherto been excluded from the higher benefits of the Republic. The law had previously been unwritten and exclusively interpreted by upper-class priests, the pontifices. Something of the regard with which later Romans came to view the Twelve Tables is captured in the remark of Cicero (106–43 BC) that the "Twelve Tables...seems to me, assuredly to surpass the libraries of all the philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in plenitude of utility". Cicero scarcely exaggerated; the Twelve Tables formed the basis of Roman law for a thousand years.
TABLE IV
A dreadfully deformed
child shall be quickly
killed.
If a father sells his son
three times, the son shall
be free.
A child born 10 months
after his father’s death
cannot claim an
inheritance.
TABLE V
Females should remain in
guardianship even when
they have attained their
age of majority.
TABLE VIII
If one is killed while
committing theft in the
night, he is justly killed.
Any person found guilty of
giving false witness shall
be hurled from the
Tarpeian Rock. No person
shall hold meetings in the
city at night
TABLE IX
Capital punishment for
judges who have been
bribed. Capital punishment
for treason. Putting any
man to death unconvicted,
whoever he might be, is
illegal.
TABLE XI
Marriages should not take
place between plebeians
and patricians.
Roman law and tradition (mos majorum) established the power of the pater familias within the community of his own extended familia. He held legal privilege over the property of the familia, and varying levels of authority over his dependents: these included his wife and children.
In theory at least, he held powers of life and death over every member of his extended familia through ancient right.
