THE TWELVE TABLES



_prefaced, arranged, translated, annotated_

BY P.R. COLEMAN-NORTON

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS




INTRODUCTION


The legal history of Rome begins properly with the Twelve Tables. It
is strictly the first and the only Roman code,[1] collecting the
earliest known laws of the Roman people and forming the foundation of
the whole fabric of Roman Law. Its importance lies in the fact that by
its promulgation was substituted for an unwritten usage, of which the
knowledge had been confined to some citizens of the community, a
public and written body of laws, which were easily accessible to and
strictly binding on all citizens of Rome.

Till the close of the republican period (509 B.C.-27 B.C.) the Twelve
Tables were regarded as a great legal charter. The historian Livy (59
B.C.-A.D. 17) records: "Even in the present immense mass of