Twelve Tables

Q: What were the Twelve Tables laws?

The laws of the Twelve Tables was a set of laws inscribed on 12 bronze tablets created in ancient Rome in 451 and 450 BCE. These tablets survive only in fragments and so it is not known for sure what all of the laws were.

Q: What was significant about the Twelve Tables?

The Twelve Tables was a first step towards a fully codified legal system (as opposed to laws based on tradition only) that protected the rights of all citizens and permitted wrongs to be redressed. The precise wording of the laws was an innovation that would be copied in many subsequent legal codes ever after.

Q: Who wrote the Twelve Tables?

The laws of the Twelve Tables were written by a committee of ten legal experts, the decemviri.

Q: Who did the Twelve Tables benefit?

The Twelve Tables were designed to resolve disputes between members of the Roman aristocracy but they did also benefit the ordinary people (plebeians) in that they could now refer to written laws and reduce the undue influence of aristocrats (patricians) and priests (pontifices).

Mark Cartwright

Twelve Tables

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Definition

The Twelve Tables (aka Law of the Twelve Tables) was a set of laws inscribed on 12 bronze tablets created in ancient Rome in 451 and 450 BCE. They were the beginning of a new approach to laws which were now passed by government and written down so that all citizens might be treated equally before them.

More about: Twelve Tables

Timeline

451 BCE - 450 BCE
Decemvirate and Publication of Twelve Tables of Roman Law.

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