The Twelve Tables are not a comprehensive legal code. They do not cover all areas of the law. The main topics seem to have been

the family, including marriage and divorce ownership of property (including inheritance, transfer and slavery) assault and injury to person and property debt legal procedure The emphasis appears to be on what we would call civil law, though there are provisions that deal with criminal offences. It is conceivable that the kinds of sources that quote the Twelve Tables (often later works dealing with civil law) may give an unrepresentative selection. In any case, it is clear that the provisions are not laying out entirely new material, but are in some way formalizing already existing practice. The need for such a code is not self-evident.

Here are some of the areas in which the Tables provide information about early Republican society.

The Family One of the peculiarities of Roman society is its strongly patriarchal nature. The eldest male in the male line had full power over all his descendants, male and female. He was called the pater familias (father of the family) and all those subject to his control were said to be in potestate (in [his] power). He had (theoretically, at any rate) the power of life and death over them. At his death, his sons became patres familias in their own right, having potestas over their descendants. Those in potestate (subject to potestas) were the natural heirs of the pater familias and divided the propert equally unless he wrote a will to the contrary. This entire system is delineated in the Twelve Tables. What is particularly interesting is that the familia is the social group distinguished by the cognomen, i.e., it represents the families into which the clans (gentes) were divided. There is virtually no mention of the clans at all (if someone died with no relations in his familia, then other members of the clan inherited). Thus, however much significance one might guess belonged to the gens in the kingdom, clearly it had lost any importance by the early Republic.

Economic Implications The Twelve Tables are concerned with a society that is predominantly agricultural. There are many provisions dealing with the production of crops (real estate, draft animals, water rights), but there is no apparent mention of trade or other forms of production. Although the Romans did not at this date mint coins, the Twelve Tables clearly understand the concept of assigning value in terms of abstract units of value associated with precious metal (in this case copper).

The Twelve Tables have many provisions relating to slavery. It is not clear how common slaves were, but as Rome's power grew, slavery became an increasingly important element in the rural economy (and caused severe social problems). According to the Tables, people could become slaves as a result of failure to pay off a debt, but had to be sold abroad, which perhaps suggests that Roman citizens could not act as slaves in Rome. The law also sanctioned nexum (temporary bondage) for non-payment of debt. This apparently did not affect the victim's status as a citizen and could be ended through repayment of the debt.

Coincidentally, one provision about slavery shows how advanced Roman law was. Slaves were allowed to hold a kind of personal allotment (peculium) and could use this to buy their freedom. A master could free his slaves in his will, and could make provisions which the slave had to fulfill before receiving his freedom. Furthermore, these provisions could be enforced against a third party to whom the heir had in the meanwhile sold the slave. Clearly, the legal system of Rome was very complicated before the Twelve Tables.

Social Implications The Twelve Tables clearly make a distinction between landowners (adsidui) and non-landowners (proletarii). This terminology is the same as that which distinguished those with enough property to be assigned to the five Servian census classes and those who fell below the minimum. This suggests that the Servian classes must already have been in existence. The law also refers to another very characteristic Roman institution, clientela (patron-client relationship). A patronus (patron) was a powerful man from whom a lower person could seek assistance. The man seeking assistance then became the cliens (client) of the patron. This system whereby citizens of lower social status received assistance from their "betters" was a very strong bond in Roman society. While Greek city states were frequently rent with disputes between the "haves" and "have-nots," in Rome the latter had someone to turn to for assistance, and whom they would then have an interest in supporting. This institution was one reason why the poorer plebeians never entirely turned against the ruling class (whether patricians or the later patrician-plebeian nobility). It was always better for most people to seek support from "their" powerful man rather than try to abolish such power altogether. Though there was some looseness in this institution (it was based on tradition rather than law), the relationship tended to become hereditary (i.e., a man would become the client of the family to which his father had been a client), and a high-status Roman (patron) would naturally inherit the clients of his father.

The Romans would apply this system in their dealings with foreign entities. Individual foreigners, kings and communities would attach themselves as clients to important Roman magistrates (and their families).

Intermarriage One of the most difficult provisions of the Twelve Tables to interpret is the prohibition in the eleventh table against intermarriage between patricians and plebeians. Was this a reflection of the way things had always been? Apparently not. Not only did later Romans think this unfair, but there was violent reaction against it. It was quickly overturned by the lex Canuleia of 445. If the provision was a novelty, did it form part of the supposed "closing" of the patriciate of the later fifth century? There is really no way to know what the earlier situation had been. (There are reports of patricians having had plebeian mothers, but the likelihood of such information being accurately preserved is slim.) Perhaps as the patricians began to defend their monopoly of the auspices against plebeian objections, it was felt that patricians had to be pure-blooded, and hence intermarriage, which may have been allowed before, had to be prohibited. How this could have been introduced by a magistracy for which the plebs gave up the tribunate is hard to understand.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/medieval/twelve_tables.htm - probably not real

http://users.ipa.net/~tanker/tables.htm - very good

For such an important document, it is somewhat surprising that the original text has been lost. The original tablets were destroyed when the Gauls under Brennus burnt Rome in 390 BC. There was no other official promulgation of them to survive, only unofficial editions. What we have of them today is brief excerpts and quotations from these laws in other authors. They are written in a strange, archaic, laconic, and somewhat childish and sing-song version of Latin. As such, though we cannot tell whether the quoted fragments accurately preserve the original form, what we have gives us some insight into the grammar of early Latin.

Like most other primitive laws, they combine strict and rigorous penalties with equally strict and rigorous procedural forms. In most of the surviving quotations from these texts, the original table that held them is not given. Scholars have guessed at where surviving fragments belong by comparing them with the few known attributions. It cannot be known with any certainty from what survives that the originals ever were organised this way, or even if they ever were organised by subject at all.

another version of the 12 tables

Table I.

1. If anyone summons a man before the magistrate, he must go. If the man summoned does not go, let the one summoning him call the bystanders to witness and then take him by force.
2. If he shirks or runs away, let the summoner lay hands on him.
3. If illness or old age is the hindrance, let the summoner provide a team. He need not provide a covered carriage with a pallet unless he chooses.
4. Let the protector of a landholder be a landholder; for one of the proletariat, let anyone that cares, be protector.
6-9. When the litigants settle their case by compromise, let the magistrate announce it. If they do not compromise, let them state each his own side of the case, in the comitium of the forum before noon. Afterwards let them talk it out together, while both are present. After noon, in case either party has failed to appear, let the magistrate pronounce judgment in favor of the one who is present. If both are present the trial may last until sunset but no later.

Table II.

2. He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every third day.

Table III.

1. One who has confessed a debt, or against whom judgment has been pronounced, shall have thirty days to pay it in. After that forcible seizure of his person is allowed. The creditor shall bring him before the magistrate. Unless he pays the amount of the judgment or some one in the presence of the magistrate interferes in his behalf as protector the creditor so shall take him home and fasten him in stocks or fetters. He shall fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds of weight or, if he choose, with more. If the prisoner choose, he may furnish his own food. If he does not, the creditor must give him a pound of meal daily; if he choose he may give him more.
2. On the third market day let them divide his body among them. If they cut more or less than each one's share it shall be no crime.
3. Against a foreigner the right in property shall be valid forever.

Table IV.

1. A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.
2. If a father sells his son three times, the son shall be free from his father.
3. As a man has provided in his will in regard to his money and the care of his property, so let it be binding. If he has no heir and dies intestate, let the nearest agnate have the inheritance. If there is no agnate, let the members of his gens have the inheritance.
4. If one is mad but has no guardian, the power over him and his money shall belong to his agnates and the members of his gens.
5. A child born after ten months since the father's death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.

Table V.

1. Females should remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority.

Table VI.

1. When one makes a bond and a conveyance of property, as he has made formal declaration so let it be binding.
3. A beam that is built into a house or a vineyard trellis one may not take from its place.
5. Usucapio of movable things requires one year's possession for its completion; but usucapio of an estate and buildings two years.
6. Any woman who does not wish to be subjected in this manner to the hand of her husband should be absent three nights in succession every year, and so interrupt the usucapio of each year.

Table VII.

1. Let them keep the road in order. If they have not paved it, a man may drive his team where he likes.
9. Should a tree on a neighbor's farm be bend crooked by the wind and lean over your farm, you may take legal action for removal of that tree.
10. A man might gather up fruit that was falling down onto another man's farm.

Table VIII.

2. If one has maimed a limb and does not compromise with the injured person, let there be retaliation. If one has broken a bone of a freeman with his hand or with a cudgel, let him pay a penalty of three hundred coins If he has broken the bone of a slave, let him have one hundred and fifty coins. If one is guilty of insult, the penalty shall be twenty-five coins.
3. If one is slain while committing theft by night, he is rightly slain.
4. If a patron shall have devised any deceit against his client, let him be accursed.
5. If one shall permit himself to be summoned as a witness, or has been a weigher, if he does not give his testimony, let him be noted as dishonest and incapable of acting again as witness.
10. Any person who destroys by burning any building or heap of corn deposited alongside a house shall be bound, scourged, and put to death by burning at the stake provided that he has committed the said misdeed with malice aforethought; but if he shall have committed it by accident, that is, by negligence, it is ordained that he repair the damage or, if he be too poor to be competent for such punishment, he shall receive a lighter punishment.
12. If the theft has been done by night, if the owner kills the thief, the thief shall be held to be lawfully killed.
13. It is unlawful for a thief to be killed by day....unless he defends himself with a weapon; even though he has come with a weapon, unless he shall use the weapon and fight back, you shall not kill him. And even if he resists, first call out so that someone may hear and come up.
23. A person who had been found guilty of giving false witness shall be hurled down from the Tarpeian Rock.
26. No person shall hold meetings by night in the city.

Table IX.

4. The penalty shall be capital for a judge or arbiter legally appointed who has been found guilty of receiving a bribe for giving a decision.
5. Treason: he who shall have roused up a public enemy or handed over a citizen to a public enemy must suffer capital punishment.
6. Putting to death of any man, whosoever he might be unconvicted is forbidden.

Table X.

1. None is to bury or burn a corpse in the city.
3. The women shall not tear their faces nor wail on account of the funeral.
5. If one obtains a crown himself, or if his chattel does so because of his honor and valor, if it is placed on his head, or the head of his parents, it shall be no crime.

Table XI.

1. Marriages should not take place between plebeians and patricians.

Table XII.

2. If a slave shall have committed theft or done damage with his master"s knowledge, the action for damages is in the slave's name.
5. Whatever the people had last ordained should be held as binding by law.