Law of the Twelve Tables

The written law of the Roman Republic, 451 to 449 BCE

Overview

Roman plebeians demanded law be written down so magistrates could not rule by whim, and a commission produced twelve bronze tablets displayed in the Forum. The tables covered procedure, debt, family, property, and burial, mixing harsh provisions, such as harsh penalties for theft, with protections like capped interest. They became the foundation stone of Roman private law, cited for a thousand years, and their requirement that law be public and knowable entered the Western tradition permanently. Schoolchildren memorized them for centuries, and Cicero recalled learning them as boys in the Forum.