ROMANS! BALBOANS! THE TWELVE TABLES QUIZ IS UPON YOU…..THIS WEEK!!

room208 — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:34:24 +0000

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT LEGACY OF THE ANCIENT ROMANS IS THEIR GIFT OF WRITTEN LAW AND AN ESTABLISHED CONSTITUTION. MANY ITEMS LISTED IN THE TWELVE TABLES ARE INCORPORATED EVEN TODAY IN THE UNITED STATES AND BRITISH CONSTITUTIONS.

THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES ADDRESSED PROPERTY, FAMILY, CRIME, THEFT, MARRIAGE AND INHERITANCE. THE LAWS DID TRY TO BE FAIR.WHAT MATTERS IS THAT THESE LAWS WERE WRITTEN DOWN AND ACTUALLY ENGRAVED ON METAL PLATES AND POSTED IN THE ROMAN FORUM, SO THAT EVERYONE COULD SEE THEM. YOU PASSED BY THEM EVERY DAY. THE LAWS WERE THE SAME FOR EVERYONE, RICH OR POOR. NO ONE COULD SAY THEY DID NOT KNOW WHAT THE LAW WAS..IGNORANCE OF THE LAW WAS NO EXCUSE. (At the time, only adult free males were citizens. Women, children, and slaves were not citizens.)

LIKE THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION, THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION IS UNWRITTEN..UNWRITTEN ? WHAT? SO HOW DOES THAT WORK? THE WORD “CONSTITUTION” TO THE ROMANS AND THE BRITISH MEANS A TRADITION OF LAW AND PROCEDURE THAT SHOULD NEVER BE VIOLATED. MANY DOCUMENTS OVER THE CENTURIES MAKE UP THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION AND PRESUMABLY THAT MEANS THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION WILL CONTINUE TO GROW.

IN THE U.S. THE WORD “CONSTITUTION” MEANS ONE ACTUAL DOCUMENT ENTITLED “THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” THIS DOCUMENT YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY TOUCH…(IT’S UNDER GLASS AND GUARD AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES IN WASHINGTON, D.C. OK, SO YOU CAN’T REALLY TOUCH IT.. BUT IT IS A DOCUMENT)

THESE CONSTITUTIONS FORM THE BASIS OF HOW THE PEOPLE LIVING IN ROME OR THESE LATER COUNTRIES AND THEIR COLONIES GOVERNED AND RULED THEMSELVES. IT WAS TO THE ROMANS A SACRED AND RELIGIOUS RESPONSIBILITY TO OBSERVE THESE LAWS. WHILE CHRISTIANS AND JEWS WOULD FOLLOW TEN COMMANDMENTS, THE ROMANS WOULD FOLLOW THE “LAW” ON THE TWELVE TABLES.

REMEMBER THAT OUR STUDY OF HISTORY IS OFTEN SOMEWHAT DEPENDENT ON THE SCIENCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. I AM PROVIDING YOU WITH A TRANSLATION OF WHAT CAN BE FOUND “IN STONE” OF THE SACRED ROMAN ”TWELVE TABLES.” REVIEW THIS SECTION CAREFULLY…TAKE GOOD NOTES ON NOTECARDS AND BE COMPLETELY PREPARED FOR THE TWELVE TABLES QUIZ THIS WEEK..

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.

(MR.S. SAYS- HERE IS THE SOURCE OF THE AUTHORITY AND POWER OF THE PATERFAMILIAS)

1. A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.

2. If a father sell 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. MR. S. SAYS- THE GENS WERE PEOPLE IN YOUR CLAN OR TRIBE…PERHAPS A RELATIVE WHO WOULD STEP UP AND TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR AFFAIRS, MONEY, PROPERTY, WHATEVER…WHILE YOU WERE MAD…MAD AS IN INSANE.. THIS IS STILL IN EFFECT TODAY. CONSIDER THE CASE OF THAT FAMOUS ROMAN WOMAN…BRITANNIA SPEARSUS…

5. A child born after ten months since the father’s death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.< MR. S. SAYS-HMMMMM…….THINK ABOUT IT…WHY NOT?

Table V.

1. Females should remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority. < MR. S. SAYS- THIS IS THE SOURCE OF THE AUTHORITY OVER THE ROLE OF ROMAN WOMEN…FATHER TO HUSBAND TO SON- A WOMAN IS NEVER ON HER OWN

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. < MR. S. SAYS- Usucapio referred to ownership acquired by length of possession. In early Roman law, two years of continuous possession established title in the case of land, one year in the case of movable items that you “found”. In the modern law, possession must have begun justifiably in good faith, and the thing must not have been stolen even though the possessor himself may have been innocent of the theft or the goods or land must be returned. Not so in Rome…eventually, finders became, legally, keepers.

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. < MR. S. SAYS- HERE IS ANOTHER TENET OF COMMON LAW REGARDING WHO MAY BE AT FAULT FOR DAMAGES…THIS IS THE BASIS FOR THE THEORY OF CAUSATION..IN OTHER WORDS, HOW DID THE DAMAGE START?

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. MR. S. SAYS- THIS ARTICLE, ALONG WITH THE CODE OF HAMMUARBI, LAYS OUT THE BASIS OF THE LEGAL THEORY OF DAMAGES…LIKE THE CASE OF BURNING ONESELF WITH A HOT CUP OF McDONALD’S COFFEE

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. < MR. S. SAYS- THIS “ACCURSED” THANG…DIDN’T ACTUALLY MEAN CRIMINALLY LIABLE, IT MEANT ONE IS DENOUNCED…POINTED AT..SHUNNED..THE ROMANS HAD A TERM FOR THESE PEOPLE THAT WE STILL USE TODAY. IT IS CALLED “CAVEAT EMPTOR” WHICH MEANS…”BUYER BEWARE.”

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. < MR. S. SAYS- ONE THING THAT ROMANS FEARED IN SUCH A CROWDED AND OVERPOPULATED CITY WAS…FIRE…WITH NO ORGANIZED FIRE DEPARTMENTS STATIONED THROUGHOUT THE CITY, FIRE WAS A REAL THREAT TO MANY LIVES AT ONCE…IF YOU ROAST CORN BY YOUR HOUSE OR APARTMENT AND IT GETS OUT OF CONTROL..YOU ARE IN TROUBLE..AND IF YOU DO IT AT A NEIGHBORS HOUSE THAT YOU ARE ANGRY WITH AND IT GETS OUT OF CONTROL..ON PURPOSE…IT IS A CAPITAL OFFENSE…

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.< MR. S SAYS- GO HERE TO SEE THE INFAMOUS TARPEIAN ROCK: http://www.roman-empire.net/tours/rome/tarpeian-rock.html

26. No person shall hold meetings by night in the city. < MR. S. SAYS- LIKE YOUR MAMA, THE ROMANS KNEW ONLY BAD THINGS HAPPEN AFTER MIDNIGHT

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. (MR. S SAYS- CAPITAL MEANS DEATH..AS IN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT)

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.(MR.S. SAYS..THIS IS THE BASIS OF THE LEGAL THEORY KNOWN AS ‘DUE PROCESS OF LAW”..THERE MUST BE A TRIAL OR SOME GOVERNMENTAL JUDICIAL PROCESS YOU CAN’T JUST KILL PEOPLE FOR SPORT…)

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.

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. (MR. S. SAYS- THIS LAST ITEM IS SOOOO VERY IMPORTANT..IT IS THE BASIS FOR THE LEGAL THEORY CALLED “STARE DECISIS” WHICH MEANS JUDGES SHOULD STAND ON THE LAST KNOWN DECISION OF A SIMILAR CASE…IT IS THE BASIS OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN COMMON LAW)

Mr. S's World of History » ROMAN LAW

ROMANS! BALBOANS! THE TWELVE TABLES QUIZ IS UPON YOU…..THIS WEEK!!