The Twelve Tables eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 25 pages of information about The Twelve Tables.

The Twelve Tables eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 25 pages of information about The Twelve Tables.

24.  The penalty for false testimonies [is] that any person who has been convicted of speaking false witness [shall be] precipitated from the Tarpeian Rock.

25.  If a weapon has sped from one’s hand rather than [if the wielder] has hurled [it, ... he shall atone for the accidental deed by providing] the substitution of a ram [as a peace-offering to prevent blood-revenge].

26. [For administering] a noxious drug ...

27.  No person shall hold nocturnal meetings in the city.

28.  Members of guilds have the power to make for themselves any binding rule which they may wish, provided that they violate nothing in accordance with public law (publica lex).

TABLE IX.  PUBLIC LAW

1.  Laws of personal exception (privilegium)[55] shall not be proposed.

2. [Laws] concerning the person (caput)[56] of a citizen shall not be passed except by the greatest assembly (maximus comitiatus)[57] and through those whom they (the consuls)[58] have placed upon the registers of the citizenry.

3.  A judge (iudex) or an arbitrator (arbiter) legally (iure) appointed, who has been convicted of receiving money for declaring a decision, shall be punished capitally (capite).

4. [Provisions pertaining to] the investigators of murder (quaestor parricidii) [appointed to have charge over capital cases].

5.  Whoever shall have incited a public enemy (hostis) or whoever shall have delivered a citizen (civis) to a public enemy shall be punished capitally (capite).

6.  It is forbidden to put to death ... unconvicted any one whomsoever.

TABLE X. SACRED LAW

1.  A dead person shall not be buried or burned in the city.[59]

2.  More than this shall not be done.  The funeral pyre (rogum) shall not be smoothed with the axe.[60]

3. [Expenses of a funeral shall be limited to] three [mourners wearing] veils and one [mourner wearing] small purple tunic and ten flute-players.

4.  Women shall not tear their cheeks or have a lessus (sorrowful outcry)[61] on account of the funeral.

5.  The bones of a dead person shall not be collected that one may make a funeral afterward.[62] An exception is for death in battle or on foreign soil.[63]

6.  Anointing by slaves and every kind of drinking-bout is abolished ... [there shall be] no costly sprinkling, no myrrh-spiced drink, no long garlands, no incense-boxes.

7.  Whoever wins a crown (corona)[64] himself or through his chattel[65] or by his valor, [a crown] is bestowed on him [, when he is burned or buried] ... on him (who has won it) and on his father [it shall be laid] with impunity (sine fraude).

8.  This also shall not be done:  to make more than one funeral and to spread more than one bier for one person.

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Project Gutenberg
The Twelve Tables from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.