Assignment #2

The Twelve Tables Analysed

as Historiographical Evidence.

Student: DALCIO CORREA MARCAL – 3091143

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 The purpose of this work is to analyse the Twelve
Tables as a piece of evidence and to assess its importance
and meaning for the understanding of the archaic Roman
history. For that matter, it is important to analyse who
wrote the evidence, what we can learn by the direct reading
of the laws, what problems and contradictions it presents
regarding the historical accounts, and how all of this
affects our understanding of Rome in the 5th century BC. As
a result of this discussion, it is important to assess the
debt law (Table III) and try to understand how it can
contribute to Brunt's thesis, which suggests a tempting,
reasonable and solid explanation to justify the awkward
mismatches between the text of the Twelve Tables and the
Conflict of the Orders.

The surviving text of the Twelve Tables reached us

through later writers such as Livy, Dionysius, Cicero, and
even writers from the empire, such as Gaius (Watson, 1975,
pp. 1-186). Despite the problems encountered in the
historiography of these writers — such as misunderstandings
and anachronistic legal interpretations of the provisions
(these aspects will be discussed further on), the text of
the Twelve Tables reveals an authenticity about the earlier
periods of Rome and, according to Drummond, the extant
texts are of great importance to reveal the characteristics
of the archaic Roman society (Drummond, 1989, p. 116).

Many interesting things about the Romans can be drawn

from the direct reading of the laws. It is possible to
notice the relationship that the Romans had with their
slaves, with women; and it allow us to discover that they
already had primitive dentistry techniques. On slavery,
besides the several legal provisions which show an obvious
difference between slaves and free men (for example, the
penalty for injuring a slave is half the penalty for

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injuring a free man (Table 8.3)), slaves were not regarded
as persons, they were things. Just like animals, buildings
and land, the slaves were subject to a legal institution
called res mancipi, which regulated the rights of property
and possession (Dillon and Garland, 2015, p. 24). Still,
slaves were subject to noxal law in the same way the
animals were, that is, if an animal or slave cause harm to
someone, the owner may surrender the slave or the animal as
reparation of the damage (Table 12.2, 8.6). The content on
the slaves in the Twelve Tables can also bring further
information about the reality of Rome in the 5th century
BC. Watson explains that slavery must have been something
very common and very abundant in archaic Rome for the
decemviri (a board of ten men) had an interest in legislate
so many provisions on slaves and freedmen (Watson, 1975,
pp. 82-93).

The manumissio (a legal principle regarding the

liberation of slaves) should have happened very often (this
is supported by the statuliber1 in Table 7.12), and more
importantly, upon their freedom, these slaves would be
granted with Roman citizenship, for the Tables expressed
that a freed slave could make a will and possess property
(Table 5.8), and that is a prerogative of Roman
citizenship. The reason for this apparent mildness of the
law (certainly compared to African slavery) stems from the
fact that, as Rome did not yet achieve imperial expansion,
most of these slaves probably were not brought in from
battles overseas, but they were sons of their owners,
resulting from sexual intercourse between the masters and
their female slaves (Watson, 1975, pp. 82-93). In other
words, they had Roman blood.

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Statuliber was a slave who was ordered in his master's will to bee free on the fulfillment of a
condition (Watson, 1975, p.93).