The Twelve Tables | Page 5

to accuse [them] on suspicion ... the legal action
(actio) against guardians (tutor) [shall be] for double [damages].
22. If a patron (patronus) shall have defrauded a client (cliens), he shall
be forfeited solemnly (sacer).[53]

23. Whoever shall have allowed himself to be called as a witness or
shall have been a scales-bearer (libripens),[54] if he [as a witness]
pronounce not his testimony, he shall be dishonored and incapable of
giving evidence (intestabilis).
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.
9. Gold shall not be added [to a corpse]. But him whose teeth shall have

been fastened with gold, if a person shall bury or shall burn him with
that (gold), it shall be with impunity (sine fraude).
10. It is forbidden for a new pyre (rogum) or a burning-mound (bustum)
to be erected nearer than sixty feet to another person's buildings
without the owner's consent.[66]
11. It is forbidden for a vestibule of a sepulcher (forum) and a
burning-mound (bustum)[67] to be acquired by usucapion.

TABLE XI. SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS
1. Intermarriage (conubium) between plebeians and patricians shall not
occur.[68]
2. [Regulations] concerning intercalation.
3. [Declaration concerning] days deemed favorable for official legal
action (dies agendi).

TABLE XII. SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS
1. [There shall lie] a levy of distress (pignoris capio)[69] against a
person who has bought an animal for sacrifice and pays not the price;
likewise against a person who makes not payment for that yoke-beast
which any one has lent for this purpose, that therefrom he may raise
money to spend on a sacred banquet (sacrifice).
2. If a slave shall have committed theft or shall have done damage ...
with his master's knowledge ... the action for damages (actio noxalis) is
in the slave's name. Arising from delicts committed by children and by
slaves of a household ... actions for damages (actio noxalis) shall be
appointed, that the father or the master can be allowed either to undergo
assessment of the suit (litis aestimatio) or to deliver [the delinquent] for
punishment.[70]

3. If a person has taken [a thing by] a false claim,[71] if he should
wish ... the magistrate shall grant three arbitrators (arbiter); by their
[adverse] arbitration (arbitrium) ...