The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

In the sixth table, there is nothing worthy of remark; but the seventh guards against damage done by quadrupeds, and not only meets the old familiar case of the donkey among the chickens, but declares that any one wilfully treading on a neighbour's corn shall pay a suitable penalty.

Agriculture was protected by making it a capital offence to blast by incantation another's wheat; so that had the farmers of the day moaned over each other's ruined prospects as they have done in more recent times, performing a sort of incantation by singing the same old song of despair, they might have been liable to lose their heads in the literal as well as in the intellectual sense of which the phrase is susceptible. By the same table, a man breaking another's limb was exposed to retaliation; and a simple fracture was compensated by a simple fracture, though the parties were allowed to compound if they preferred doing so.

The eighth table was equivalent to a Building Act; and by providing a space of two feet and a half between house and house, it prevented collisions among neighbours; while the fruit dropping from one person's tree into another's garden, fell by law into the hands of the latter.

The purity of justice was provided for by the ninth table, which ordered the execution of a judge who accepted a bribe in the execution of his office. It inflicted the same penalty on a corrupt arbitrator, or—that greater traitor still—the wretch who should deliver up a Roman citizen to the enemy.

The tenth table might teach a lesson to our own enlightened age, in which it is too generally the custom to waste in hollow and costly ceremonies over the dead, much that might be made serviceable to the living. More than twenty centuries have passed since the Roman law-makers seeing how mourners might be caught by the undertakers in the traps and trappings of woe, limited to a certain sum the costs of a funeral. The outlay upon the "infernal deities," to whom sacrifices were made in those days, and to whom, therefore, we may compare the black job-masters of our own time, was also reduced to the very lowest figure. In measures of health the Romans were equally in advance of us; for we still accumulate our dead in the grave-yards of our towns, though by the laws of the twelve tables, burials within the city were prohibited.

The eleventh and twelfth tables have come down to us in such mere fragments, that it is difficult to make up an entire leaf from both of them put together. To the eleventh, is attributed the aristocratic provision against marriages between the patricians and the plebeians; but as the law could not always prevent a flame, it was at last found expedient to allow a match which was permitted five years later by the Lex Canuleia.[19]

Such is a brief account of the Laws of the Twelve Tables; which although cut up by the shears of time into very little bits, say much, in broken sentences, to the honour of their authors. Even as late as the days of Cicero, it was a part of a boy's education to learn these laws as a carmen necessarium—or necessary verse—though they were not necessarily in verse at all; for the better opinion is, that they were all in prose, and that they were, in fact, as free from rhyme as they were full of reason.

The Decemvirs had now completed their allotted task; but, though elected for a limited time, they seemed determined to remain in their offices after their office hours were fairly over. During the first Decemvirate the members had taken the Government alternately for twenty-four hours at a time, on the principle of every lucky dog having his day: but now the whole ten assumed, at once, the insignia of royalty. Unable to resist the fascination of the fasces, the Decemvirs were each of them preceded, when they walked abroad, by a bundle of those imposing sticks; the sight of which, at last, aroused public attention to the number of rods that might be in pickle for the backs of the people.

Murmurs at home were echoed by rumours of war abroad; the Æquians and Sabines had renewed their hostility; and the Decemvirs, who could not levy troops or money, summoned the country gentlemen from their seats out of town to their seats in the senate. Many honourable members protested strongly against the Government, but agreed to the necessary supplies; from which it seems that the practice of speaking one way and voting another is a very ancient one. The Decemvirs stuck to their places with an adhesiveness that might suggest a comparison with Roman cement, but for the fact that the adhesiveness is not uncommon in modern times, though the secret of the Roman cement has perished. Armies were despatched to meet the foe, the people having met the expenses, and Appius remained at home with one of his colleagues. The Roman forces abroad had to contend with internal as well as external enemies; for a venerable, but too garrulous soldier, one Dentatus, called also Siccius, was constantly declaring himself heartily sick of the tyranny of the Decemvirs. He had even talked of another secession of the plebs; and, to prevent him from taking himself off, a plan was formed to cut him off by a summary process. He received orders from his superior officer to go up the country, with a few others, and select a spot where a tent might be pitched, in the event of a pitched battle. His companions were assassins in disguise, who, on arriving at a lonely spot, threw off their masks, and appeared in their true features. They immediately fell upon the astonished Dentatus; who must have seen through his assailants before he died, for many were found perforated with the sword of the veteran.