Some of the concessions made at this time related to temporary provisions for relief of debtors; but the great innovation was that which established the office of tribune. The character of the office of tribune is absolutely unique in the political history of the world. The tribunes, elected by the people in the comitia tributa, were plebeian officers who were at first without any constructive part in the carrying on of the Roman government and whose sole duty at the outset was to protect the members of the plebeian order from the oppression of the patrician officials. This protection was exercised mainly through the use of the veto power given to the tribunes. Under this power the tribunes had the right at any time to put a stop to any act either by any of the public assemblies, by the Senate, or by any of the magistrates. It was a power which, if exercised to its fullest extent, could put a stop to the very carrying on of the government.
It speaks much for the moderation of the Roman tribunes that through all the centuries of the Roman republic little serious inconvenience was experienced from the use of this power. With few and unimportant exceptions, it was exercised only in cases where the welfare of the plebeians as a class, or of some particular plebeian, demanded it.
The creation of the office of tribune was merely one more example of that system of checks and balances which played so prominent a part in the framing of the government after the expulsion of the king—a system of checks and balances so strikingly resembling that in our Federal Constitution. The tribunes were introduced as a protection for the plebeians and an additional restraint upon the magistrates.
While at first the power and duties of the tribunes were entirely of a negative nature, they gradually acquired an authority of a positive character. The tribunes generally presided over the comitia tributa and took the lead in securing the passage of laws by that body. In addition they acquired judicial powers, and in cases where a plebeian had been wronged they could summon any citizen, even the consuls, before them, and might impose even the death penalty. The persons of the tribunes were declared inviolable, and any one who attacked them was thought to be accursed. The number of the tribunes was at first two, but was later increased to five and still later to ten.
The second great victory won by the plebeians was in the passage of the Publilian Law in 471 B.C. This law was proposed by the tribune Valerius Publilius, and was brought about by the murder of the tribune Gnæus Genucius. The main object of this law was the protection of the plebeian assembly and the plebeian officers, but its exact details are unknown. It is believed by some that the comitia tributa really came into existence with this law, and that previously the plebeians had voted by curies. The law limited to plebeian freeholders the right to vote in a plebeian assembly, and excluded nearly all the freedmen and clients who were under the influence of the patricians as well as the patricians themselves. It is possible also that the increase in the number of the tribunes from two to five was made by this law. In 462 B.C. an unsuccessful attempt was made to abolish the office of tribune; in 457 B.C. came the increase from five tribunes to ten.
From 451 to 450 B.C. the regular system of government at Rome was interrupted by the election and rule of the decemvirs. The episode of these decemvirs has an important place in Roman history; but (as is the case with all events in Roman history in the fifth century before Christ) our knowledge of these men, of their work, and of their overthrow is very uncertain. The election of these officials was primarily brought about by the recognized necessity for a reform and codification of the Roman laws. If the duties of these men had been limited to the preparation of such code, its character and position would not have been unsimilar to that of numerous other bodies of men appointed for a similar purpose in many countries and in all ages. But the peculiarity about the work of the decemvirs lies in the fact that upon their appointment all the ordinary Roman offices were discontinued and the entire judicial and executive administration of the state passed into the hands of the decemvirs.
During their first year of office the decemvirs drew up ten tables of laws, so called because the laws were engraved upon tables of copper and stood up in the Forum on the rostra in front of the Senate house.
According to the legends (for the Roman historical records of this century are little more than such), it had originally been intended to intrust the decemvirs with power only for a single year, but their work being incomplete at the expiration of the first year, they were chosen for a second year. It is uncertain whether the decemvirs for the second year were exactly the same men as those for the first year. According to some reports some of the decemvirs of the second year were plebeians, while none of those originally elected belonged to that order.
During their second year of office the decemvirs prepared two more tables of laws, and these, with the ten tables prepared during the preceding year, constituted the famous "Law of the Twelve Tables," the first Roman code of which we have any knowledge. Only fragmentary extracts from these tables have come down to us, but these fragments furnish us with such an insight into early Roman laws, institutions, and customs that they are here inserted:
THE TWELVE TABLES
Table I
THE SUMMONS BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE
1. If the plaintiff summon a man to appear before the magistrate and he refuse to go, the plaintiff shall first call witnesses and arrest him.
2. If the defendant attempt evasion or flight, the plaintiff shall take him by force.
3. If the defendant be prevented by illness or old age, let him who summons him before the magistrate furnish a beast of burden, but he need not send a covered carriage for him unless he choose.
4. For a wealthy defendant only a wealthy man may go bail; any one who chooses may go bail for a poor citizen of the lowest class.
5. In case the contestants come to an agreement, the magistrate shall announce the fact.
6. In case they come to no agreement, they shall before noon enter the case in the comitium or forum.
7. To the party present in the afternoon the magistrate shall award the suit.
9. Sunset shall terminate the proceedings.
10. ... sureties and sub-sureties....
Table II
JUDICIAL PROCEDURE
2. A serious illness or a legal appointment with an alien ... should one of these occur to the judge, arbiter, or either party to the suit, the appointed trial must be postponed.
3. If the witnesses of either party fail to appear, that party shall go and serve a verbal notice at his door on three days.
Table III
EXECUTION FOLLOWING CONFESSION OR JUDGMENT
1. A debtor, either by confession or judgment, shall have thirty days' grace.
2. At the expiration of this period the plaintiff shall serve a formal summons upon the defendant, and bring him before the magistrate.
3. If the debt be not paid, or if no one become surety, the plaintiff shall lead him away, and bind him with shackles and fetters of not less than fifteen pounds' weight, and heavier at his discretion.
4. If the debtor wish, he may live at his own expense; if not, he in whose custody he may be shall furnish him a pound of meal a day, more at his discretion.
6. On the third market day the creditors, if there are several, shall divide the property. If one take more or less, no guilt shall attach to him.
Table IV
PATERNAL RIGHTS
3. If a father shall thrice sell his son, the son shall be free from the paternal authority.
Table V
INHERITANCE AND TUTELAGE
3. What has been appointed in regard to the property or tutelage shall be binding in law.
4. If a man die intestate, having no natural heirs, his property shall pass to the nearest agnate.
5. If there be no agnate, the gentiles shall succeed.
7. ... if one be hopelessly insane, his agnates and gentiles shall have authority over him and his property ... in case there be none to take charge....
8. ... from that estate ... into that estate.
Table VI
OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION
1. Whenever a party shall negotiate a nexum or transfer by mancipatio, according to the formal statement so let the law be.
5. Whoever in presence of the magistrates shall join issue by manuum consertio....
7. A beam built into a house or vine trellis shall not be removed.
9. When the vines have been pruned, until the grapes are removed....
Table VII
LAW CONCERNING REAL PROPERTY
5. If parties get into dispute about boundaries....
7. They shall pave the way. If they do not pave the way with stones a man may drive where he pleases.
8. If water from rain gutters cause damage....
Table VIII
ON TORTS
1. Whoever shall chant a magic spell....
2. If a man maim another, and does not compromise with him, there shall be retaliation in kind.
3. If with the fist or club a man break a bone of a freeman, the penalty shall be three hundred asses; if of a slave, one hundred and fifty asses.
4. If he does any injury to another, twenty-five asses; if he sing a satirical song let him be beaten.
5. ... if he shall have inflicted a loss ... he shall make it good.
6. Whoever shall blight the crops of another by incantation ... nor shalt thou win over to thyself another's grain....
12. If a thief be caught stealing by night and he be slain, the homicide shall be lawful.
13. If in the daytime the thief defend himself with a weapon, one may kill him.
15. ... with a leather girdle about his naked body, and a platter in his hand....
16. If a man contend at law about a theft not detected in the act....
21. If a patron cheat his client, he shall become infamous.
22. He who has been summoned as a witness or acts as libripens, and shall refuse to give his testimony, shall be accounted infamous, and shall be incapable of acting subsequently as witness.
24. If a weapon slip from a man's hand without his intention of hurling it....
Table IX
(No fragments of this table are extant.)
Table X
SACRED LAW
1. They shall not inter or burn a dead man within the city.
2. ... more than this a man shall not do ... ; a man shall not smooth the wood for the funeral pyre with an ax.
4. Women shall not lacerate their faces, nor indulge in immoderate wailing for the dead.
5. They shall not collect the bones of a dead man for a second interment.
7. Whoever wins a crown, either in person or by his slaves or animals, or has received it for valor....
8. ... he shall not add gold ... ; but gold used in joining the teeth.... This may be burned or buried with the dead without incurring any penalty.
Table XI
(No fragments of this table are extant.)
SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS
2. If a slave has committed theft, or has done damage....
3. If either party shall have won a suit concerning property by foul means, at the discretion of the opponent ... the magistrate shall fix the damage at twice the profits arising from the interim possession.