[60] In view of the simplicity enjoined in some of the following statutes of this Table, for the decemvirs apparently took a dim view of extravagant funerals, this statute seems to mean that a rough-hewn pyre without elaborate smoothness of its wooden material suffices for the cremation-couch of a citizen.
[61] Cicero says that some older interpreters suspected that some kind of mourning-garment was meant by lessus, but that he inclines to the interpretation that it signifies a sort of sorrowful wailing (De Legibus, II.23.59)
[62] This provision is aimed at the common custom of prolonging mourning by gathering and preserving unburied some part of the corpse. When this part (os resectum) later had been buried, then only mourning ceased. It is possible that some Romans may have thought that cremation might be wrong or that its ceremony was inadequate.
[63] That is, in such a case a limb could be carried to Rome and then buried.
[64] That is, a garland or a chaplet or a wreath as a prize of achievement.
[65] A chattel, for example, is a slave or a horse who wins a wreath for the owner.
[66] Cicero says that this statute seems to suggest fear of disastrous fire (De Legibus, II. 24. 61).
[67] In the burning-mound also ashes were buried.
[68] This statute proved so unpopular that it soon was repealed by the Lex Canuleia in 445 B.C.
[69] This process of "taking a pledge" is the seizure and the detention of a debtor's property or part thereof to induce the debtor to pay the debt before any other legal action will be taken.