DŬŎDĔCIM TĂBŬLĀRUM. In the year B.C. 454 the Senate assented to a Plebiscitum, pursuant to which commissioners were to be sent to Athens and the Greek cities generally, in order to make themselves acquainted with their laws. Three commissioners were appointed for the purpose. On the return of the commissioners, B.C. 452, it was agreed that persons should be appointed to draw up the code of laws (decemviri Legibus scribundis), but they were to be chosen only from the Patricians, with a provision that the rights of the Plebeians should be respected by the decemviri in drawing up the laws. In the following year (B.C. 451) the Decemviri were appointed in the Comitia Centuriata, and during the time of their office no other magistratus were chosen. The body consisted of ten Patricians, including the three commissioners who had been sent abroad: Appius Claudius, Consul designatus, was at the head of the body. Ten Tables of Laws were prepared during the year, and after being approved by the Senate were confirmed by the Comitia Centuriata. As it was considered that some further Laws were wanted, Decemviri were again elected B.C. 450, consisting of Appius Claudius and his friends. Two more Tables were added by these Decemviri, which Cicero calls “Duae tabulae iniquarum legum.” The provision which allowed no connubium between the Patres and the Plebs is referred to the Eleventh Table. The whole Twelve Tables were first published in the consulship of L. Valerius and M. Horatius after the downfall of the Decemviri, B.C. 449. This the first attempt to make a code remained also the only attempt for near one thousand years, until the legislation of Justinian. The Twelve Tables are mentioned by the Roman writers under a great variety of names: Leges Decemvirales, Lex Decemviralis, Leges XII., Lex XII. tabularum or Duodecim, and sometimes they are referred to under the names of Leges and Lex simply, as being pre-eminently The Law. The Laws were cut on bronze tablets and put up in a public place. They contained matters relating both to the Jus Publicum and the Jus Privatum (fons publici privatique juris). The Jus Publicum underwent great changes in the course of years, but the Jus Privatum of the Twelve Tables continued to be the fundamental law of the Roman State. The Roman writers speak in high terms of the precision of the enactments contained in the Twelve Tables, and of the propriety of the language in which they were expressed.
FĂBĬA DE PLĂGIO. [[Plagium].]
FĂBĬA DE NUMERO SECTATORUM. (Cic. pro Murena, 34.)
FALCIDIA. [[Lex Voconia].]
FANNĬA. [[Leges Sumptuariae].]
FANNĬA. [[Junia de Peregrinis].]
FLĀMĬNĬA was an Agraria Lex for the distribution of lands in Picenum, proposed by the tribune C. Flaminius, in B.C. 228 according to Cicero, or in B.C. 232 according to Polybius. The latter date is the more probable.
FLĀVĬA AGRĀRĬA, B.C. 60, for the distribution of lands among Pompey’s soldiers, proposed by the tribune L. Flavius, who committed the consul Caecilius Metellus to prison for opposing it.
FRŪMENTĀRĬAE. Various leges were so called which had for their object the distribution of grain among the people, either at a low price or gratuitously. [[Frumentariae Leges], [p. 182].]
FŪFĬA DE RĒLĬGĬŌNE, B.C. 61, was a privilegium which related to the trial of Clodius.