Juris civilis initia et progressus. Ad leges XII. Tabularum brevis commentatio. Ex Ulpiani Fragmentorum Tituli XXIX. selectis notis illustrati. Gaii ex veteris jurisprudentiae Fragmentis Institutionu

were ordered to depart from their command: and it was lust alone that brought an end to the Roman Kings and the Ten Men.

The excellence of the laws of the xii. tables.

Those twelve tables of laws, however, were written with a concise and clearly admirable brevity in no words other than those absolutely necessary (as can be estimated from those that survive). It will not be irrelevant to confirm their excellence with the authority of certain great men, and to bring forth their praises, among which that first one of Livy is memorable: Here, he says, even now, in this immense heap of laws piled one upon another, is the fountain of all public and private law.

Cornelius Tacitus, Book 3 of the Annals.

TACITUS, however, retracing the origin of all Kings and Roman Law from ancient memory, says: With Tarquinius expelled, the people accomplished many things against the factions of the Fathers, for the sake of protecting liberty and strengthening concord: and the Ten Men were created, and having summoned whatever was excellent from anywhere, the xii. tables were composed: the end of equitable law. For the laws that followed, even if sometimes they were directed against wrongdoers for their crimes, were more often enacted through violence due to the dissension of the orders, for the sake of obtaining honors, or expelling famous men, and for other depraved reasons. Cicero, in his books On the Orator, arguing about these very laws under the persona of Crassus, speaks thus: Whether anyone is delighted by these foreign studies, there is a very great image of antiquity in the xii. tables: because both the ancient age of the words is known: and certain types of actions declare the custom and life of our ancestors: whether anyone...