The Twelve Tables | Page 5

[it, ... he shall atone for the accidental deed by providing] the substitution of a ram [as a peace-offering to prevent blood-revenge].
26. [For administering] a noxious drug ...
27. No person shall hold nocturnal meetings in the city.
28. Members of guilds have the power to make for themselves any binding rule which they may wish, provided that they violate nothing in accordance with public law (publica lex).

TABLE IX. PUBLIC LAW
1. Laws of personal exception (privilegium)[55] shall not be proposed.
2. [Laws] concerning the person (caput)[56] of a citizen shall not be passed except by the greatest assembly (maximus comitiatus)[57] and through those whom they (the consuls)[58] have placed upon the registers of the citizenry.
3. A judge (iudex) or an arbitrator (arbiter) legally (iure) appointed, who has been convicted of receiving money for declaring a decision, shall be punished capitally (capite).
4. [Provisions pertaining to] the investigators of murder (quaestor parricidii) [appointed to have charge over capital cases].
5. Whoever shall have incited a public enemy (hostis) or whoever shall have delivered a citizen (civis) to a public enemy shall be punished capitally (capite).
6. It is forbidden to put to death ... unconvicted any one whomsoever.

TABLE X. SACRED LAW
1. A dead person shall not be buried or burned in the city.[59]
2. More than this shall not be done. The funeral pyre (rogum) shall not be smoothed with the axe.[60]
3. [Expenses of a funeral shall be limited to] three [mourners wearing] veils and one [mourner wearing] small purple tunic and ten flute-players.
4. Women shall not tear their cheeks or have a lessus (sorrowful outcry)[61] on account of the funeral.
5. The bones of a dead person shall not be collected that one may make a funeral afterward.[62] An exception is for death in battle or on foreign soil.[63]
6. Anointing by slaves and every kind of drinking-bout is abolished ... [there shall be] no costly sprinkling, no myrrh-spiced drink, no long garlands, no incense-boxes.
7. Whoever wins a crown (corona)[64] himself or through his chattel[65] or by his valor, [a crown] is bestowed on him [, when he is burned or buried] ... on him (who has won it) and on his father [it shall be laid] with impunity (sine fraude).
8. This also shall not be done: to make more than one funeral and to spread more than one bier for one person.
9. Gold shall not be added [to a corpse]. But him whose teeth shall have been fastened with gold, if a person shall bury or shall burn him with that (gold), it shall be with impunity (sine fraude).
10. It is forbidden for a new pyre (rogum) or a burning-mound (bustum) to be erected nearer than sixty feet to another person's buildings without the owner's consent.[66]
11. It is forbidden for a vestibule of a sepulcher (forum) and a burning-mound (bustum)[67] to be acquired by usucapion.

TABLE XI. SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS
1. Intermarriage (conubium) between plebeians and patricians shall not occur.[68]
2. [Regulations] concerning intercalation.
3. [Declaration concerning] days deemed favorable for official legal action (dies agendi).

TABLE XII. SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS
1. [There shall lie] a levy of distress (pignoris capio)[69] against a person who has bought an animal for sacrifice and pays not the price; likewise against a person who makes not payment for that yoke-beast which any one has lent for this purpose, that therefrom he may raise money to spend on a sacred banquet (sacrifice).
2. If a slave shall have committed theft or shall have done damage ... with his master's knowledge ... the action for damages (actio noxalis) is in the slave's name. Arising from delicts committed by children and by slaves of a household ... actions for damages (actio noxalis) shall be appointed, that the father or the master can be allowed either to undergo assessment of the suit (litis aestimatio) or to deliver [the delinquent] for punishment.[70]
3. If a person has taken [a thing by] a false claim,[71] if he should wish ... the magistrate shall grant three arbitrators (arbiter); by their [adverse] arbitration (arbitrium) ... [the defendant] shall compound for loss caused by [paying] double [damages from enjoyment of the article].[72]
4. It is forbidden to dedicate for consecrated use (in sacrum) any thing of which there is a controversy [about its ownership]; otherwise a penalty of double [the amount involved] shall be suffered.[73]
5. Whatsoever last the people have ordained, this shall be binding and valid (ius ratumque).[74]
UNPLACED FRAGMENTS
There are extant about a dozen fragments of whose place in the Twelve Tables we are ignorant. In nearly every instance these fragments consist of only one word or phrase, which later Latin antiquarians have preserved to illustrate an ancient spelling or to explain an archaic usage or to point a definition.
The longest fragment only is worth reproduction for the present purpose: To appeal from any judgement (inuicium) and sentence (poena) is allowed.[75]

NOTES
[1] The code was known under two titles: Lex Duodecim