The Twelve Tables | Page 8

is represented commonly as a matronly woman, always clad in full attire of flowing draperies, crowned either with a simple ribband or with ears of grain holding in her hand sometimes a poppy, sometimes a scepter, sometimes a sickle, sometimes a sheaf of grain, sometimes a torch, sometimes a basket full of fruits or of flowers, seated or standing in a chariot drawn by dragons or by horses.
[47] That is, the slayer must call aloud, lest he be considered a murderer trying to hide his own act.
Our sources leave it uncertain whether the law forbids that a thief be killed by day, unless he defend himself, with a weapon, or the law permits that a thief be killed, if he so defend himself.
[48] A southern spur of the Capitoline Hill, which overlooks the Forum, and named after Tarpeia, a legendary traitress, who, tempted by golden ornaments of besieging Sabines, opened to them the gate of the citadel, of which her father was a governor during the regal period. As they entered, the enemy by their shields crushed her to death: Tarpeia was buried on the Capitoline Hill, whereon stood the citadel, and her memory was preserved by the name of the Tarpeian Rock (Rupes Tarpeia), whence certain classes of condemned criminals, in later times, were thrown to their death.
[49] Our sources tell us that a person who searched for stolen property on the premises of another searched alone and naked, lest he be deemed later to have brought concealed in his clothing any article, which he might pretend then to have found in the house, save for a loincloth and a platter, on the latter of which he probably placed the stolen articles when found. We hear also that a man could institute a search in normal dress, but only in the presence of witnesses. If in the latter case stolen goods were discovered, the thief on conviction was condemned to pay thrice their value for furtum conceptum (detected theft). But in either case, if the accused householder could prove that a person other than himself for any reason had placed the stolen articles in his house, he could obtain from that person on conviction damages of thrice their value for furtum oblatum ("planted" theft). Search by platter and loincloth (lanx et licium) became obsolete; search with witnesses present survived.
[50] The ancient commentators take this statute to mean "double in kind" not in value: for example, two cows surrendered for one cow stolen.
[51] That is, neither a thief nor a receiver of stolen goods, whether acquired through purchase or by other method, can acquire title to property in stolen goods through long possession of such.
[52] The uncia (whence our "ounce") is the unit of division of the as and is used also as one-twelfth of anything. One-twelfth of the principal paid yearly as interest equals 8-1/3%.
[53] This originally is a religious penalty, whereby the person is sacrificed. But sacer comes to mean "a person disgraced and outlawed and deprived of his property."
[54] At a sale (mancipium or mancipatio) the buyer in the presence of five adult citizens had his money weighed by another adult citizen who held scales for this purpose.
This practice obtained originally ere the introduction of coinage.
[55] That is, enactments referring to a single citizen, whether or not in his favor.
[56] Caput includes also privileges of citizenship (civitas).
[57] Commonly known as the comitia centuriata, an assembly which comprised all citizens. To this assembly a citizen convicted in court on a capital charge had the right of appeal (ius provocationis) at least as early as the passage of the Lex Valeria in 509 B.C., for Cicero claims that the pontifical as well as the augural books state that the right of appeal from the regal sentences had been recognized (De Re Publica, 11. 31. 54).
[58] This statute is quoted by Cicero (De Legibus, III. 4. 11), who inserts censores (censors) as the subject of the last verb locassint (have placed). But the last clause must have been "modernized" either by Cicero or in his source, because the promulgation of the Twelve Tables in 449 B.C. antedated the creation of the censorship, which can not be traced higher than 443 B.C., if we can believe Livy's account of its institution (op. cit., IV. 8. 2-7). Before that time the consuls superintended the lists of citizens.
[59] The first provision doubtlessly descends from a primitive tribal tabu. Cicero supposes that the second provision is due to danger from fire (De Legibus, II. 23. 58).
[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