The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States Part 3

TABLE V

INHERITANCE AND TUTELAGE

3. What has been appointed in regard to the property or tutelage shall be binding in law.

4. If a man die intestate, having no natural heirs, his property shall pa.s.s to the nearest agnate.

5. If there be no agnate, the gentiles shall succeed.

7. ... if one be hopelessly insane, his agnates and gentiles shall have authority over him and his property ... in case there be none to take charge....

8. ... from that estate ... into that estate.

TABLE VI

OWNERSHIP AND POSSESSION

1. Whenever a party shall negotiate a nexum or transfer by manc.i.p.atio, according to the formal statement so let the law be.

5. Whoever in presence of the magistrates shall join issue by manuum consertio....

7. A beam built into a house or vine trellis shall not be removed.

9. When the vines have been pruned, until the grapes are removed....

TABLE VII

LAW CONCERNING REAL PROPERTY

5. If parties get into dispute about boundaries....

7. They shall pave the way. If they do not pave the way with stones a man may drive where he pleases.

8. If water from rain gutters cause damage....

TABLE VIII

ON TORTS

1. Whoever shall chant a magic spell....

2. If a man maim another, and does not compromise with him, there shall be retaliation in kind.

3. If with the fist or club a man break a bone of a freeman, the penalty shall be three hundred a.s.ses; if of a slave, one hundred and fifty a.s.ses.

4. If he does any injury to another, twenty-five a.s.ses; if he sing a satirical song let him be beaten.

5. ... if he shall have inflicted a loss ... he shall make it good.

6. Whoever shall blight the crops of another by incantation ... nor shalt thou win over to thyself another's grain....

12. If a thief be caught stealing by night and he be slain, the homicide shall be lawful.

13. If in the daytime the thief defend himself with a weapon, one may kill him.

15. ... with a leather girdle about his naked body, and a platter in his hand....

16. If a man contend at law about a theft not detected in the act....

21. If a patron cheat his client, he shall become infamous.

22. He who has been summoned as a witness or acts as libripens, and shall refuse to give his testimony, shall be accounted infamous, and shall be incapable of acting subsequently as witness.

24. If a weapon slip from a man's hand without his intention of hurling it....

TABLE IX

(No fragments of this table are extant.)

TABLE X

SACRED LAW

1. They shall not inter or burn a dead man within the city.

2. ... more than this a man shall not do ... ; a man shall not smooth the wood for the funeral pyre with an ax.

4. Women shall not lacerate their faces, nor indulge in immoderate wailing for the dead.

5. They shall not collect the bones of a dead man for a second interment.

7. Whoever wins a crown, either in person or by his slaves or animals, or has received it for valor....

8. ... he shall not add gold ... ; but gold used in joining the teeth.... This may be burned or buried with the dead without incurring any penalty.

TABLE XI

(No fragments of this table are extant.)

TABLE XII

SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS