The scanty fragments of the Twelve Tables hardly enable us to form a judg ment of their character or a proper esti mate of the commendation bestowed on them by Cicero (De. On, i. 43.) It seems to have been the object of the compilers to make a complete set of rules both as to religious and civil matters ; and they did not confine themselves to what the Ro mans called private law, but they com prised also public law ("Fons publici privatique juris," Liv., iii. 34). They contained provisions as to testaments, suc cessions to intestates, the care of persons of unsound mind, theft, homicide, inter ments, &c.
They also comprised enactments which affected a man's status, as for instance the law contained in one of the two last Ta bles, which did not allow to a marriage contracted between a patrician and a ple beian the character of a legal Roman mar riage, or, in other words, declared that between patricians and plebeians there could be no Connubium. Though great changes were made in the Jus Publicum by the various enactments which gave to the plebeians the same rights as the patricians, and by those which concerned public administration, the fundamental principles of the Jus Privatam, which were contained in the Tables, remained unchanged, and are referred to by jurists as late as the time of Ulpian.
The old Leges Regiae, which were col lected into one body by Papirius, were commented on by Granius Fifteens in the time of Julius Caesar (Dig., I., tit. 16, s. 144), and thus they were probably pre served. The fragments of these laws have been often collected, but the best essay upon them is by Dirksen, Ver suchen zur Kritik and Auslegung der Quellen des Romischen Rechts,' Leipzig, 1823. The fragments of the Twelve Ta bles also have been often collected. The best works on the subject are that by James Godefroy (Jac. Gothofredus), and the more recent work of Dirksen, Ueber sicht der bisherigen Versuche zur Kritik and Herstellung des Testes der Zwiilf Tafel-Fragmente; Leipzig, 1824.
For about one hundred years after the Legislation of the Decenwiri, the patri cians retained their exclusive possession of the forms of procedure. Appius Clau dius Owls drew up a book of the forms of actions, which it is said that his clerk Cnaeus Flavius stole and published ; the fact of the theft may be doubted, though that of the publication of the forms of procedure, and of a list of the Dies Fasti and Nefasti, rests on sufficient evidence, The book thus made public by Flavius was called Jus Civile Flavianum; but like that of Papirius it was only a com pilation. The publication of these forms
must have bad a great effect on the prac tice of the law : it was in reality equiva lent to an extension of the privileges of the plebeians. Subsequently Sextus Aelius published another work, called " Jus Aelianum," which was more complete than that of Flavius. This work, which was extant in the time of Pomponius (Dig., i., tit. 2, s. 2, § 39), was also called "Tripartite," from the circumstance of its containing the laws of the Twelve Ta bles, a commentary upon them (interpre tatio), and the Legis Actions. This work of Aelius appears to have been con sidered in later times as one of the chief sources of the civil law (veluti cunabula juris); and he received from his contem porary Ennius the name of" wise:" Egregie oordatus homo catus /tains Sextus." Sextus Aelius was Curule Aedile, an. 200, and Consul, ac. 198.
In the Republican period new laws (leges) were enacted both in the Comitia Centuriata and in the Comitia Tributes The Leges Curiatae, which were enacted by the curiae, were limited to cases of adrogation and the conferring of the im perium. The Comitia Centuriata were made independent of the Cubits by the Lex Publilia (Liv., viii. 12), which de clared that the leges passed in these Co mitia should not require the confirmation of the patres, that is, the Comitia Curiata. The leges passed in the Comitia Tribute were properly called Leges Tributae or Plebiscite, and originally they were merely proposals for a law which were confirmed by the curiae. But the Lex Publilia (s.c. 336), and subsequently the Lex Hortensia (s.c. 286), gave to the Plebiscite the full force of leges without the consent of the patres (Liv., viii. 12; Gains, i. 3; Gell., xv. 27); and a Plebis citum was accordingly sometimes called a lex. The leges generally took their name from the gentile name of the magis trate who proposed them (rogavit), and sometimes from the name of both consuls, as Lex Aelia or Aelia Sentia, Papia or Papia Poppaea. If the proposer of the law was a dictator, praetor, or tribune, the Lea or Plebiscitum, as the case might be, took its name from the proposer only, as Lex Hortensia. Sometimes the object of the lex was indicated by a descriptive term, as Lex Cincia de donis et muneribus.