The civil law was thus still inseparably connected with that of religion (Jus Pontificium), and its interpretation and the knowledge of the forms of procedure were still the exclusive possession of the patricians.
The scanty fragmenta of the Twelve Tables hardly enable us to form a judgment of their character or a proper estimate of the com mendation bestowed on them by Cicero (- De Or.,' 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 them selves to what the llomans called private law, but they comprised also public law. (` Fens publici privatique juria,' Liv., iii. 34.) They contained provisions as to testaments, succesaione to intestates, the care of persons of 'unsound mind, theft, homicide, interments, &c.
They also comprised enactments which affected a man's statue, as, for instance, the law contained in one of the two last Tables, which did not allow to a marriage contracted between a patrician and a plebeian the character of a legal Roman marriage, or, in other words, declared that between patricians and plebeians there could be no Con nubium. Though great changes were made in the J us Publicurn 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 Privatum, which were contained in the Tables, remained unchanged, and are referred to by jurists as late as the time of Ulpian.
The old Leges Regis, which were collected into one body by Paphius, were commented on by Granius Flaccus in the time of Julius Cesar (' Dig.; 50, tit, 16, e. 144), and thus they were probably preserved.
The fragments of these laws have been often collected, but the best essay upon them is by Dirksen, Versuchen zur Kritik und Auslegung der Quellen des Ri±anischen Reath,' Leipzig, 1823. The fragments of the Twelve Tables also have been often collected. The best work en the subject is that by James Godcfroy (Jac. Gothofredus), which, with the more recent work of Dirksen,' Uebersieht der bisherigen Versuche zur Kritik und Herstellung des Testes dcr Zwolf-Tafel-Fragmente; Leipzig, 1824, seems to have exhausted the subject.
For about one hundred years after the legislation of the Decemviri, the patricians retained their exclusive possession of the forms of pro cedure. Appins Claudius Crecus drew up a book of the forms of actiorfs, which it is said that his clerk, Cnnus Flavius, stole and pub lished; 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 Civil° Flavianurn ; but like that of Papirius it was only a compilation. The publication of these forms must have had a great effect on the practice of the law : it was in reality equivalent to an extension of the privileges of the plebeians. Subsequently Sextus /Ulna published another work, called ' Jus ..Elianum; 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 Tripertita,' from the circumstance of its coutaining the laws of the Twelve Tables, a commentary upon them (interpretatio), and the Legis Actiones. This work of Aillins appears to have been considered in later times as one of the chief sources of the civil law (vcluti cunabula jure); and he received from his contemporary Minim the name of " wise " "Egregie Cordatus tio:uo Cuius :talus Soxtus." Sextus .Elius was Curulo n.c. 200, and Consul, n.c. 193.
In the Republican period new laws (loges) were enacted both in the Comitia Centuriata and in the Comitia Tribute. The Leges Curate, which were enacted by the curie, were limited to cases of adrogation and the conferriug of the imperium. The Comitia Centuriata were made independent of the senate by the Lex Publilia (Liv., viii. 12), which declared that the loges passed in these Comitia should not require the confirmation of the senate. The legea passed in the Comitia Tributa were properly called Leges Tribute or Piebiscita, and originally they were merely proposals for a law which were laid before the senate and confirmed by the curie. But the Lex Publilia (a c. 336), and subsequently the Lex Hortensia (e.e. 286), gave to the Plebiscita the full force of loges without the consent of the senate (Liv., viii. 12; Gains, i. 8; Cell., xv. 27) ; and a Plebiscitum was accordingly sometimes called a lex. The logos generally took their name from the gentile name of the magistrate who proposed them (rogavit), or, if he was a consul, from the name of both consuls, as Lex /Elia or /Elia Scala, Papia or Papia Popprea. If the proposer of the law was a dictator, praetor, or tribune, the Lex, or Plebiscitum, as the case might be, took its name from the proposer only, as Les Iforteosia. Sometimes the object of the lex was indicated by a descriptive term, as Lex Cinch de sloths et muneribus.