• The Tables set out many rights and duties of Roman citizens, including debtors’ rights, family law, wills, torts, civil procedure, and some public law. They substituted a written body of laws, easily accessible and binding on all citizens of Rome, for an unwritten usage accessible to only a few. The law of the Twelve Tables was also known as the Lex Duodecim Tabularum.
Twelve Tables
Roman law. The earliest surviving legislation enacted by the Romans, written on 12 tablets in the 5th century B.C.
