The Twelve Tables
Table #2Trial Addenda
These provisions seem supplemental to those in Table #1, and may represent later additions to the code, grouped here rather than interpolated at their logical places in Table #1. See further below.
2:01a. Action under a solemn deposit (sacramenti) . . . either five hundred pieces if the object under dispute is valued at a thousand in bronze (as) or more, or fifty pieces if less.
2:01b. But where the dispute concerns the liberty of a human being, fifty pieces shall be the solemn deposit, even if the object of dispute is a slave.
Extracted from a long descriptive note by Gaius (2c) Inst 4/13-14, who may be merging two related but separate provisions. Note the general continuity of subject with 1:10, preceding. Of 2:01b, Gaius suggests that the lesser sum "was to show partiality for liberty, so that those who claimed their freedom should not be overburdened by the size of the required sum." These guarantee provisions logically precede the conclusion of the petitioner's case in 1:06, and should perhaps ideally be associated with 1:05.2:02. . . . serious disease, or an appointment previously made with a stranger (hostis) . . . If any of these be impediment for judge (iudici), arbiter (arbitro) , or party to the action (reo), the day set for trial shall be canceled.
Festus (late 2c, and thus slightly later than Gaius) specifies that this was the second provision of the second table. It logically goes with 1:03, the provision for an ill or infirm defendant. Note that the inconvenience of a witness is not mentioned as a ground for postponement; see next.
2:03. Whoever needs testimony shall go every third day to call out at the witness's doorway.
This amounts to a public summons; there was no document summons in this period. The witness cannot be compelled to attend, and can only be appealed to by what amounts to public pressure. The limitation to every third day presumably kept that pressure below the level of harassment. It was not necessary to the judge that the complainant's case should be complete. Chinese magistrates in both early and later Imperial times had more latitude, and more responsibility, in investigating questions of fact at their own initiative. This provision and the preceding one deal with situations in which the case may be delayed in coming to trial, or the trial itself may be delayed. They make a reasonable pair.
Form. Taking 1:10 as an original pair of related provisions, we find that 2:01 may also be so regarded, as also may 2:02-03 (without change in the present format, or in that of the copy seen by Festus). We might then have here, in a version of the Tables earlier and differently formatted than the one seen by Festus, an original three pairs of provisions, all supplemental to the four pairs of Table 1, but not logically placed there, since they describe contingencies applicable to its first half. Our suggestion is that 1:10 and all of Table 2 are a later addition to Table 1, an addition itself logically grouped and arranged, but illogically placed after Table 1. The legend of the Twelve Tables specifies that Tables 11 and 12 were added later. If the present suggestion is sound, we have indications of a growth process more complicated than that.
History. The same supplementary form appears in the Gortyn code, where the original order is still set in stone for our inspection. The implication is that the Twelve Tables grew by accretion, and were not the construction of a single year, whether 0451 or any other.
22 Feb 2006 / Contact The Project / Exit to Twelve Tables Page
