a poor citizen of the lowest class.

5. In case the contestants come to an agreement, the magistrate shall announce the fact.

6. In case they come to no agreement, they shall before noon enter the case in the comitium or forum.

7. To the party present in the afternoon the magistrate shall award the suit.

9. Sunset shall terminate the proceedings.

10. ... sureties and sub-sureties....

Table II

JUDICIAL PROCEDURE

2. A serious illness or a legal appointment with an alien ... should one of these occur to the judge, arbiter, or either party to the suit, the appointed trial must be postponed.

3. If the witnesses of either party fail to appear, that party shall go and serve a verbal notice at his door on three days.

Table III

EXECUTION FOLLOWING CONFESSION OR JUDGMENT

1. A debtor, either by confession or judgment, shall have thirty days' grace.

2. At the expiration of this period the plaintiff shall serve a formal summons upon the defendant, and bring him before the magistrate.

3. If the debt be not paid, or if no one become surety, the plaintiff shall lead him away, and bind him with shackles and fetters of not less than fifteen pounds' weight, and heavier at his discretion.

4. If the debtor wish, he may live at his own expense; if not, he in whose custody he may be shall furnish him a pound of meal a day, more at his discretion.

6. On the third market day the creditors, if there are several, shall divide the property. If one take more or less, no guilt shall attach to him.

Table IV

PATERNAL RIGHTS

3. If a father shall thrice sell his son, the son shall be free from the paternal authority.

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 pass 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 mancipatio, 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 asses; if of a slave, one hundred and fifty asses.

4. If he does any injury to another, twenty-five asses; 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

2. If a slave has committed theft, or has done damage....

3. If either party shall have won a suit concerning property by foul means, at the discretion of the opponent ... the magistrate shall fix the damage at twice the profits arising from the interim possession.

The decemvirs were forcibly overthrown before the close of their second year in office. The stories as to the cause are not only conflicting but diametrically so. According to one historical theory, the rebellion against the decemvirs began among the plebeians on account of the oppression which they suffered from the hands of these men; while, on the other hand, it is believed by many historians that the decemvirs were overthrown by the patricians because they were giving too many concessions to the plebeians. Whatever the cause, the power of the decemvirs was taken from them and all the former Roman officials and assemblies were reëstablished, with the old powers and jurisdictions. The "Law of the Twelve Tables," which the decemvirs had drawn up, however, remained for centuries as the great basis of Roman law.

Five years after the deposition of the decemvirs the tribune Canuleius secured the passage by the comitia tributa of the Canuleian Law, which marked another milestone passed by the plebeians in their march toward equality before the law.

Two great concessions were given by this act, one in the field of private and the other in the field of public law. The law which had existed from the earliest days in Rome, and which had been incorporated in the "Law of the Twelve Tables," prohibiting intermarriage between plebeians and patricians, was abolished. It was also provided that any year the people, instead of electing consuls, might elect military tribunes, who should possess all the powers, although not all the dignities, of the consuls. Either patricians or plebeians could be elected to the office of military tribunes.

The election of military tribunes was authorized by law many years before any such officials