What is in the 12 Tablets?

In The Beginnings of Rome, its author, T. J. Cornell, gives examples of English translations of what was on the 12 Tables. (The tablet placement of the injunctions follows H. Dirksen.)

• "'Whoever shall have been lacking witness, he is to go every other day to clamour(?) at the door' (II.3)"
• "'They are to make a road. Unless they laid it with stones, he is to drive carts where he shall wish' (VII.7)"
• "'If the weapon flew from [his] hand rather than [he] threw it' (VIII.24)"
• Table III says that a debtor who cannot repay within a set period can be sold into slavery, but only abroad and across the Tiber (i.e. not in Rome, since Roman citizens could not be sold into slavery in Rome).

As Cornell says, the "code" is hardly what we would think of as a code, but a list of injunctions and prohibitions. There are specific areas of concern: family, marriage, divorce, inheritance, property, assault, debt, debt-bondage (nexum), freeing of slaves, summonses, funeral behavior, and more. This hodge-podge of laws does not seem to clarify the position of plebeians, but instead seems to address questions in areas in which there was disagreement.

It is the 11th Table, one of the ones written by the plebeian-patrician group of Decemvirs, that lists the injunction against plebeian-patrician marriage.

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