I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs," who sullied by their actions the honor of inscribing on brass, or wood, or ivory, the TWELVE TABLES of the Roman laws." They were dictated by the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which had yielded with reluctance to the just demands of the people. But the substance of the Twelve Tables was adapted to the state of the city; and the Romans had emerged from Barbarism, since they were capable of studying and embracing the institutions of their more enlightened neighbors.* A wise Ephesian was driven by envy from his native country: before he could reach the shores of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and civil society he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of Rome, and a statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual memory of Hermodorus.13 The names and divisions of the copper

"Compare Livy (l. iii. c. 31—59) with Dionysius Halicarnassensis, (1. x. p. 644-xi. p. 691.) How concise and animated is the Romanhow prolix and lifeless the Greek! Yet he has admirably judged the masters, and defined the rules, of historical composition.

12 From the historians, Heineccius (Hist. J. R. 1. i. No. 26) maintains that the twelve tables were of brass-areas; in the text of Pomponius we read eboreas; for which Scaliger has substituted robo reas, (Bynkershoek, p. 286.) Wood, brass, and ivory, might be successively employed.t

19 His exile is mentioned by Cicero, (Tusculan. Quæstion. v. 36; his statue by Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11.) The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraclitus, are alike spurious, (Epistolæ Græc. Divers. p. 337.) +

* Compare Niebuhr, 355, note 720.-M. It is a most important question whether the twelve tables in fact include laws imported from Greece. The negative opinion maintained by our author, is now almost universally adopted, particularly by MM. Niebuhr, Hugo, and others. See my Institutiones Juris Romani privati Leodii, 1819, p. 311, 312.-W. Dr. Arnold, p. 255, seems to incline to the opposite opinion. Compare some just and sensible observations in the Appendix to Mr. Travers Twiss's Epitome of Niebuhr, p. 347, Oxford, 1836.-M.

Compare Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 349, &c.-M.

Compare Niebuhr, ii. 209.-M. See the Mém de l'Académ. des Inscript. xxii. p. 48. It would be difficult to disprove, that a certain Hermodorus had some share in framing the Laws of the Twelve Tables. Pomponius even says that this Hermodorus was the author of the last two tables. Pliny calls him the Interpreter of the Decemvirs, which may lead us to suppose that he labored with them in drawing up that law. But it is astonishing that in his Dissertation, (De Hermodoro vero XII. Tabularum Auctore, Annales Academiæ Groninganæ anni 1817, 1818,) M. Gratama has ventared to advance two propositions entirely devoid of proof: "Deoem priores tabulas ab ipsis Romanis non esse profectas, tota confirma Decemviratûs Historia," et "Hermodorum legum decemviralium veri

14

16

money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin: the harvests of Campania and Sicily relieved the wants of a people whose agriculture was often interrupted by war and faction; and since the trade was established,' the deputies who sailed from the Tyber might return from the same harbors with a more precious cargo of political wisdom. The colonies of Great Greece had transported and improved the arts of their mother country. Cuma and Rhegium, Crotona and Tarentum, Agrigentum and Syracuse, were in the rank of the most flourishing cities. The disciples of Pythagoras applied philosophy to the use of government; the unwritten laws of Charondas accepted the aid of poetry and music," and Zaleucus framed the republic of the Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years.' From a similar motive of national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are willing to believe, that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the wise and splendid administration of Pericles; and the laws of Solon were transfused into the twelve tables. If such an embassy had indeed been received from the Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would

17

14 This intricate subject of the Sicilian and Roman money, is ably discussed by Dr. Bentley, (Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, p. 427-479,) whose powers in this controversy were called forth by honor and resentment.

15 The Romans, or their allies, sailed as far as the fair promontory of Africa, (Polyb. 1. iii. p. 177, edit. Casaubon, in folio.) Their voyages to Cumæ, &c., are noticed by Livy and Dionysius.

16 This circumstance would alone prove the antiquity of Charondas, the legislator of Rhegium and Catana, who, by a strange error of Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. xii. p. 485-492) is celebrated long afterwards as the author of the policy of Thurium.

17 Zaleucus, whose existence has been rashly attacked, had the merit and glory of converting a band of outlaws (the Locrians) into the most virtuous and orderly of the Greek republics. (See two Memoirs of the Baron de St. Croix, sur la Législation de la Grande Grèce Mém. de l'Académie, tom. xlii. p. 276-333.) But the laws of Zalcu cus and Charondas, which imposed on Diodorus and Stobæus, are the spurious composition of a Pythagorean sophist, whose fraud has been detected by the critical sagacity of Bentley, p. 335-377.

nominis auctorem esse, qui eas composuerit suis ordinibus, disposuerit. suaque fecerit auctoritate, ut a decemviris reciperentur." This truly was an age in which the Roman Patricians would allow their laws to be dictated by a foreign Exile! Mr. Gratama does not attempt to prove the authenticity of the supposititious letter of Heraclitus. He contents himself with express ing his astonishment that M. Bonamy (as well as Gibbon) will receive v as gonuine.-W.

have been familiar to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander; 1 and the faintest evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity of succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor will it seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long and perilous navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In the comparison of the tables of Solon with those of the Decemvirs, some casual resemblance may be found; some rules which nature and reason have revealed to every society; some proofs of a common descent from Egypt or Phoenicia." But in all the great lines of public and private jurisprudence, the legislators

19

18 I seize the opportunity of tracing the progress of this national intercourse 1. Herodotus and Thucydides (A. U. C. 300-350) appear ignorant of the name and existence of Rome, (Joseph. contra Appion tom. ii. 1. i. c. 12, p. 444, edit. Havercamp.) 2. Theopompus (A. U. C 400, Plin. iii. 9) mentions the invasion of the Gauls, which is noticed in looser terms by Heraclides Ponticus, (Plutarch in Camillo, p. 292, edit. H. Stephan.) 3. The real or fabulous embassy of the Romans to Alexander (A. U. C. 430) is attested by Clitarchus, (Plin. iii. 9,) by Aristus and Asclepiades, (Arrian. 1. vii. p. 294, 295,) and by Memnon of Heraclea, (apud Photium, cod. ccxxiv. p. 725,) though tacitly denied by Livy. 4. Theophrastus (A. U. C. 440) primus externorum aliqua de Romanis diligentius scripsit, (Plin. iii. 9.) 5. Lycophron (A. U.C 480-500) scattered the first seed of a Trojan colony and the fable of the Eneid, (Cassandra, 1226-1280.)

Γῆς καὶ θαλάσσης σκήπτρα καὶ μοναρχίαν
Λαβόντες.

A bold prediction before the end of the first Punic war! *

19 The tenth table, de modo sepulturæ, was borrowed from Solon, (Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23-26:) the furtem per lancem et licium conceptum, is derived by Heineccius from the manners of Athens, (Antiquitat. Rom. tom. ii. p. 167-175.) The right of killing a nocturnal thief was declared by Moses, Solon, and the Decemvirs, (Exodus xxii. 3. Demosthenes contra Timocratem, tom. i. p. 736, edit. Reiske. Macrob. Saturnalia, 1. i. c. 4. Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romana rum, tit. vii. No. i. p. 218, edit. Cannegieter.) †

*Compare Niebuhr throughout. Niebuhr has written a dissertation, (Kleine Schriften, i. p. 438,) arguing from this prediction, and on other conclusive grounds, that the Lycophron, the author of the Cassandra, is not the Alexandrian poet. He had been anticipated in this sagacious criticism, as he afterwards discovered, by a writer of no less distinction than Charles James Fox.-Letters to Wakefield. And likewise by the author of the extraordinary translation of this poem, that most promising scholar, Lord Royston. See the Remains of Lord Royston, by the Rev. Henry Pepys, Lordon, 1838.

t Are not the same points of similarity discovered in the legislation of all aations in the infancy of their civilization ?-W.

of Rome and Athens appear to be strangers or adverse at each other.

46

Whatever might be the origin or the merit of the twelve tables," they obtained among the Romans that blind and partial reverence which the lawyers of every country delight to bestow on their municipal institutions. The study is recommended by Cicero" as equally pleasant and instructive. They amuse the mind by the remembrance of old words and the portrait of ancient manners; they inculcate the soundest principles of government and morals; and I am not afraid to affirm, that the brief composition of the Decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the libraries of Grecian philosophy. How admirable," says Tully, with honest or affected prejudice, "is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone are the masters of civil prudence, and our superiority is the more conspicuous, if we deign to cast our eyes on the rude and almost ridiculous jurisprudence of Draco, of Solon, and of Lycurgus." The twelve tables were committed to the memory of the young and the meditation of the old; they were transcribed and illustrated with learned diligence; they had escaped the flames of the Gauls, they subsisted in the age of Justinian, and their subsequent loss has been imperfectly restored by the labors of modern critics." But although these venerable monuments were considered as the rule of right and the fountain of justice," they were overwhelmed by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the end of

20 Bpaxéws Kai ȧrepírrws is the praise of Diodorus, tom. i. 1. xii. p. 494,) which may be fairly translated by the eleganti atque absolutâ brevitate verborum of Aulus Gellius, (Noct. Attic. xxi. 1.)

21 Listen to Cicero (de Legibus, ii. 23) and his representative Crassus, (de Oratore, i. 43, 44.)

22 See Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No. 29-33.) I have followed the restoration of the xii. tables by Gravina (Origines J. C. p. 280-807) and Terrasson, (Hist. de la Jurisprudence Romaine, p. 94—205.) *

23 Finis æqui juris, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 27.) † Fons omnis publici ei privati juris, (T. Liv. iii. 34.)

The wish expressed by Warnkönig, that the text and the conjectural emendations on the fragments of the xii. tables should be submitted to rigid criticism, has been fulfilled by Dirksen, Uebersicht der bisherigen Versuche zur Kritik und Herstellung des Textes der Zwölf-Tafel-Fragmente, Leip2g, 1824.-M.

From the context of the phrase in Tacitus, "Nam secutæ leges etsi quando in maleficos ex delicto; sæpius tamen dissensione ordim latæ sunt," it is clear that Gibbon has rendered this sentenca h.correctly. Hugo, Hist. p. 62.-M.

24

five centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than the vices of the city. Three thousand brass plates, the acts of the senate of the people, were deposited in the Capitol:" and some of the acts, as the Julian law against extortion, surpassed the number of a hundred chapters." The Decemvirs had neglected to import the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long maintained the integrity of his republic. A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.

The Decemvirs had been named, and their tables were approved, by an assembly of the centuries, in which riches preponderated against numbers. To the first class of Romans, the proprietors of one hundred thousand pounds of copper," ninety-eight votes were assigned, and only ninety-five were left for the six inferior classes, distributed according to their substance by the artful policy of Servius. But the tribunes soon established a more specious and popular maxim, that every citizen has an equal right to enact the laws which he

24 De principiis juris, et quibus modis ad hanc multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius disseram, (Tacit. Annal. iii. 25.) This deep disquisition fills only two pages, but they are the pages of Tacitus. With equal sense, but with less energy, Livy (iii. 34) had complained, in hoc immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, &c.

25 Suetonius in Vespasiano, c. 8.

26 Cicero ad Familiares, viii. 8.

27 Dionysius, with Arbuthnot, and most of the moderns, (except Eisenschmidt de Ponderibus, &c., p. 137-140,) represent the 100,000 asses by 10,000 Attic drachmæ, or somewhat more than 300 pounds sterling. But their calculation can apply only to the latter times, when the as was diminished to 1-24th of its ancient weight: nor can I believe that in the first ages, however destitute of the precious metals, a single ounce of silver could have been exchanged for seventy pounds of copper or brass. A more simple and rational method is to value the copper itself according to the present rate, and, after comparing the mint and the market price, the Roman and avoirdupois weight, the primitive as or Roman pound of copper may be appreciated at one English shilling, and the 100,000 asses of the first class amounted to 5000 pounds sterling. It will appear from the same reckoning, that an ox was sold at Rome for five pounds, a sheep for ten shillings, and a quarter of wheat for one pound ten shillings, (Festus, p. 330, edit. Dacier. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 4 :) nor do I see any reason to reject these consequences, which moderate our ideas of the poverty of the first Romans.*

* Compar› Niebuhr, English translation, vol. p. 448, &c.-M.