Read The Twelve Tables, 450 BCE. Answer and discuss the accompanying questions:

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/12tables.a…

1.What kinds of issues do these laws address? Which appear most important and why? Is there any overarching theme to these laws?

2. Why was it important for plebeians to have a written law code? How might it have protected them? Why were patricians less interested in codifying law in such a manner?

3.What do these laws suggest about Romans values and traditions? Are there curious any absences that you expected to find in the code, but did not?

4. To what extent do these laws appear to be religious in nature? What do these laws reveal about Roman attitudes towards the deceased? What might have been the impetus for such an attitude?