I

If plaintiff summon defendant to court, he shall go. If he does not go, plaintiff shall call witness thereto. Then only shall he take defendant by force.

If defendant shirks or takes to his heels, plaintiff shall lay hands on him.

If disease or age is an impediment, he [who summons defendant to court] shall grant him a team; he shall not spread the covered carriage with cushions, if he doesn't want to.

For landowner, landowner shall be surety; but for proletarian person, let any one who is willing be his protector.

There shall be the same right of bond and conveyance with the Roman people for a person restored to allegiance as for a loyal person.

When parties make settlement of the case, the judge shall announce it. If they do not reach settlement, they shall state the outline of their case in the meeting place or Forum before noon.

They shall plead it out together in person. After noon, the judge shall adjudge the case to the party present. If both were present, sunset shall be the time limit [of proceedings].

II

Action under solemn deposit: 500 as pieces is the sum when the object of dispute under solemn deposit is valued at 1.000 in bronze or more, fifty pieces when less. Where the controversy concerns the liberty of a human being, fifty pieces shall be the solemn deposit under which the dispute should be undertaken.

If any of these be impediment for judge, referee, or party, on that account the day of trial shall be broken off.

Whoever is in need of evidence shall go on every third day to call out loudly before the witness' doorway.

III

When debt has been acknowledged, or judgment about the matter has been pronounced in court, thirty days must be the legitimate time of grace. After that, debtor may be arrested by laying on hands. Bring him into court. If he does not satisfy the judgment, or no one in court offers himself as surety on his behalf, the creditor may take the defaulter with him. He may bind him either in stocks or in fetters; he may bind him with weight no more than fifteen pounds, or with less if he shall so desire. The debtor, if he wishes, may live on his own. If he does not live on his own, the person [who shall hold him in bonds] shall give him one pound of grits for each day. He may give more if he so desires.

Unless they make settlement, debtors shall be held in bonds for sixty days. During that time they shall be brought before the praetor's court in the meeting place on three successive market days, and the amount for which they are judged liable shall be announced; on the third market day they shall suffer capital punishment or be delivered up for sale abroad, across the Tiber.

On the third market day creditors shall cut pieces. Should they have cut more or less than their due, it shall be with impunity.

Against stranger, title of ownership shall hold good forever.

IV

Quickly kill ... dreadfully deformed child.

If father thrice surrender son for sale, son shall be free from the father.

A child born ten months after the father's death will not be admitted into legal inheritance.

V

Females shall remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority ... except Vestal Virgins.

Conveyable possessions of woman under guardianship of agnates cannot be rightfully acquired by usucapio, save such possessions as have been delivered up by her with guardian’s sanction.

According as a person shall will regarding his [household], chattels, or guardianship of his estate, this shall be binding.

If a person dies intestate, and has no self-successor, the nearest agnate kinsman shall have possession of deceased's household.

If there is no agnate kinsman, deceased's clansmen shall have possession of his household.

To persons for whom a guardian has not been appointed by will, to them agnates are guardians.

If a man is raving mad, rightful authority over his person and chattels shall belong to his agnates or to his clansmen.

A spendthrift is forbidden to exercise administration over his own goods.... A person who, being insane or spendthrift, is prohibited from administering his own goods shall be under trusteeship of agnates.

The inheritance of a Roman citizen-freedman shall be made over to his patron if the freedman has died intestate and without self-successor.

Items which are in the category of debts are not included in the division when they have with automatic right been divided into portions of an inheritance.

Debt bequeathed by inheritance is divided proportionally amongst each heir with automatic liability when the details have been investigated.

VI

When a party shall make bond or conveyance, the terms of the verbal declaration are to be held binding.

Articles which have been sold and handed over are not acquired by a buyer otherwise than when he has paid the price to the seller or has satisfied in some other way, that is, by providing guarantor or security.

A person who has been ordained a free man [in will, on condition] that he bestow a sum of 10.000 pieces on the heir, though he has been sold by the heir, shall win his freedom by giving the money to the purchaser.

It is sufficient to make good such faults as have been named by word of mouth, and that for any flaws which the vendor had expressly denied, he shall undergo penalty of double damage.

Usucapio of movable things requires one year's possession for its completion; but usucapio of an estate and buildings two years.

Any woman who does not wish to be subjected in this manner to the hand of her husband should be absent three nights in succession every year, and so interrupt the usucapio of each year.

A person shall not dislodge from a framework a [stolen] beam which has been fixed in buildings or a vineyard.... Action [is granted] for double damages against a person found guilty of fixing such [stolen] beam.

VII

Ownership within a five-foot strip [between two pieces of land] shall not be acquired by long usage.

The width of a road [extends] to eight feet where it runs straight ahead, sixteen round a bend....

Persons shall mend roadways. If they do not keep them laid with stone, a person may drive his beasts where he wishes.

If rainwater does damage ... this must be restrained according to an arbitrator's order.

If a watercourse directed through a public place shall do damage to a private person, he shall have right of suit to the effect that damage shall be repaired for the owner.

Branches of a tree may be lopped off all round to a height of more than 15 feet.... Should a tree on a neighbour’s farm be bent crooked by a wind and lean over your farm, action may be taken for removal of that tree.

It is permitted to gather up fruit falling down on another man's farm.

VIII

If any person has sung or composed a song against another person such as was causing slander or insult to another, he shall be clubbed to death.

If a person has maimed another's limb, let there be retaliation in kind unless he makes agreement for settlement with him.

If he has broken or bruised a freeman's bone with his hand or club, he shall undergo penalty of 300 as pieces; if a slave's, 150.

If he has done simple harm [to another], penalties shall be 25 as pieces.

If a four-footed animal shall be said to have caused loss, legal action ... shall be either the surrender of the thing which damaged, or else the offer of assessment for the damage.

For pasturing on, or cutting secretly by night, another's crops acquired by tillage, there shall be capital punishment in the case of an adult malefactor ... he shall be hanged and put to death as sacrifice to Ceres. In the case of a person under the age of puberty, at the discretion of the praetor either he shall be scourged or settlement shall be made for the harm done by paying double damages.

Any person who destroys by burning any building or a pile of grain deposited alongside a house shall be bound, scourged, and put to death by burning at the stake, provided that he has committed the said misdeed with malice and forethought; but if he shall have committed it by accident, that is, by negligence, it is ordained that he repair the damage, or, if he be too poor to be competent for such punishment, he shall receive lighter chastisement.

Any person who has cut down another person's trees with harmful intent shall pay 25 as pieces for every tree.

If theft has been done by night, if the owner kill the thief, the thief shall be held lawfully killed.

It is forbidden that thief be killed by day ... unless he defend himself with weapon; even though he has come with weapon, unless he use his weapon and fight back, you shall not kill him. And even if he resists, first call out.

In the case of all other thieves caught in the act, if they are freemen, they should be flogged and adjudged to the person against whom the theft has been committed, provided that the malefactors have committed it by day and have not defended themselves with weapon; slaves caught in the act of theft should be flogged and thrown from the Rock; boys under the age of puberty should, at the praetor's discretion, be flogged, and the damage done by them should be repaired.

If a person plead on a case of theft in which the thief has not been caught in the act, the thief must compound for the loss by paying double damages.

A stolen thing is debarred from usucapio.

No person shall practice usury at a rate more than one twelfth ... A usurer is condemned for quadruple amount.

Arising out of a case concerning an article deposited ... action for double damages.

If patronus shall have defrauded his client, he must be solemnly forfeited.

Whoever shall have allowed himself to be called as witness or shall have been a scales-balancer, if he do not as witness pronounce his testimony, he must be deemed dishonoured and incapable of acting as witness.

Penalty ... for false witness ... a person who has been found guilty of giving false witness shall be hurled down from the Tarpeian Rock....

No person shall hold meetings by night in the city.

Members [of associations] ... are granted ... the right to pass any binding rule they like for themselves provided that they cause no violation of public law.

IX

Laws of personal exception must not be proposed; cases in which the penalty affects the person of a citizen must not be decided except through the greatest assembly and through those whom the censors have placed upon the register of citizens.

The penalty shall be capital punishment for judge or arbiter legally appointed who has been found guilty of receiving a bribe for giving a decision.

He who shall have roused up a public enemy, or handed over a citizen to a public enemy, must suffer capital punishment.

Putting to death ... of any man who has not been convicted, whoever he might be, is forbidden.

X

A dead man shall not be buried or burned within the city.

One must not do more than this [at funerals]; one must not smooth the pyre with an axe.

... three veils, one small purple tunic, and ten flute- players....

Women must not tear cheeks or hold chorus of "Alas!" on account of a funeral.

When a man is dead one must not gather his bones in order to make a second funeral. An exception [in the case of] death in war or in a foreign land....

Anointing by slaves is abolished, and every kind of drinking bout.

Let there be no costly sprinkling ... no long garlands ... no incense boxes....

When a man wins a crown himself or through a chattel or by dint of valour, the crown bestowed on him ... [may be laid in the grave] with impunity [on the man who won it] or on his father.

To make more than one funeral for one man and to make and spread more than one bier for him ... this should not occur ... and a person must not add gold....

But him whose teeth shall have been fastened together with gold, if a person shall bury or burn him along with that gold, it shall be with impunity.

No new pyre or personal burning-mound must be erected nearer than sixty feet to another person's buildings without consent of the owner ... the entrance chamber [of a tomb] and burning place cannot be acquired by usucapio.

XI

Intermarriage shall not take place between plebeians and patricians.

XII

Levying of distress [is granted] against a person who has bought an animal for sacrifice and is a defaulter by non-payment; likewise against a person who is a defaulter by non-payment of fee for yoke-beast, which any one has hired out for the purpose of raising there from money to spend on a sacred banquet.

If slave shall have committed theft or done damage ... with his master's knowledge ... the action for damages is in the slave's name.

Arising from delicts committed by children and slaves of a household establishment ... actions for damages are appointed whereby the father or master could be allowed either to undergo "assessment for damages," or hand over the delinquent to punishment...

If a person has taken a thing by false claim, if he should wish ... official must grant three arbitrators; by their arbitration ... defendant must make good the damage by paying double the usufruct of the article.

It is prohibited to dedicate for consecrated use anything about which there is controversy; otherwise the penalty is double the amount involved....

Whatever the people has last ordained shall be held as binding by law.