Originally Published: 2004-08-29

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Clearly, this couldn't do; everything depended on - shall we say - the mood of the gods, and not on the rule of law, so on the right day a multiple murderer might well go free, while on a bad day the theft of a chicken might be punished with death.
Faced with growing unrest in the population - which might have been pious but not completely taken in by the priest-judges - the Roman Senate sent three members to Greece on a mission to study what Solon had done. They got the message loud and clear: upon their return, a 10-senator committee (the decemviri) prepared the Law of the Twelve Tablets. The year was 451 b.C.E. From then on, the Twelve Tablets supplied the basic principles to all subsequent laws passed in Rome. With that, the law became the real strength of Rome, as well as a model that in coming centuries was imitated, at least in part, by every lawmaking body of the Old World.
The first innovation of the Twelve Tablets was the separation of religious affairs from statal affairs, thus freeing the citizens from the capricious will of the gods, or of those who claimed to represent the gods. The second innovation was the establishment of two fundamental principles: the equality of all in front of the law, and the sovereignty of the people. The third innovation was the distinction between private and public law: the former comprised the rules governing relations among individuals, the latter included the regulations of the branches of the state. The fourth innovation was the decision to have the text of the law carved onto 12 bronze tablets (whence the name) and posted in the forum, so that rights and obligations were clearly visible to all. These are the basis of what is still called, at any latitude, the rule of law.
Thus established the fundamental criteria of its law, Rome did not take long in developing what amounted to an extraordinary body of laws, not just for its innovative character but especially for the epoch in which they were introduced. Within two centuries, laws abolished class privileges, granting Plebeians the right to accede to official posts and offices, up to the rank of consuls (the highest office of the state), allowing them to intermarry with the Patricians, abolishing enslavement of defaulting debtors. This eventually led to the Lex Ortensia, which established that the decisions of the assembly of the people (concilium plebis) had general force of law and did not require senatorial ratification to come in force.

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