HISTORY OF LAW 247 



ever that people did derive from other sources came to them before 

 there was a science of jurisprudence. If then we can ascertain the 

 beginning of such a science among the Romans, we have a reason- 

 ably convenient and satisfactory starting-point for a history of law. 



It seems to be general^ assumed that the brief Roman code 

 known as the Twelve Tables, promulgated B. c. 452, 451 (303, 304 

 A. u. c.), constitutes the source and beginning of juris- Twelve 

 prudence at Rome, and is therefore the first monument in Tables, 

 the history of law; but this point is of sufficient importance to justify 

 some deliberation. 



Such a code as that of the Twelve Tables was not a new invention 

 of the Romans. A complete Babylonian code promulgated by 

 Hammurabi, the sixth king of the first dynasty of Babylon- 

 Babylon, who reigned about B. c. 2250, and is identified ian Code. 

 with the Amraphel mentioned in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew- 

 Scriptures, has been recovered and translated, which indicates that at 

 that time the Babylonians had reached a stage of development in 

 legal notions not greatly different from that which existed among the 

 Romans at the time the Twelve Tables were promulgated. In two. 

 respects, however, the primitive Roman code indicates conceptions 

 more advanced than those entertained by the Babylon- Roman 

 ians, the Egyptians, or the Hindus. In the first place it ^g^* 1011 

 does not purport to emanate from a divine source, and in advanced. 

 the second place it recognizes the existence of the rudiments of a dis- 

 tinctly judicial procedure. In the latter respect it is more advanced 

 than the so-called laws of Solon, the Athenian ruler in the seventh 

 century B. c., from which some of its provisions are supposed tO' 

 have been borrowed. It may be suggested as an interesting fact that 

 the Teutonic codes, so called, which came into form during the 

 Middle Ages and represented the social system which had previously 

 existed among these tribes, are not very different in their subject- 

 matter from the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Hindu codes. They 

 picture a period of social development when the right of retaliation 

 is being superseded by a system of money compensation to be paid 

 according to a fixed scale for injuries to person and property. There 

 are traces of this notion found in the Roman law of the time of the 

 Twelve Tables, but that code suggests a social development which 

 had gone at least one step further toward modern conceptions of 

 personal and property rights. 



The Twelve Tables did not indicate, however, the existence 

 among the Romans of some of the essential features of Twelve 

 a scientific system of law. Here was a collection of proper not 

 laws, but not a body of law. Here was the conception Starting- 

 of rules of conduct and obligation laid down on the g-g^^ 

 authority of the state, not purporting to be derived from of Law. 



