How did the twelve tables affect the power distribution between plebians and patricians in the early roman republic?
, traditionally dated to 451 – 450 BC. They were purportedly written at the demand of the plebeians, who felt that their legal rights were hampered by the fact that court judgments were rendered according to unwritten custom preserved only within a small group of learned patricians. The Twelve Tables were not a reform or a liberalizing of old custom; they recognized the prerogatives of the patrician class and of the patriarchal family, the validity of enslavement for unpaid debt, and the interference of religious custom in civil cases.
