3.34
Whilst highest and lowest
alike were enjoying their prompt and impartial
administration of justice, as though delivered by an
oracle, they were at the same time devoting their
attention to the framing of the laws. These eagerly
looked for laws were at length inscribed on ten
tables which were exhibited in an Assembly specially
convened for the purpose. After a prayer that their
work might bring welfare and happiness to the State,
to them and to their children, the decemvirs bade
them go and read the laws which were exhibited. "As
far as the wisdom and foresight of ten men admitted,
they had established equal laws for all, for highest
and lowest alike; there was, however, more weight in
the intelligence and advice of many men. They should
turn over each separate item in their minds, discuss
them in conversations with each other, and bring
forward for public debate what appeared to them
superfluous or defective in each enactment. The
future laws for Rome should be such as would appear
to have been no less unanimously proposed by the
people themselves than ratified by them on the
proposal of others." When it appeared that they had
been sufficiently amended in accordance with the
expression of public opinion on each head, the Laws
of the Ten Tables were passed by the Assembly of
Centuries. Even in the mass of legislation today,
where laws are piled one upon another in a confused
heap, they still form the source of all public and
private jurisprudence. After their ratification, the
remark was generally made that two tables were still
wanting; if they were added, the body, as it might
be called, of Roman law would be complete. As the
day for the elections approached, this impression
created a desire to appoint decemvirs for a second
year. The plebeians had learnt to detest the name of
"consul" as much as that of "king," and now as the
decemvirs allowed an appeal from one of their body
to another, they no longer required the aid of their
tribunes.