(no subject)

At last we reach the earliest real Latin recorded. (And isn't that terrifying? It sure is for me; I have a 15-page paper I need written by the end of the month, and to date I've figured out my topic and read two relevant books on the subject.) The Twelve Tables, which are kinda like the Ten Commandments, except they're actually a discrete set of legal artifacts (rather than a subset of a larger code) inscribed in, presumably, twelve actual tables. Or tablets. Pillars? Eh. Stone Bits, anyway.

The Roman legal system is, at least in theory, built on these, and it's tempting to make comparisons to the US constitution--especially given they were originally ten, and then added to slightly later--but I don't think it'd be a very good comparison. This doesn't say a hell of a lot about what the government can do, but is concerned directly with very standard legal practices for the people.

Because of how my homework is structured, I'm going to give just a few select fragments--which are really some of the more coherent ones I have--out of the much larger number of fragments we have, and then probably skip the rest. Some of the fragments are of the "here is a single word that appears nowhere else! Good luck!" type, which I don't think would be particularly edifying for anyone.

But don't worry. We've still got plenty of Greek left to go.

( The Twelve Tables )