Constitutional Law. — The right of appeal was regulated and enforced. Appeal was to be allowed against fines exceeding the maximum ($166) and against capital, and possibly corporal, punishment. In order to prevent the virtual condemnation of individual citizens by special laws, and to guarantee to them regular trials before the people, it was enacted that no decree of the people should be passed against a single citizen (privilegium). Finally, the principle was laid down that the later law should prevail against any earlier law.
Source and Results. — The laws of the Twelve Tables are, with few exceptions, a codification, and to some extent an amelioration, of the customary law of Rome — national in spirit and substance. Their great importance lay in the fact that a knowledge of law was henceforth widely diffused among the plebeians, that the consuls were bound to administer justice according to the procedure and the principles of the new code, and the administration of justice was subjected to the control of an intelligent public opinion.
Patrician Parties. — The chief patrician party, under the leadership of the Valerii and Horatii, had the majority in the first decemvirate. It was conservative and made no constitutional experiments. It was willing to allow the tribunate to continue, expecting the tribunes to be more tractable and conciliatory when the code had been adopted. Perhaps it was prepared to grant the plebeians the privilege of intermarriage with the patricians. But under the leadership of Appius Claudius a party of opposition seems to have been formed, advocating a different policy: the plebeians were definitely to renounce the tribunate and agree to the prohibition of intermarriage; in return, they were to be eligible as magistrates and senators under certain conditions which should guarantee the preponderance to the patricians.
