Decemviri
Rome’s first decemvirate takes power and drafts the Ten Tables
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗For one year Rome reportedly switched off its normal constitution and handed both government and law-writing to ten men.
Ten men instead of a government
In Roman tradition, the ordinary magistracies were suspended in 451 BCE and supreme authority passed from the consuls to ten commissioners — the decemviri legibus scribundis — charged with governing Rome and writing its laws. Consuls, plebeian tribunes and the rest were displaced for the commission's term.
Livy presents Appius Claudius Crassus as the dominant member of that first board.
Livy also says the commissioners administered justice while preparing a draft, then presented the result for public consideration; Romans were supposedly invited to propose additions and deletions before acceptance.
Ten tables, not twelve
The listing credits this board with enacting the Twelve Tables. The traditional chronology does not: the first commission produced ten tables in 451, and two more were added by a second board in 450.
By the end of the first board's term a ten-table draft existed and a second decemvirate had been selected to finish the work.
The last two tables were the more notorious ones, and the crisis of 449 concerned decemviral abuses and the restoration of ordinary government rather than the drafting itself.
How much of this is history
No exact day is recoverable, and Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote centuries after the alleged events. Modern scholarship accepts a fifth-century legal document but debates nearly every detail of the commission narrative — the embassy to Greece, the two successive boards, the arrangement of the laws and their material.
The familiar image of bronze plaques is not secure: Oxford's modern account describes boards of wood, perhaps bronze, while ancient writers variously report wood, copper or ivory.
"Foundation of Roman law" describes the Tables' later canonical reputation, not something demonstrably accomplished in Rome on a day in 451.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited Date disputed
How this was checked
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Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.
What the sources leave uncertain
- No exact day is recoverable; 451 BCE is the traditional year of the first decemvirate.
- Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote centuries after the alleged event, and no original tablet survives.
- Modern scholarship accepts a fifth-century legal document but debates nearly every detail of the commission narrative, including the embassy to Athens, the two successive boards, the arrangement of the laws, and their original material.
- Oxford’s modern account describes twelve boards of wood, perhaps bronze; ancient sources variously report wood, copper, or ivory. A categorical bronze-tablet claim is unsafe.