Twelve Tables
Displayed in the Forum, "The Twelve Tables" stated the rights and duties of the Roman citizen.  Their formulation was the result of considerable agitation by the plebeian class, who had until then been excluded from the higher benefits of the Republic.  Before that, the law had not been written down. Higher-class priests, the pontifices, intepreted it.   Cicero (106–43 BC) stated that the "Twelve Tables...seems to me, assuredly to [be better than] the libraries of all the philosophers, both in weight of authority, and in [usefulness]".  Cicero hardly exaggerated; the Twelve Tables formed the basis of Roman law for a thousand years.