Roman Laws

Laws in the Roman world were centered on life as a Roman and what the Romans needed for a working society. The most important aspect of life was the role of the pater familias, or the oldest male family member in the family. The Roman laws were focused on family legacy and maintaining the image of the pater familias. This can be seen in both the Twelve Tables and the History of Rome. In the Twelve Tables, a body of laws written by Cicero, there are two tables regarding civil laws. Those civil laws include the role of family. Table four is the most important table. The first law on this table is “a dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed”. This shines light on the legacy of the family, a deformed child would bring shame to the family as a whole. The child must be killed as quickly as possible to prevent anybody from finding out about the fault. The third law is discussing inheritance. This law makes it evident that men are the most important people in the family, “If he has no heir and dies intestate, let the nearest agnate have the inheritance. If there is no agnate, let the members of his gens have the inheritance”. The agnate would be a relative on the husband’s side, descending from the male ancestors. If the head of the household has no son, then someone on his …show more content…
He did use mythical influences in his work, but it is centered on the foundation of Rome. In this writing, the daughter of the king, Numitor, gave birth to twins out of wedlock. “The priestess was thrown into prison, the boys were ordered to be thrown into the river” (Livy 1.4). This goes back to the legacy of the family. A couple must be married to have children; this is such a serious offense that the priestess was jailed for not complying. Notice, the man was not punished, only the women. The men were too important in Roman society. The twins were ordered to be killed because they would have been a permanent stain on their