Twelve Tables

Over the millennia, AI's states became more aligned with their subjects and this trend has wildly accelerated in the last 400 years.

Plato's Republic, the Twelve Tables, the Magna Carta, the US Constitution, the Communist Manifesto, the Sherman Act, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the Unabomber Manifesto are all alignment attempts.

Some are more successful than others.

As of now, humans are finally healthier than their hunter-gatherer ancestors.

and since the extremist old age is still capable of undergoing that amount of exertion i see that your retirement will never be allowed to excuse you from pleading causes quintus but i indeed think that the citizens of rome might be induced to sanction your retirement from public life if you still consented to plead in legal matters so whenever you please i think you ought to try marcus your advice my quintus would be excellent if there were no danger in taking such a step but i fear that in thus seeking to diminish my labours i should rather increase them and that i might find that i had united to the toil of public causes and prosecutions which i never attempt to plead without full preparation and meditation, the addition of this professional interpretation of the laws, which would not distress me so much by its labour, as by its tendency to deprive me of that time for deliberation as to what I should speak, without which I never ventured to enter on any considerable pleadings.

atticus why should you not then in this spare time as you call it at present explain these very points to us and write us a treatise on the civil law with more accuracy than others have hitherto employed for even from your earliest youth i remember that you used to study the laws when i used to go like yourself to hear the lectures of civilla nor did i ever find you so addicted to oratorical pursuits as to neglect your legal studies marcus you seek to engage me in a long discussion my atticus however i will not hesitate to undertake it unless quintus prefers some other subject if not i will tell you all i know about it since at present we seem to be at leisure quintus i shall listen to you with the greatest pleasure for what better subject can be discussed or how can the day be spent more profitably marcus let us go then to our accustomed promenade and to the benches where after we have had walking enough we may lie down nor shall we want for entertainment while asking different questions of one another atticus let us go then and enter on our investigations as we walk along the bank of the river under the shadow of its foliage and now begin i beg of you to explain to us your opinion respecting the nature of civil law marcus my opinion why that we have had many great men in rome who have made it their profession to expound it to the people and explain its doctrines and practice but though they professed to be acquainted with its great principles they were in reality familiar rather with its minor technicalities for what can be grander or nobler than the jurisprudence of a state or what can be so insignificant as the office of those men who are consulted as advocates necessary as it is for the people not that i think that those who adopt this profession have been altogether ignorant of the principles of universal legislation but they have united their practice of this civil law as they call it to just so much as gives them a hold on the interests of the people but the great principles of jurisprudence are unknown and less necessary in practice what then is it that you invite me to or what are you exhorting me to to write treatises on the rights of common sewers and partition walls or to compose formulas of stipulations and judgments these have been already most diligently prepared by many persons and are lower than the topics which i suppose you expect me to discuss atticus but if you ask what i expect i should reply that after having given us a treatise on the commonwealth it appears a natural consequence that you should also write one on the laws for this is what i see was done by your illustrious favourite plato the philosopher whom you admire and prefer to all others and love with an especial affection marcus do you wish then that as he conversed at crete with cleinias and megalos of lacedaemon on that summer's day as he describes it in the cypress groves and sylvan avenues of nausus often objecting to and at times approving of the established laws and customs of commonwealths and discussed what were the best laws so we also walking beneath these lofty poplars along these green and umbrageous banks and sometimes sitting down should investigate the same subjects somewhat more copiously than is required by the practice of the courts of law atticus i should like to hear such a discussion marcus but what says quintus quintus there is no subject which i would rather hear argued marcus and you are quite right for take my word for it in no kind of discussion can it be more advantageously displayed how much has been bestowed upon man by nature and how great a capacity for the noblest enterprises is implanted in the mind of man for the sake of cultivating and perfecting which we were born and sent into the world and what beautiful association what natural fellowship binds men together by reciprocal charities and when we have explained these grand and universal principles of morals then the true fountain of laws and rights can be discovered atticus in your opinion then it is not in the edict of the magistrate as the majority of our modern lawyers pretend nor in the twelve tables as the ancients maintained but in the sublimest doctrines of philosophy that we must seek for the true source and obligation of jurisprudence marcus for in this discussion of ours my atticus we are not inquiring how we may take proper caution in law or what we are to answer in each consultation that may indeed be an important affair as in truth it is and at one time it was supported by many great men and is at present expounded by one most eminent lawyer with admirable ability and skill but the whole subject of universal law and jurisprudence must be comprehended in this discussion in order that this which we call civil law may be confined in some one small and narrow space of nature for we shall have to explain the true nature of moral justice which must be traced back from the nature of man and laws will have to be considered by which all political states should be governed and last of all shall we have to speak of those laws and customs of nations which are framed for the use and convenience of particular countries in which even our own people will not be omitted which are known by the title of civil laws quintus you take a noble view of the subject my brother and go to the fountain-head in order to throw light on the subject of our consideration and those who treat civil law in any other manner are not so much pointing out the paths of justice as those of litigation marcus that is not quite the case my quintus it is not so much the science of law that produces litigation as the ignorance of it but more of this by and by at present let us examine the first principles of right Now, many learned men have maintained that it springs from law.

I hardly know if their opinion be not correct, at least according to their own definition.

For, law, say they, is the highest reason implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary.

But we are often too much disturbed by the dissensions of men and the variation of opinions

and because the same thing does not happen with reference to our senses we look upon them as certain by nature those objects indeed which sometimes present to us one appearance sometimes another and which do not always appear to the same people in the same way we term fictions of the senses but it is far otherwise for neither parent nor nurse nor master nor poet nor drama deceive our senses nor do popular prejudices seduce them from the truth but all kinds of snares are laid for the mind either by those errors which i have just enumerated which taking possession of the young and uneducated imbue them deeply and bend them any way they please or by that pleasure which is the imitator of goodness being thoroughly and closely implicated with all our senses the prolific mother of all evils for she so corrupts us by her blandishments that we no longer perceive some things which are essentially excellent because they have none of this deliciousness and pruriency it follows that i may now sum up the whole of this argument by asserting as is plain to every one from these positions which have been already laid down that all right and all that is honourable is to be sought for its own sake in truth all virtuous men love justice and equity for what they are in themselves nor is it like a good man to make a mistake and love that which does not deserve their affection right therefore is desirable and deserving to be cultivated for its own sake and if this be true of right it must be true also of justice what then shall we say of liberality is it exercised gratuitously or does it covet some reward and recompense if a man does good without expecting any recompense for his kindness then it is gratuitous if he does expect compensation it is a mere matter of traffic nor is there any doubt that he who truly deserves the reputation of a generous and kind-hearted man is thinking of his duty not of his interest in the same way the virtue of justice demands neither emolument nor salary and therefore we desire it for its own sake and the case of all the moral virtues is the same and so is the opinion formed of them besides this if we weigh virtue by the mere utility and profit that attend it and not by its own merit the one virtue which results from such an estimate will be in fact a species of vice for the more a man refers all his actions especially to his own advantage the further he recedes from probity so that they who measure virtue by profit acknowledge no other virtue than this which is a kind of vice for who can be called benevolent if no one ever acts kindly for the sake of another and where are we to find a grateful person if those who are disposed to be so can find no benefactor to whom they can show gratitude What will become of sacred friendship if we are not to love our friend for his own sake with all our heart and soul, as people say? If we are even to desert and discard him as soon as we despair of deriving any further assistance or advantage from him, what can be imagined more inhuman than this conduct? but if friendship ought rather to be cultivated on its own account, so also for the same reason are society, equality, and justice desirable for their own sakes.

If this be not so, then there can be no such thing as justice at all, for the most unjust thing of all is to seek a reward for one's just conduct, what then shall we say of temperance sobriety continence modesty bashfulness and chastity is it the fear of infamy or the dread of judgments and penalties which prevent men from being intemperate and dissolute do men then live in innocence and moderation only to be well spoken of and to acquire a certain fair reputation modest men blush even to speak of indelicacy and i am greatly ashamed of those philosophers who assert that there are no vices to be avoided but those which the laws have branded with infamy for what shall i say can we call those persons truly chaste who abstain from adultery merely for the fear of public exposure and that disgrace which is only one of its many evil consequences for what can be either praised or blamed with reason if you depart from that great law and rule of nature which makes the difference between right and wrong shall corporal defects if they are remarkable shock our sensibilities and shall those of the soul make no impression on us of the soul i say whose turpitude is so evidently proved by its vices for what is there more hideous than avarice more brutal than lust more contemptible than cowardice more base than stupidity and folly well then are we to call those persons unhappy who are conspicuous for one or more of these on account of some injuries or disgraces or sufferings to which they are exposed or on account of the moral baseness of their sins and we may apply the same test in the opposite way to those who are distinguished for their virtue lastly if virtue be sought for on account of some other things it necessarily follows that there is something better than virtue is it money then is it fame or beauty or health all of which appear of little value to us when we possess them nor can it be by any possibility certainly known how long they will last or is it what it is shameful even to utter that basest of all pleasure surely not for it is in the contempt and disdain of pleasure that virtue is most conspicuous do not you see what a long series of facts and arguments i have brought forward and how perfect is the connection between one and another i should have proceeded further still if i had not kept myself in check quintus to what point do your arguments tend my brother for i would willingly go hand in hand with you through this discussion marcus the point they bear on is the moral end of our actions to which all things are to be referred and for the sake of which all things are to be undertaken this subject is however one of great controversy and full of question among the learned yet one that must some day or other be decided atticus how can that be done since gellius is no longer alive quintus what is that to the purpose atticus because when i was at athens i recollect hearing from my friend phaedrus that your friend when he came as proconsul into greece after his praetorship assembled all the philosophers who were at that time at athens in one spot and very earnestly pressed upon them his advice that they should endeavour to come to some unanimous agreement in their controversies urging that if they were so disposed as to be unwilling to spend their whole lives in discord an agreement might be made and at the same time he promised them his best assistance if this scheme of mutual conciliation and concession met their views marcus your story is amusing enough my atticus and it has often excited much merriment but indeed i should very gladly be appointed mediator between the ancient academy and the stoics atticus how can you think of such a thing marcus because they differ on one point only and agree to admiration in all the rest atticus what do they contend about one point of debate only marcus yes i think they have only a single issue so far as concerns this question of morals inasmuch as the ancient academicians are unanimously agreed that the true good is that which is in accordance with nature and is such that we may be assisted in life by it the stoics on the other hand allow of no good but what is honourable atticus this is indeed a very insignificant controversy and not such as to account for their general opposition marcus you are quite right if it were the thing itself on which they differed rather than the terms atticus you then rather agree with my friend antiochus with whom i was living for i will not venture to call him my master it was he who at one time almost persuaded me to desert my epicurean gardens and led me by gentle steps to the academy marcus this antiochus was a wise and clever man and highly accomplished in his way he was as you know a great friend of mine and i shall presently examine whether i agree with him in all respects or not this i am sure of that the whole of that controversy might easily be settled atticus why do you prosecute this inquiry marcus because if as ariston of chios pretended he were to say that there is no other good than the honourable and no other evil than the dishonourable that all other things are altogether indifferent and that their presence or absence are of no kind of consequence then zeno would be departing very far from xenocrates aristotle and all the school of plato and there would be an entire difference between them respecting a principle of the greatest importance and about the whole course of life but now when he affirms that to be the only good which the ancients asserted to be the chief good namely honour and its opposite disgrace which they called the chief evil the only evil and when he calls riches health and beauty only advantages not goods and poverty grief and pain only inconveniences not evils he in fact agrees in opinion with xenocrates and aristotle though he expresses himself in different terms from this difference not respecting things but words the controversy concerning moral ends arose in relation to which inasmuch as our roman law of the twelve tables has granted a neutral space of five feet wide between the territories of different landlords we will not allow the venerable estate of the academy to be trespassed on by this crafty stoic and though the mammalian law appointed but one surveyor to determine the rights of these neutral spaces in this ethical question all three of us will undertake to arbitrate respecting the moral ends of philosophy quintus what then shall be the decision which we pronounce marcus i think we should seek the boundaries which socrates has laid down in relation to this question and abide by them.

Quintus.

For enemy, hostis, meant to our ancestors what we now call stranger, peregrinus.

This is proved by the usage in the Twelve Tables.

Or a day fixed for trial with a stranger, hostis.

And again, right of ownership is inalienable forever in dealings with a stranger, hostis.

Then an honest man will not be guilty of either pretense or concealment in order to buy or to sell to better advantage.

Besides, your criminal fraud had previously been prohibited by the statutes.

The penalty in the matter of trusteeships, for example, is fixed by the Twelve Tables for the defrauding of minors by the Pleitorian law.

The same prohibition is effective without statutory enactment in equity cases in which it is added that the decision shall be as good faith requires.