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In criminal matters the Twelve Tables recognise the old principle of self-help; a limb was to be given for a limb; but for minor wrongs compensation was allowed, and twenty-five asses were full reparation for a common assault. But there are survivals of the old religious penalties; the man who destroyed standing corn was hanged as an offering to Ceres,[404] and the involuntary homicide could expiate his guilt with the piaculum of a ram. The law was heavy on the abuse of freedom of speech; for death was the penalty for incantations or libels against a citizen.[405] The same penalty was inflicted on the judex who had accepted bribes;[406] while for perduellio in the form of “rousing an enemy against the state or handing over a citizen to the enemy” the death penalty was also enjoined.[407] Reference must have been made to criminal procedure since the quaestores parricidii were mentioned in the law.[408]

The principle of the constitution which guaranteed a fair trial to the citizen was upheld; for we have the statement of Cicero that the Twelve Tables granted the provocatio “from every kind of court and punishment”[409] In two other particulars they limited the jurisdiction of the people. It was maintained that no law or criminal sentence (for this took the form of a lex) should be directed against a private individual (privilegia ne inroganto), and it was laid down that no capital sentence could be passed except “by the greatest of the comitia” (nisi per maximum comitiatum),[410] i.e. by the assembly of the centuries. Later interpretation held that this clause struck a blow at the capital jurisdiction of the concilium plebis; it is, however, doubtful how far this extraordinary jurisdiction, resting on a religious sanction, could be affected by a law which, as we shall see, never treated the Plebs as a political corporation at all. Another important constitutional provision of this code was one which granted the right of free association. The Twelve Tables, while severely prohibiting secret gatherings (coetus nocturni)[411] which had presumably treasonable designs, permitted the free formation of guilds (collegia or sodalicia). Such colleges were to require no special charter; the rules which they made for their own guidance should be valid, provided they were no infringement of the public law.[412] Lastly, the code guaranteed the sovereignty of the popular assembly by declaring that its last enactment should be final, without setting limits to the sphere of its legislative activity.[413] This was a token of the Roman conviction that there should be no finality in law. The Twelve Tables themselves were not guarded against repeal. It was a forecast of further development following the course of the old, of a constitution whose stages were marked by elasticity and growth, not by rigidity and revolution.