s blasted the crop of his neighbor. It pronounced against the
insolvent debtor, "If he does not pay, he shall be cited before the
court; if sickness or age deter him, a horse shall be furnished him,
but no litter; he may have thirty days' delay, but if he does not
satisfy the debt in this time, the creditor may bind him with straps
or chains of fifteen pounds weight; at the end of sixty days he may be
sold beyond the Tiber; if there are many creditors, they may cut him
in parts, and if they cut more or less, there is no wrong in the act."
According to the word of Cicero, the Law of the Twelve Tables was "the
source of all the Roman law." Four centuries after it was written down
the children had to learn it in the schools.

=The Symbolic Process.=--In the ancient Roman law it was not enough in
buying, selling, or inheriting that this was the intention of the
actor; to obtain justice in the Roman tribunal it was not sufficient
to present the case; one had to pronounce certain words and use
certain gestures. Consider, for example, the manner of purchasing. In
the presence of five citizens who represent an assembly and of a sixth
who holds a balance in his hand, the buyer places in the balance a
piece of brass which represents the price of the thing sold. If it be
an animal or a slave that is sold, the purchaser touches it with his
hand saying, "This is mine by the law of the Romans, I have bought it
with this brass duly weighed." Before the tribunal every process is a
pantomime: to reclaim an object one seizes it with the hand; to
protest against a neighbor who has erected a wall, a stone is thrown
against the wall. When two men claim proprietorship in a field, the
following takes place at the tribunal: the two adversaries grasp hands
and appear to fight; then they separate and each says, "I declare this
field is mine by the law of the Romans; I cite you before the tribunal
of the praetor to debate our right at the place in question." The judge
orders them to go to the place. "Before these witnesses here present,
this is your road to the place; go!" The litigants take a few steps as
if to go thither, and this is the symbol of the journey. A witness
says to them, "Return," and the journey is regarded as completed. Each
of the two presents a clod of earth, the symbol of the field. Thus the
trial commences;[164] then the judge alone hears the case. Like all
primitive peoples, the Romans comprehended well only what they
actual