at
a thief not caught in the act might henceforth release himself from
the plaintiff's suit by payment of double compensation. The law of
debt was modified in a similar sense, but not till upwards of a
century afterwards, by the Poetelian law.(6) The right freely to
dispose of property, which according to the earliest Roman law was
accorded to the owner in his lifetime but in the case of death had
hitherto been conditional on the consent of the community, was
liberated from this restriction, inasmuch as the law of the Twelve
Tables or its interpretation assigned to the private testament the
same force as pertained to that confirmed in the curies. This was
an important step towards the breaking up of the clanships, and
towards the full carrying out of individual liberty in the disposal
of property. The fearfully absolute paternal power was restricted by
the enactment, that a son thrice sold by his father should not relapse
into his power, but should thenceforth be free; to which--by a legal
inference that, strictly viewed, was no doubt absurd--was soon
attached the possibility that a father might voluntarily divest
himself of dominion over his son by emancipation. In the law of
marriage civil marriage was permitted;(7) and although the full
marital power was associated as necessarily with a true civil as with
a true religious marriage, yet the permission of a connection instead
of marriage,(8) formed without that power, constituted a first step
towards relaxation of the full power of the husband. The first step
towards a legal enforcement of married life was the tax on old
bachelors (-aes uxorium-) with the introduction of which Camillus
began his public career as censor in 351.

Administration of Justice--
Code of Common Law--
New Judicial Functionaries

Changes more comprehensive than those effected in the law itself were
introduced into--what was more important in a political point of view,
and more easily admitted of alteration--the system of judicial
administration. First of all came the important limitation of the
supreme judicial power by the embodiment of the common law in a
written code, and the obligation of the magistrate thenceforth to
decide no longer according to varying usage, but according to the
written letter, in civil as well as in criminal procedure (303, 304).
The appointment of a supreme magistrate in Rome exclusively for the
administration of justice in 387,(9) and the establishment of