aw and
knew how to suggest a decision accordant with precedents or, in the
absence of these, resting on reasonable grounds. The pontifices who
were wont to be consulted by the people regarding court-days and on
all questions of difficulty and of legal observance relating to the
worship of the gods, delivered also, when asked, counsels and opinions
on other points of law, and thus developed in the bosom of their
college that tradition which formed the basis of Roman private law,
more especially the formulae of action proper for each particular
case. A table of formulae which embraced all these actions, along with
a calendar which specified the court-days, was published to the people
about 450 by Appius Claudius or by his clerk, Gnaeus Flavius. This
attempt, however, to give formal shape to a science, that as yet
hardly recognized itself, stood for a long time completely isolated.

That the knowledge of law and the setting it forth were even now a
means of recommendation to the people and of attaining offices of
state, may be readily conceived, although the story, that the first
plebeian pontifex Publius Sempronius Sophus (consul 450), and the
first plebeian pontifex maximus Tiberius Coruncanius (consul 474),
were indebted for these priestly honours to their knowledge of law,
is probably rather a conjecture of posterity than a statement
of tradition.

Language

That the real genesis of the Latin and doubtless also of the other
Italian languages was anterior to this period, and that even at its
commencement the Latin language was substantially an accomplished
fact, is evident from the fragments of the Twelve Tables, which,
however, have been largely modernized by their semi-oral tradition.
They contain doubtless a number of antiquated words and harsh
combinations, particularly in consequence of omitting the indefinite
subject; but their meaning by no means presents, like that of the
Arval chant, any real difficulty, and they exhibit far more agreement
with the language of Cato than with that of the ancient litanies.
If the Romans at the beginning of the seventh century had difficulty
in understanding documents of the fifth, the difficulty doubtless
proceeded merely from the fact that there existed at that time in Rome
no real, least of all any documentary, research.

Technical Style

On the other hand it must have been at this period, when the
indication and redaction of law began, that the Roman technical style