451 BC

Events in 451 BC 1

• 451 BC – 450 BC The Twelve Tables Rome's first written law code — the Twelve Tables — is inscribed on bronze and displayed in the Forum around 451–450 BC, following plebeian demands for laws that could not be arbitrarily interpreted by patrician magistrates. The Tables cover debt, property, family law, inheritance and procedure. Though the original bronze was destroyed in the Gallic sack of 390 BC, reconstructed fragments survive. Roman jurists will call them the "source of all law."