Laws of the Twelve TABLES, were the first set of laws of the Romans: thus called either by reason the Romans then wrote with a style on thin wooden tablets covered with wax; or rather, because they were engraved on tables or plates of copper, to be exposed in the most noted part of the public forum. After the expulsion of the kings, as the Romans were then without any fixed or certain system of law, at least had none ample enough to take in the various cases that might fall between particular persons, it was resolved to adopt the best and wisest laws of the Greeks. One Hermodorus was first appointed to translate them, and the decemviri afterwards compiled and reduced them into ten tables. After a world of care and application, they were at length enacted and confirmed by the senate and an assembly of the people, in the year of Rome 303. The following year they found something wanting therein, which they supplied from the laws of the former kings of Rome, and from certain customs which long use had authorised: all these being engraved on two other tables made the law of the twelve tables, so famous in the Roman jurisprudence, the source and foundation of the civil or Roman law.