The law of debt must also have been on one of the two last tables, as Cicero describes it as thoroughly unfair. It was binding for plebeians only. Those two tables, we may be sure, consisted chiefly of exceptions. The most important part of the legislation of the Twelve Tables, is that _jus publicum_ which was entirely overlooked by the earlier commentators, who believed them to have been a code of laws like that of Justinian, only most imperfect and barbarous. But Cicero and Livy call them expressly _fons omnis publici privatique juris_; and Cicero, in the examples in his books _de Legibus_ which are taken from the laws of the Twelve Tables, speaks also of public administration. Yet the Twelve Tables certainly did not touch upon any subject that remained unchanged, as for instance, the whole system of the centuries; of the alterations in the political law which were found in them, we have only a few traces. One of these is the enactment that no _privilegia_ should be issued any more, that is to say, no laws against individuals, nor condemnations of individuals; there must therefore at that time have been methods of proceeding with regard to individuals similar to ostracism at Athens. It is moreover likely that charges were no longer brought by one of the two orders before the other, and that the centuries were looked upon as a grand national court of justice. We have no authority for this; yet, though every story cannot be warranted in detail, thus much on the whole is certain from the events which occurred, that until then accusations were made before the _Plebes_ by the tribunes, and before the curies by the quæstors, but that afterwards such impeachments are no more heard of. Prosecutions before the tribes on account of individual offences are indeed met with; but they are no more connected with the antagonism of the two orders. Probably at that time also the change arose which is afterwards clearly to be perceived, that the clients entered into the tribes; for the plebeian tribes, besides what they were from their particular nature, were also intended to be a general national division, of which we find several hints. Yet it may also have taken place a hundred, or a hundred and twenty years later. If Camillus was condemned by the tribes, it may perhaps be explained in this way, as in his trial his fellow-tribesmen are spoken of. Cicero among the wise laws of the Twelve Tables which he receives in his _Leges_, mentions, with reference to his own tumultuary condemnation by the tribes, that _de capite civis_ could only be judged _per comitiatum maximum_. It cannot indeed be positively asserted, that previous to the legislation of the decemvirs, the centuries had not been called upon to give judgment; I have, however, discovered a formula which belongs to an earlier time, and perhaps refers to trials by the centuries, and something definite may yet be found with regard to this point. If it was so, the practice must have been