All this continuous progress or evolution was the result of two forces, of two different elements. The true, primitive law of Rome was the special law of the Quirites, of which we find the remains in the Twelve Tables: a severe and restricted law abounding in formulas which had to be sacredly observed, and its administration was entrusted to a small number of citizens who alone were acquainted with its rules, whose authority was sanctioned by religion. The smallest mistake of form made void the most just decree, and where the law omitted to define the formula to be observed, no valid action could be brought. When the due formula, making the contract binding, had once been pronounced, no proof of mistake or fraud could annul it. "Uti lingua nuncupassit ita ius esto." A slave to forms, the judge could not listen to the voice of morality or rectitude; the most just complaint failed to move him, unless supported by a text of law. The defendant dared not stir a step without the continual guidance of the legislator, inasmuch as every juridical formula was sacred and inviolable; and as the science of law was monopolised by the College of Pontiffs, the most aristocratic and conservative body in Rome, it became a kind of occult science. It was this very character, however, apparently so restricted and pedantic, that gave its great force to the law in Rome. For law, being now freed for the first time from every extraneous element belonging to morals and good faith, became firm and inexorable. Any one who had the law in his favour was safe to see it promptly carried out. History affords no example elsewhere of legal sanction and redress being applied so swiftly and surely as in Rome. In Athens, indeed, where the laws were more philosophical, and the popular conscience gave judgment, investigating motives, despising formulas, and looking only to substantial justice, caprice often prevailed, and law never attained the iron strength and tenacity of the Roman jurisprudence.