Roman Law :: essays research papers

romans did not have truly complicated laws but when they were broken there was very heavy penalty. roman letters laws influenced most of the laws we have now and most of the laws of other countries. Americas court system was modeled around the Roman court system. They had speeding courts and lower courts and that was what built our strong court system now. One issue that we did not take from the Romans is the right to be a Citizen. In capital of Italy there were very strict stratum systems and they were classified greatly by clothes, shelter, and seating at the games. The word citizen for them meant that you had to be free and lived in Rome. The class system was always followed no matter what. You could move up from your lay out in society but then you would have to work genuinely hard and it was not easy because people would still look at you as a low class. The class systems from highest to lowest were the senators, councilmen and their families. Then came the symmetric middle class citizens, next were the Plebeians who were very poor but not slaves and last was the slaves who owned nothing at all not even so the clothes on their back because it all belonged to their master. Therefore, if slaves were caught running away they were brought upon charges of stealing for stealing themselves and their masters clothing. Stealing held a very heavy punishment and that punishment was always upheld. The punishment was capital punishment and all of this was through to teach them a lesson. Some say the Romans had a very hostile way of doing things but, the way their country was setup most of their laws were necessary for them. wholly of this got started with the Twelve Tables of Rome. Which were much like the Ten Commandments except man do them up. They were engraved into Bronze tablets and made up by ten Roman Magistrates around early 450 BC. The laws were really made to please the Plebeians because they complained that they didnt choose any rights becau se the laws were never written down and were often changed. After this the Plebeians could no longer be fooled because the Twelve Tables covered all aspects of the law before long stating the crime and then the punishment.This was where the court system came in because the courts were the ones that had to follow by the Twelve Tables and there was no way to cheat the Plebeians because the laws were in the principal(prenominal) Forum hanging up for those purposes.