t celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the world begins,
as it ends, with a Code. From the commencement to the close of its
history, the expositors of Roman Law consistently employed language
which implied that the body of their system rested on the Twelve
Decemviral Tables, and therefore on a basis of written law. Except in
one particular, no institutions anterior to the Twelve Tables were
recognised at Rome. The theoretical descent of Roman jurisprudence
from a code, the theoretical ascription of English law to immemorial
unwritten tradition, were the chief reasons why the development of
their system differed from the development of ours. Neither theory
corresponded exactly with the facts, but each produced consequences of
the utmost importance.

I need hardly say that the publication of the Twelve Tables is not the
earliest point at which we can take up the history of law. The ancient
Roman code belongs to a class of which almost every civilised nation
in the world can show a sample, and which, so far as the Roman and
Hellenic worlds were concerned, were largely diffused over them at
epochs not widely distant from one another. They appeared under
exceedingly similar circumstances, and were produced, to our
knowledge, by very similar causes. Unquestionably, many jural
phenomena lie behind these codes and preceded them in point of time.
Not a few documentary records exist which profess to give us
information concerning the early phenomena of law; but, until
philology has effected a complete analysis of the Sanskrit literature,
our best sources of knowledge are undoubtedly the Greek Homeric poems,
considered of course not as a history of actual occurrences, but as a
description, not wholly idealised, of a state of society known to the
writer. However the fancy of the poet may have exaggerated certain
features of the heroic age, the prowess of warriors and the potency of
gods, there is no reason to believe that it has tampered with moral or
metaphysical conceptions which were not yet the subjects of conscious
observation; and in this respect the Homeric literature is far more
trustworthy than those relatively later documents which pretend to
give an account of times similarly early, but which were compiled
under philosophical or theological influences. If by any means we can
determine the early forms of jural conceptions, they will be
invaluable to us. These rudimentary ideas are to the jurist what the
primary cr