Abstract:
The purpose of this thesis was to explore the nature of the Twelve Tables as it remained a prominent idea within Roman culture across multiple genres, and multiple time periods. The Tables are rarely considered in the wider context that they are used, and so this thesis used key questions relating to the how the Tables existed in multiple forms across large periods of time, always in a state of change, controlled by Romans themselves, and how the relationship between Romans and the Tables was also in a state of evolution and accommodation. The exploration of the nature of the Tables can best be explained by approaching the Tables as a conceptual idea as well as physical, with no singular answer for the seemingly simple questions proposed.
