Editing Twelve Tables (section)

=== Table III: Execution of Judgment ===
Featured within the Twelve Tables are five rules about how to execute judgments, in terms of debtors and creditors. These rules show how the ancient Romans maintained peace with financial policy.

In the book, ''The Twelve Tables,'' written by an anonymous source due to its origins being collaborated through a series of translations of tablets and ancient references, P.R. Coleman-Norton arranged and translated many of the significant features of debt that the Twelve Tables enacted into law during the 5th century.  The translation of the legal features surrounding debt and derived from the known sources of the Twelve Tables are stated as such

“1. Of debt acknowledged and for matters judged in court (in iure) thirty days shall be allowed by law [for payment or for satisfaction].

2. After that [elapse of thirty days without payment] hand shall be laid on (Manus infection) [the debtor]. He shall be brought into court (in ius).

3. Unless he (the debtor) discharge the debtor unless someone appear in court (in iure) to guarantee payment for him, he (the creditor) shall take [the debtor] with him. He shall bind [him] either with thong or with fetters, of which the weight shall be not less than fifteen pounds or shall be more if he (the creditor) choose.

4. If he (the debtor) chooses, he shall live on his own [means]. If he lives not on his own [means], [the creditor,] who shall hold him in bonds, shall give [him] a pound of bread daily; if he (the creditor) shall so desire, he shall give [him] more.

5. Unless they (the debtors) make a compromise, they (the debtors) shall be held in bonds for sixty days. During those days they shall be brought to [the magistrate] into the comitia (meeting-place) on three successive markets […]”<ref name=":2">Coleman-Norton, P.R. (1960). ''The Twelve Tables''. Princeton: Princeton University, Dept. of Classics.</ref>

The five mandates of the Twelve Tables encompassing debt created a new understanding within [[Social class in ancient Rome|social classes in ancient Rome]] that ensured financial exploitation would be limited within legal business transactions.