Heraclean Tablets

As a consequence of its having accepted Roman citizenship in 89 BCE, Heraclea became a municipium, and the Tabulae Heracleenses contain a long Latin inscription relating to the municipal regulations of Heraclea, engraved on two tablets of bronze, on the back of which is a long Greek inscription of earlier date, probably the 3rd century BC, defining the boundaries of lands belonging to various temples.

Scholarship traditionally identified the inscription on the tablets with the Lex Iulia Municipalis, a law issued in 45 BCE for the regulation of the municipal institutions of towns throughout Italy.

[1] It is now widely believed that the tablets do not record a single law, but include material from multiple pieces of legislation.

[2] A fragment was purchased by Francesco Ficoroni and taken to England, where it was sold to Brian Fairfax the younger.

[4][5] There have been legal commentaries by Heinrich Eduard Dirksen (Berlin, 1817–1820) and Friedrich Carl von Savigny, in his Vermischte Schriften vol.