In the 20th century, previously unrecognized fragments quoted by ancient writers were identified as leges regiae and attributed or reattributed to the various kings.
[4][5] The king during Rome's Regal period was a political, military, religious, and judicial chief of the community, though his actual duties might be delegated and entrusted to his many auxiliaries.
[citation needed] According to Sextus Pomponius, Romulus organized the tribes of Rome into thirty units called "Curiae", and he then administered the affairs of the state on the basis of the opinion of the Curiate Assembly.
[9] After an interregnum Numa Pompilius succeeded to Romulus: as it will happen for each of his successors an interrex held the government til the election of the new king.
[22] With the advent of the Roman Republic the need was felt for an official figure who could perform the sacred rites or make decisions through auspicium, an institution governed by the lex regia.
Moreover, it bestowed the king a way of solving religious and military issues,[25] either directly or by means of some ausiliary as the magister populi of the Tarquinian times.
Besides they acted as an intermediary stage between the mores and the XII Tables, answering the requirements of a society that was no longer satisfied with the revelations of the Pontifex Maximus.
[31] Besides it is detectable in the character of the laws themselves as in the cases of the ones emanated by Servius Tullius, Numa Pompilius and even Romulus,[32] as he reigned together with Titus Tatius.
[33] Fragments found in Pomponius[34] and in other authors on the subject show the lex regia was a deliberation of both the curiae and the senate[35] which were approved by the rex with the support of the pontiff.
[37] Moreover, on the grounds of the powers the king held at the time of the regal period they think it was more probable that he decided without the veto of the curiae but only by the support of the collegium pontificum.
opine that the curiae had no voting right but only that of being present to the act of the promulgation as a witness and of showing their attitude on the matter by means of acclamation or of loud dissent.
If they all agreed the law was passed, if they did not then the following five classes in order of decreasing census were in turn asked to vote, down to the lowest one, which was made up of citizens with no means and exempted from military service.
[41] Since the lex regia on one hand was meant to create a ius certum and on the other stemmed from the mores, the means to enforce it were in most instances sanctions of religious, sacral nature,[42] (a piaculum or a sacrificium).
According to our sources they had the function of electing the magistrates, passing laws[46] and examining questions concerning war if the rex so requested.
He established the power of patrimoniality and authority of the pater familias, the patria potestas on illegal children (filius alieni iuris) that included the right to kill them.
(From the 2nd century BC, this was no longer the predominant form of marriage in Rome; the wife instead remained legally a part of her own family, and was never subject to her husband's control.)
He instituted the Pontifex maximus besides increasing the number of the sacerdotes and of the Collegium Pontificum and established various forms of dedication concerning various cults.
However, according to tradition they existed in Latin towns since before the foundation of Rome (Alba Longa had vestals, among them Romulus's mother Silvia) and it must be remembered that Titus Tatius had already dedicated the aedes Vestae.
When this Marcus Horatius was accused of perduellio, the duumviri perduellionis emitted a verdict of culpability on the question of the provocatio ad populum, a peculiarly devised procedural condition.
[57] In the field of morals and the family he made a law that condemned incest: the culprit would become sacred to Diana in a public ceremony of derision and contempt.
[58] "Moreover having summoned the pontiffs and received from them the dispositions concerning the res sacrae that Pompilius had established, had them carved on small tables and exposed in the Forum for all those who would like to look at them" Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant.
[61][62] Servius divided once again the territory of Rome into pagi: four of them were urban (regio Palatina, Suburana, Collina, and Esquilina) and twentysix suburban or rural.
The census required citizens to provide an estimate of the value of their properties to enable the government to gather information by which impose taxes proportionally.
[64] King Tarquinius Superbus abolished the taxation system based on the census and imposed an equal fiscal burden on every citizen.
It is unlikely that such rielaborations were exact text quotations from the leges regiae as some sources maintain, simply they were reformulations containing some archaic expressions embedded.
All these laws are recorded together in Sextus Papirius's book, who lived at the time of Demaratus of Corinthus's proud son, among the most illustrious men.
Livy makes a clear reference to the existence of the leges regiae relating the work of reconstruction of the laws done by magistrates and the senate at the turbulent times of Marcus Furius Camillus.
[79] Berger's dictionary under the entry 'Papirius' (with no praenomen) states that "he was a pontifex maximus author of a collection called Ius Papirianum of rules of sacral law generally ascribed to the Leges Regiae.
Existence of such a collection is based on the mention of a commentary thereon written by Granius Flaccus at the time of Caesar or Augustus, entitled De iure Papiriano".
The translator while adhering to the principle of making as few alterations as possible has taken the liberty of improving language, correcting obvious mistakes and adding bibliographic information.