One aspect of the Roman Twelve Tables very nicely demonstrates how the Roman conceptualized slaves as being people worthless than citizens. What is more interesting however, is that this law does not suggest that the Romans conceived of slaves entirely as property. This position is not to say that early Romans treated their slaves more nicely than later Romans. However later Roman became much more insistent that it was important to only conceive of slaves as property. Because early Romans were not sophisticated legal thinkers, it was entirely possible for them to conceive of slaves as property in some cases and as people in other cases.
The entry for I.14 of the Twelve Tables is as follows:
“si os fregit libero, CCC, [si] servo, CL poenae sunto.”
“If he has broken a bone of a free man, 300, if of a slave, 150 (asses) are to be the penalty.” (trans. Crawford)
For this law, free men and slaves are part of the same group, albeit on different parts of a spectrum. In later Roman law, injuries to slaves are classed in the same kind of laws as willful destruction of property or injury to animals.
The entry for I.14 of the Twelve Tables is as follows:
“si os fregit libero, CCC, [si] servo, CL poenae sunto.”
“If he has broken a bone of a free man, 300, if of a slave, 150 (asses) are to be the penalty.” (trans. Crawford)
For this law, free men and slaves are part of the same group, albeit on different parts of a spectrum. In later Roman law, injuries to slaves are classed in the same kind of laws as willful destruction of property or injury to animals.