New Atlantis (utopian novel)

...places and nations have conformed to laws, either made by one elected ruler, imposed by one supreme conqueror, or established by the consent of the nobility original: "the best" or of the whole people. Athens and Sparta, after their various civil wars original: "combustions", only then began to flourish and grow when the former had received laws from Solon and the latter from Lycurgus. The Attic Laws The legal code of Athens flourished when Solon restored to that commonwealth the peace and liberty which lasted for more than 500 years afterward.

During this peaceful original: "Halcyon" age, the Athenians (as the historian Herodotus confirms) brought some of their laws from Egypt to complete their own legal systems original: "Institutes". The Romans did the same after them, when necessity forced them to establish regulations for their city. For they sent their Decemviri Decemviri: a commission of ten men appointed to draft a code of laws in ancient Rome, c. 450 BCE into Greece. These men consulted the Attic Laws as well as others made by Zaleucus for the Locrians, Lycurgus for the Spartans original: "Lacedemonians", Charondas for the Thurians, and Phoroneus for the Argives. From these and other leading Greeks they consulted, they extracted certain frameworks for law and government. It was from these sources that the laws of the Twelve Tables The foundation of Roman law, which Cicero so highly praises, were eventually derived and established.

But to come closer to home: How many