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Home , 366 BC, 367 BC, Agrarian law, Conflict of the Orders, Decemviri, Duumviri

Lex Licinia Sextia

For other Licinian laws, see Licinia (disambiguation). diers engaged in the siege of Velitrae, the voting on the bills had to be postponed. Licinius and Lucius Sex- tius proposed a fourth bill regarding the sacred Sibylline The Lex Licinia Sextia, also known as the Licinian Ro- [1] gations, was a series of laws proposed by the of Books. the plebs, Lucius Sextius Lateranus and Gaius Licinius In 368 BC the Roman troops came back from Velitrae. Stolo. These laws provided for a limit on the interest rate As the controversy dragged and given that with the return of loans and a restriction on private ownership of land. of the troops voting could be carried out, the A third law, which provided for one of the two consuls senate appointed Marcus Furius Camillus as (a to be a plebeian, was rejected. Two of these laws were head of state with extraordinary powers appointed for a passed in 368 BC, after the two proponents had been term of six months at times of crisis), who strongly op- elected and re-elected tribunes for nine consecutive years posed the bills and threatened the use of violence. How- and had successfully prevented the election of patrician ever, he had to resign for unclear reasons. The plebeian magistrates for five years (375-370 BC). In 367 BC, dur- tribunes put the bills to the vote of the Plebeian Coun- ing their tenth tribunate, this law was passed. In the same cil (the assembly of the ). The bills on land and year they also proposed a fourth law regarding the priests debt were passed, but the one on plebeian consuls was who were the custodians of the sacred . rejected. wrote that “both the former [bills] would These laws and the long struggle to pass them were part probably have been carried into law if [Gaius Licinius and of the two hundred year conflict of the orders between Lucius Sextius] had not said that they were putting them the patrician and the plebeians, who made up en bloc.” Another dictator was appointed, Publius Man- most of the Roman populace. This conflict was one of the lius Capitolinus. However, he appointed a plebeian as his major influences on the internal politics of during lieutenant (), much to the annoyance of the patricians, and supported the plebeians. When it the first two centuries of the . was time for the election of the plebeian tribunes, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius announced that they would not stand for reelection unless the plebeians “wanted the 1 Background proposed measures carried as a whole.” The two plebeian tribunes were re-elected (for the tenth time), which meant According to Livy, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius that the law of the consulship was now also carried. Then proposed three bills before the (the they carried the law on the sacred Sibylline Books. This, assembly of the plebeians) in 375 BC. Two of them according to Livy, “was regarded as a further step towards concerned land and debt (which were two issues which opening the path to the consulship.” However, he did not greatly affected the plebeians) and the third concerned specify why. He also wrote "[t]he plebs, satisfied with the termination of the military tribunes with consular their victory, made the concession to the patricians that power (often referred to as consular tribunes), who had for the present all mention of consuls should be dropped.” periodically replaced the consuls as the heads of the Re- Consular tribunes were elected for 367 BC.[2] public (444, 438, 434-32, 426-24, 422, 420-14, 408-394 In 367 BC Marcus Furius Camillus was again appointed and 391-76 BC), the restoration of consuls and the ad- as dictator, this time to fight Gauls who had got into ter- mission of plebeians to the consulship by providing that ritories near Rome. The senate, bruised by years of civic one of the two consuls was to be a plebeian. The latter strife, carried the proposals of the plebeian tribunes and proposal created fierce opposition by the patricians, who the two consuls were elected. In 366 BC Lucius Sex- held vast political power by monopolising the consulship tius Lateranus became the first plebeian consul. The pa- and the seats of the senate, thinking that, as aristocrats, tricians refused to confirm this, commotions broke out this was their sole prerogative, and abhorred the idea of and the plebeians were close to seceding (see plebeian sharing power with the plebeians. They persuaded other secessions). Marcus Furius, “however, quieted the dis- plebeian tribunes to voting on this bill. In retalia- turbances by arranging a compromise; the made tion, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius vetoed the elec- a concession in the matter of a plebeian consul, the plebs tion of the consular tribunes for five years, until 370 BC, gave way to the nobility on the appointment of a when they relented because the Volscian town of Velitrae to administer justice in the City who was to be a patri- had attacked the territory of Rome and one of her allies. cian. Thus after their long estrangement the two orders The election of consular tribunes resumed. With the sol-

1 2 3 MODERN EVALUATION

of the State were at length brought into harmony”.[3] who were two patrician priests who were the custodians of the sacred Sibylline Books and consulted and inter- preted them at times, especially when there were natu- ral disasters, pestilence, famine or military difficulties. 2 The laws These were the books of the Sibylline oracles, who were Greek oracles who resided in various places in the Greek Lex de aere alieno. This law provided that the interest world. Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh and last king already paid on debts should be deducted from the princi- of Rome, was said to have bought these books from a pal and that the payment of the rest of the principal should Sybil from Cumae, a Greek city in southern Italy (near be in three equal annual instalments. Naples, 120 miles south of Rome) in the late seventh cen- tury BC. The law provided for the creation of a college of Indebtedness was a major problem among the plebeians, ten priests () as a replacement of the . particularly among small farmers, and this led to Five of them were to be patricians and five were to be conflicts with the patricians, who were the aristocracy, plebeians. This would break the patrician monopoly of the owners of large landed estates and the creditors. Sev- the priesthood for the first time and constituted a step eral laws regulating credit or the interest rates of credit to towards the plebeians sharing power, as the priesthoods provide some relief for the helpless debtors were passed played an important role in Roman society. Later, other during the period of the Roman Republic. priesthoods were opened up to the plebeians. The pa- Lex de modo agrorum. This law restricted individual tricians retained exclusivity in some of the oldest priest- ownership of public land in excess of 500 iugeras (300 hoods. acres) and forbade the grazing of more than 100 cattle on public land. Shortages of land for the poor was a significant problem during the Roman Republic. Roman citizens were given 3 Modern evaluation plots of lands of two iugera from the ager publicus. These were barely sufficient to feed a family. The rich landown- Livy’s account of the struggles of Gaius Licinius and Lu- ers acquired large estates by encroaching on public land, cius Sextius and their legislation on the consulship has which reduced the amount of this land which could be been analysed by T.J. Cornell. He thinks that very little given to the poor (plebeian) farmers. Several laws limit- of Livy’s narrative can be accepted. However, its insti- ing private ownership of land to limit this encroachment tutional changes are “reasonably certain.” He argues that on the ager publicus were passed, but they seemed have the significance of the law on the consulship is unclear been easy to evade and to have only a limited effect, if and its background is “extremely puzzling” due to ob- at all. The restrictions on the amount of grazing on pub- scurity around the military tribunes with consular power. lic land was due to the fact that extensive grazing could Livy wrote that they had been instituted because it was reduce the resources available to poor farmers from this decided that in some years the consulship should be re- common land, which they needed to sustain their liveli- placed by the consular tribunes (whose numbers varied hoods. from three to six), that this office would be open to ple- Lex de consule altero ex plebe (et de praetore ex pa- beians and that it had been created as a concession to the tribus creando?). This law provided for the termination plebeians who wanted access to the consulship.[6] How- of the military tribunes with consular powers and the re- ever, from 444 BC (the year of the first consular tribunes) turn to regular consulships, one of which was to be held to 401 BC there were only two plebeian consular tribunes by the plebeians. It is possible that the law also provided (out of a total of 100). For the 400-376 BC period, in for the creation of a new and elected magistracy (office 400, 399 and 396 BC the majority of these tribunes were of state), the praetorship, as Livy wrote that in 367 BC plebeians (4, 5, and 5 out of 6, respectively) and in 379 “the plebs gave way to the nobility on the appointment of BC there were three plebeians of six. This raises some a praetor";[4] that is, the plebeians agreed that the prae- questions. Why from 444 to 401 BC were there only tor should be a patrician. The were chief jus- two plebeians? Why, given the presence of plebeians in tices who presided over criminal trials and could appoint the subsequent period, which shows their eligibility to the judges for civil cases. Later they issued edicts for amend- highest office, was plebeian access to the consulship con- ments of existing laws. They also held ; that sidered such a landmark for the political promotion of is, they could command an army. Forty years later, in the plebeians? Why was there such resistance to this? 337 BC, the plebeians gained access to the praetorship, The sources seem to see the law as a breakthrough not when the first plebeian praetor, Quintus Publius Philo, just because it provided access to the consulship, but be- was elected.[5] cause it required that one of the two consuls each year be a patrician. However, during one twelve-year period after Law proposed at the beginning of the tenth tribunate: the passage of the laws, from 355 to 343 BC, both consuls Lex de Decemviri Sacris Faciundis. This provided for were patricians and the consulship became an unbroken the abolition of the Duumviri (two men) Sacris Faciundis, line of shared office only after that.[7] 3

Cornell notes that, according to Livy and his sources, the were incorporated into the structures of the state. The regular and unbroken sharing of the consulship stemmed tribunate and the aedilship were increasingly occupied from the Lex Genucia proposed by the plebeian by young nobles who treated them as stepping stones for Lucius Genucius in 342 BC which, it is claimed, allowed the consulship; “the men who held them did not consider plebeians to hold both consulships.[8] However, the themselves in any way bound to promote the interests of consulares (a chronicle of yearly events in which the years the mass of the plebs.” [14] Livy described some plebeian are denoted by their consuls) suggest that this law made tribunes as 'slaves of the nobility'[15] it obligatory for one consulship to be held by a plebeian. This most probably explains why the first instance of ple- beians holding both consulships was in 173 BC despite 4 Alternate names Livy’s interpretation. It might be that it was the Lex Genucia which truly introduced power-sharing between • Lex Licinia patricians and plebeians and that the Lex Licinia Sex- tia may simply have been an administrative adjustment • Licinian Rogations which transferred plebeian access to the highest office from the consular tribunes to the consulship and, thus, Lu- • Licinian Laws cius Sextius becoming the first plebeian consul “becomes • Licinio-Sextian Rogations rather less impressive.” [9] Von Fritz and Sordi also think that the Lex Licinia Sextia on the consuls and the praetors was an administrative reform.[10][11] 5 See also The significance of the law on the consulship of 367 BC, according to Cornell, lies elsewhere. He suggests that be- • Conflict of the Orders fore this law, the plebeian tribunes were excluded from high office and that the plebeians who served prior to this • Military tribunes with consular power were clients of the patricians who had nothing to do with the plebeian movement and its agitations or the Plebeian • Plebeian tribune Council and did not hold plebeian offices (they were nei- • ther plebeian tribunes nor , their assistants). Cor- nell argues "[t]hat the aim of Licinius and Sextius was to • Plebeian Council abolish all forms of discrimination against the plebeians as such”, and their law was a victory for the plebeians who • were attracted to the plebeian movement and chose to join this, rather than becoming clients of patricians, which of- fered nominal prestige, but no independent power. Many 6 References leading plebeians were “wealthy, socially aspiring and po- litically ambitious”. It was a small group of “rich men [1] Livy, The , 6.35, 36.1-6, 37.12 who made common cause with the poor and [ ] used the institutions of the plebeian movement to gain entry into [2] Livy, The History of Rome, 38, 39.1-5,11-12, 42.1-5 the ranks of the ”, which necessitated a strug- [3] Livy, The History of Rome, 6.42 gle against the exclusiveness of the patricians. Some of these men were wealthy landowners who, thus, shared [4] Livy, The History of Rome, 6.42 the same interests as the patricians, as the case of Gaius Licinius, who was fined for breaking his own [5] Livy, The History of Rome, 8.12 [12] by exceeding the 500 iugera limit, shows. [6] Livy, The History of Rome, 4.6.6-8 The outcome of the Leges Liciniae Sextiae was the facil- [7] Cornell, T.J., The Beginnings of Rome, pp.344-37 itation of the emergence of a patrician-plebeian aristoc- racy and once the leading plebeians had entered the ruling [8] Livy, The History of Rome, 7.42 class on an equal footing with the patricians, they turned their back on the poor plebeians, who “gained some tem- [9] Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, pp.337-38 porary economic relief, but lost control of their organi- [10] von Fritz, K, Historia,1 (1950), pp. 3-44 sation.” The plebeian council passed the agrarian and the debt laws, which were in tune with the interests of the [11] Sordi, M., I rapporti romano-ceriti e l' origine della 'civitas poor plebeians, but rejected the law on the consulship. sine suffragio', Rome 1960, pp. 73-9. Sordi argues that it Those who opposed the latter had good reason to be sus- was an administrative reform inspired by the institutions of Ceare. picious because "[s]uch a measure, they knew, would de- stroy the plebeian movement.” [13] It lost its identity and [12] Livy, The History of Rome, 7.16.9 ceased to exist as a separate organisation. Its institutions [13] Cornell, T,J., The Beginnings of Rome, pp. 339-340 4 6 REFERENCES

[14] Cornell, T.J., The recovery of Rome, in Walbank, F.B.A., Austin, A.E., Federicksen, M.W.W., and Ogilivie, R,M., Cambridge Ancient History, vol 7, part 2, ch. 3, p.341 Cambridge University Press

[15] Livy, The History of Rome, 10.37.11 5

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