plebeian organization was materially advanced by the Publilian 283. law of 471 B.C.,[1] which appears to have formally recognized as lawful the plebeian concilia, and established also the tribune's right cum plebe agere, i.e. to propose and carry resolutions in them. These assemblies were tributa, or, in other words, the voting in them took place not by curies or centuries but by tribes. In them, lastly, after the Publilian law, if not before, the tribunes were annually elected.[2] By this law the foundations were laid both of the powerful concilia plebis of later days and also of the legislative and judicial prerogatives of the tribunes. The patricians maintained indeed that resolutions (plebiscita) carried by tribunes in the concilia plebis were not binding on their order, but the moral weight of such resolutions, whether they affirmed a general principle or pronounced sentence of condemnation on some single patrician, was no doubt considerable.
The next stage in the struggle is marked by the attempt to substitute a public written law for unwritten usage.
The proposal of C. Terentilius Arsa (462 B.C.) to
appoint a plebeian commission to draw up laws restricting
the powers of the consuls[3] was resolutely opposed by the patricians.
but after ten years of bitter party strife a compromise was
effected. A commission of ten patricians was appointed, who
should frame and publish a code of law binding equally
292.
The Decemvirate.
on both the orders. These decemviri were to be the
sole and supreme magistrates for the year, and the law
of appeal was suspended in their favour.[4] The code which they
promulgated, the famous XII. Tables, owed little of its importance
to any novelties or improvements contained in its provisions.
For the most part it seems merely to have reaffirmed existing
usages and laws (see Roman Law). But it imposed, as it was intended
to do, a check on the arbitrary administration of justice by
the magistrates. With the publication of the code the proper
work of the decemvirs was finished; nevertheless, for the next
year a fresh decemvirate was elected, and it is conceivable that
the intention was permanently to substitute government by
an irresponsible patrician “council of ten” for the old
constitution.[5]
However this may have been, the tyranny of the
decemvirs themselves was fatal to the continuance of their
power. We are told of a second secession of the plebs, this time
to the Janiculum, and of negotiations with the senate, the
result of which was the enforced abdication of the decemvirs.
The plebs joyfully chose for themselves tribunes, and in the
comitia centuriata two consuls were created. But this restoration
of the old régime was accompanied by legislation which
Valerio-Horatian laws.
made it an important crisis in the history of the
struggle between the orders. With the fall of the
decemvirate this struggle enters upon a new phase.
The tribunes appear as at once more powerful and more strictly
constitutional magistrates; the plebeian concilia take their
place by the side of the older assemblies; and finally this improved
machinery is used not simply in self-defence against
patrician oppression but to obtain complete political equality.
This change was no doubt due in part to circumstances outside
legislation, above all to the expansion of the Roman state,
which swelled the numbers and added to the social importance
of the plebs as compared with the dwindling forces of the close
corporation of patrician gentes. Still the legislation of 449
clearly involved more than a restoration of the old form of
government. The Valerio-Horatian laws, besides reaffirming
the right of appeal and the inviolability of the tribunes, improved
the position of the plebeian assemblies by enacting
that plebiscita passed in them, and, as seems probable, approved
by the patres, should be binding on patricians as well as
plebeians.[6]
By this law the tribunes obtained a recognized initiative in
legislation. Henceforth the desired reforms were introduced
and carried by tribunes in what were now styled comitia
tributa, and, if sanctioned by the patres, became laws of the
state. From this period, too, must be dated the legalization
at any rate of the tribune's right to impeach any citizen before
the assembly of the tribes.[7] Henceforward there is no question
of the tribune's right to propose to the plebs to impose a fine,
or of the validity of the sentence when passed. The efficiency
of these new weapons of attack was amply proved by the subsequent
course of the struggle. Only a few years after the Valerio-Horatian
legislation came the lex Canuleia, itself a plebiscitum
Lex Canuleia. 309.
(445 B.C.), by which mixed marriages between patricians
and plebeians were declared lawful, and the social Canuleia.
exclusiveness of the patriciate broken down. In the
same year with this measure, and like it in the interests primarily
of the wealthier plebeians, a vigorous attack commenced on the
Leges Liciniae Sextiae. 387.
patrician monopoly of the consulate, and round this
stronghold of patrician ascendancy the conflict raged
until the passing of the Licinian laws in 367. The
original proposal of the tribune Gaius Canuleius, in
445, that the people should be allowed to elect a plebeian consul
was evaded by a compromise. The senate resolved that for
the next year, in the stead of consuls, six military tribunes
with consular-powers should be elected,[8] and that the new
office should be open to patricians and plebeians alike. The
consulship was thus for the time saved from pollution, as the
patricians phrased it, but the growing strength of the plebs is
shown by the fact that in fifty years out of the seventy-eight
310–88.
between 444 and 366 they succeeded in obtaining the
election of consular tribunes rather than of consuls.
Despite, however, these discouragernents, the patricians fought
on. Each year they strove to secure the creation of consuls rather
than consular tribunes, and failing this strained every nerve to
secure for their own order at least a majority among the latter.
319.
Even the institution of the censorship (435), though
rendered desirable by the increasing importance and
complexity of the census, was, it is probable, due in part to their
desire to discount beforehand the threatened loss of the consulship
by diminishing its powers.[9] Other causes, too, helped to
protract the struggle. Between the wealthier plebeians, who
were ambitious of high office, and the poorer, whose minds were
set rather on allotments of land, there was a division of interest
of which the patricians were not slow to take advantage, and
to this must be added the pressure of war. The death struggle
with Veii and the sack of Rome by the Gauls absorbed for the
377.
time all the energies of the community. In 377,
however, two of the tribunes, C. Licinius Stolo (see
Licinius Stolo, Gaius) and L. Sextius, came forward with proposals which
united all sections of the plebs in their support. Their proposals
were as follows:[10] (1) that consuls and not consular tribunes
be elected; (2) that one consul at least should be a plebeian;
(3) that the priestly college, which had the charge of the
Sibylline books, should consist of ten members instead of
two, and that of these half should be plebeians; (4) that no
single citizen should hold in occupation more than 500 acres
of the common lands, or pasture upon them more than 100 head
of cattle and 500 sheep; (5) that all landowners should employ
a certain amount of free as well as slave labour on their estates;
(6) that interest already paid on debts should be deducted
from the principal, and the remainder paid off in three years.
The three last proposals were obviously intended to meet the
- ↑ Livy ii. 56, 60; Dionys. ix. 41; Schwegler ii. 54l; Soltau 493.
- ↑ For theories as to the original mode of appointing tribunes see Mommsen, Forsch. i. 185, Staatsr. ii. 274 sqq.
- ↑ Livy iii. 9.
- ↑ Ibid. iii. 32.
- ↑ On the disputed question of the date of the XII. Tables see Pais, Storia di Roma, vol. i. chap. iv., and Greenidge, Eng. Hist. Review (1905), pp. 1 sqq.
- ↑ Livy iii. 55. “quum veluti in controverso jure esset, tenerenturne patres plebiscitis legem comitiis centuriatis tulere, ut quod tributim plebs jussisset populum teneret, qua lege tribuniciis rogationibus telum acerrimum datum est.” What were the precise conditions under which a plebiscitum became law can only be conjectured. The control of the patres over legislation certainly remained effective until 287 B.C. (See below.)
- ↑ After the decemvirate, the tribunes no longer pronounce capital sentences. They propose fines, which are confirmed by the comitia tributa.
- ↑ Livy iv. 6; cf. Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 181.
- ↑ Mommsen, Staatsrecht, ii. 331.
- ↑ Livy vi. 35, 42; Appian, B.C. i. 8.
