[1597] Livy iii. 55. 10: (In the opinion of some iuris interpretates) “Tribunos vetere iure iurando plebis, cum primum eam potestatem creavit, sacrosanctos esse.”
[1598] Fest. 318; Livy iii. 55. 6-10; Dion. Hal. vi. 89. 3. The wording of the oath as given above is derived from the law which, according to Livy, was carried by the consuls Valerius and Horatius in 449; but there can be no doubt that this statute confirmed the oath taken long before by the plebs. As to the connection of Ceres with the plebeian organization, Pais, Anc. Italy, 272 ff., believes that her temple was not built before the middle of the fifth century, whereas Wissowa, Relig. u. Kult. d. Röm. 45, holds to the traditional date (493); cf. De Sanctis, Storia d. Romani, ii. 30. The building of the temple did not necessarily precede the institution of the tribunate. On the sacrosanctitas of the aediles, see Cato, in Fest. 318. 8; Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 472 f.
[1599] As late as 131 a tribune of the plebs, C. Atinius Labeo, regarding the censor Q. Caecilius Metellus as a homo sacer for alleged violation of the tribunician sanctity, attempted without legal trial to hurl him from the Tarpeian Rock; Livy, ep. lix; Pliny, N. H. vii. 44. 142 f., 146; Cic. Dom. 47. 123. See also Vell. ii. 24. 2; (Aurel. Vict.) Vir. Ill. 66. 8.
[1600] Cic. Balb. 14. 33; Fest. 318. 9; Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 147; also in Jahrb. f. cl. Philol. xxii (1876). 139-50; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 286. Ihne, in Rhein. Mus. xxi (1866). 176, expresses the belief that the lex sacrata had nothing more than a religious influence, that the offender suffered in his conscience and in public opinion only. The known leges sacratae, collected by Herzog, were (1) the first Valerian law of appeal; Livy ii. 8. 2 (cf. ii. 1. 9); (2) the act which rendered the persons of the tribunes sacred, and which, as intimated above, was not strictly a statute; Livy ii. 33. 1, 3; Fest. 318. 30; Dion. Hal. vi. 89. 2; Cic. Frag. A. vii. 48; (3) the lex de Aventino; Livy iii. 31. 1; 32. 7; Dion. Hal. x. 32. 4; (4) the Valerian-Horatian law of appeal; Livy iii. 55. 4; (5) the military lex sacrata of 342; Livy vii. 41. 3; (6) the law of M. Antonius for the abolition of the dictatorship, 44; Appian, B. C. iii. 25. 94; Dio Cass. xliv. 51. 2.
[1601] Pais, Anc. Italy, 263.
[1602] Dion. Hal. vi. 84, 89. 1; cf. vii. 40; xi. 55. 3; Fest. 318; Livy iv. 6. 7. The idea that there was such a treaty is represented among moderns by Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. ii. 249 f.; Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 591; ii. 566, and opposed by Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 146 f.; De Sanctis, Storia d. Romani, ii. 29.
[1603] Plut. Ti. Gracch. 15; Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 287, n. 1. The fictitious character of the legal basis on which the plebeians are represented as acting in this early period of their history may be illustrated, as Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 299, n. 3, has pointed out, by their assumption of the agrarian proposal of Sp. Cassius as one of their fundamental principles, the application of which neither magistrates nor private individuals were at liberty to impede; cf. Livy ii. 54, 61; Dion. Hal. ix. 37, 54; Schwegler, Röm. Gesch. ii. 480, 531, 567. The fault is not all with the annalists.
[1604] P. 274.
[1605] Livy, ep. lviii; Plut. Ti. Gracch. 10.
[1606] Plut. C. Gracch. 3.