The Roman assemblies from their origin to the end of the Republic

by George Willis Botsford

[1804] Livy vi. 35. 4 f.; 42. 9; xxxiv. 4. 9.

[1805] In his account of the Licinian-Sextian legislation he makes no mention of this last regulation, but assumes its existence for the following period; cf. p. 291 f., on aedilician prosecutions for violations of this article.

Other sources for the second Licinian-Sextian plebiscite are Varro, R. R. i. 2. 9; Plut. Cam. 39; Ti. Gracch. 8; Appian, B. C. i. 8. 33; Vell. ii. 6. 3; Val. Max. viii. 6. 3; (Aurel. Vict.), Vir. Ill. 20.

The statute, especially the agrarian portion, is discussed by Meyer, in Rhein. Mus. xxxvii (1882). 610-27; Niese, in Hermes, xxiii (1888). 410-23; Röm. Gesch. 55, 148; Soltau, in Hermes, xxx (1895). 624-9; Pais, Stor. di Rom. I. ii. 72 ff., 134 ff. Niese refuses to believe that this agrarian legislation came so early, and prefers a date shortly after the close of the war with Hannibal. Soltau, controverting Niese’s view, insists that the chief regulation mentioned by Livy—the limitation of occupation to five hundred iugera—belongs to Licinius and Sextius, and that the article was afterward renewed, with the addition of the other provisions stated by Appian, probably about the time of the Hortensian legislation. Against the earlier date is especially urged the circumstance that the large number of iugera allowed to the individual is incongruous with the narrow limits of the Roman territory at that time. The provision for the relief of debtors, too, has the appearance of an anticipation of a plebiscite on the same subject passed in 447; p. 298 below; cf. Matzat, Röm. Chron. ii. 113, n. 9; 128, n. 6.

[1806] Livy vii. 15. 12 f.; Isler, Ueber das poetelische Gesetz de ambitu, in Rhein. Mus. xxviii (1873). 473-7; Lange, Kleine Schriften, ii. 195-213; Röm. Alt. i. 716; Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 241 f.; Ihm, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. i. 1801; cf. p. 295 above.

[1807] P. 202.

[1808] P. 235, 314.

[1809] Livy vii. 16. 7 f.; cf. Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 246-8; Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 191; ii. 26, 621.

[1810] Livy vii. 16. 8.

[1811] Livy vii. 16. 1. Two laws of 356 have a certain degree of financial interest: the dictatorial law which made provision for an impending war (Livy vii. 17. 7); and the alleged resolution of the people (p. 293) to grant the same dictator the privilege of a triumph.