[1812] Tac. Ann. vi. 16; cf. Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 183, n. 3.
[1813] Livy vii. 21, 5; cf. Herzog. Röm. Staatsverf. i. 245. That the bank commission owed its existence to a law is an inference from the circumstances. The form of assembly is unknown. With this Valerian-Marcian law, 352, Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 621 f., conjecturally identifies the lex Marcia against usurers; Gaius iv. 23. In his opinion also (ibid. ii. 622; cf. Rudorff, Röm. Rechtsgesch. i. 51) the lex Furia de sponsu mentioned by Gaius, iii. 121; iv. 22, “discharging the sponsor and fide-promissor of liability in two years and limiting the liability of each to a proportionate part” (Poste’s interpretation) belongs to L. Furius, dictator in 345 (Livy vii. 28. 2); whereas others assign it to the year 95 (cf. Poste, Gai. Inst. 359) and others to a time subsequent to Cicero (cf. Roby, Rom. Priv. Law, ii. 30). It was later than the lex Appuleia de sponsu, which is referred to by Gaius iii. 122, and which must have been enacted after the establishment of the provincial system. It is to be attributed, accordingly, to the famous tribune of 103, 100 (Poste, ibid. 359) rather than to the like-named tribune of 390 (Livy v. 32. 8; Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 621). These considerations render the later dating of the lex Furia the more probable. The lex Publilia de sponsu, the date of which is also unknown, granted the surety (sponsor) an action against the principal debtor in case the latter failed to reimburse him within six months; Gaius iii. 127; iv. 22, cf. 171.
[1814] Livy vii. 27. 3; Tac. Ann. vi. 16. The author is not named.
[1815] P. 238.
[1816] Livy vii. 42. 1-3. Appian, B. C. i. 54, testifies to the existence of an ancient law forbidding interest; cf. Tac. Ann. vi. 16.
[1817] Pais, Stor. di Rom. I. ii. 270, with his usual acumen has argued against the existence of the Genucian as well as of the Publilian statute; but the reasons urged by this eminent scholar do not seem to me to be convincing. The period in which they fall is certainly within the reach of tradition. The abolition of debts through the Valerian law was in keeping with the populistic spirit of the masses in that age, as was the prohibition of interest.
[1818] Pais, Stor. di Rom. I. ii. 278, n. 4: “Thus C. Junius Bubulcus and Aemilius Barbula, consuls in 317, reappear in 311 B.C.; L. Papirius Cursor is consul in 320, 319, 315, 313; P. Decius is consul in 312 and in 308,” etc.; cf. further Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. i. 519, n. 5. It is true that on one occasion Livy, x. 13. 8 f. (298), speaks of the law and of a proposal of the tribunes to obtain a dispensation for the candidate Fabius by a vote of the people, oblivious of the violation of the law by this same Fabius as well as by many others.
[1819] Livy xxiii. 31. 13 f.; Plut. Marc. 12 (215). On that occasion when the people were told that the election of two plebeians as colleagues in the consulship was displeasing to the gods, they proceeded to choose a patrician in place of the second plebeian; cf. Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 253, n. 2. The first definitive election of two plebeians was in 172; Fast. Cos. Capit., in CIL. i². p. 25: “Ambo primi de plebe.”
[1820] Cf. Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. i. 253.
[1821] Livy viii. 12. 14-16.