[2154] Livy xxxvii. 57. 7.
[2155] Livy xxxix. 55. 5. On the colonies of 181, see Livy xl. 29. 1; 34. 2; Vell. i. 15; CIL. i. 538, in which nothing is said either of the senate or of the people.
[2156] I. 41. 1.
[2157] P. 307, 311.
[2158] It was in the capacity of administrator of public property that the senate controlled this field. The only other instance of popular legislation in this period touching state economy was the plebiscite of M. Lucretius, 172 (Livy xlii. 19. 1 f.; cf. xxvii. 11. 8; Gran. Licin. xxviii), for renewing the tribunician law of 210, which directed the censors to farm the vectigalia of Campania; p. 337 above.—In 169 a tribunician rogation of P. Rutilius threatened to annul the censorial contracts (Livy xliii. 16. 6) as a rebuke to the censors for their arbitrary management of the business. When this object was secured, the bill was allowed to drop. It is true, as Ihne, Hist. of Rome, iv. 24, n. 1, remarks, that no one questioned the right of the people to cancel an administrative act of the censors; but it was quite another thing to find a college of tribunes unanimously disposed to interfere. The significant fact is that in all the time between the peace with Hannibal and the tribunate of Ti. Gracchus no important financial act was passed by the comitia.
[2159] Livy xxxv. 7; cf. Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 221, 660.
[2160] A rogatio Iunia concerning usury, known only through Cato’s opposition to it (Orat. vi), belongs to this period—perhaps to 195 (Livy xxxiv. 1. 4; xxxv. 41. 9 f.) or to 191 (Livy xxxvi. 2. 6).
[2161] Livy, ep. xli.
[2162] Cic. Verr. II. i. 41. 104 ff.; Rep. iii. 10. 17; Gaius ii. 274; Dio Cass. lvi. 10. 2; Pseud. Ascon. 188; Gell, vi (vii). 13; xx. i. 23; p. 90 above.
[2163] Gaius ii. 226 and Poste’s comment; Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 298, 660; Greenidge, Leg. Proced. 95, 128; Roby, Rom. Priv. Law, i. 345. It took the place of a lex Furia of earlier date for limiting to one thousand asses the amount which a legatee or, in view of death, a donee could accept; Gaius, ibid.; Karlowa, Röm. Rechtsgesch. ii. 940 ff. Voigt, Röm. Rechtsgesch. i. 502, places the lex Furia between 203 and 170.