[2558] Livy, ep. lxxxix; App. B. C. i. 100. 465; Sall. Hist. i. 55. 2.
[2559] P. 406 f.
[2560] Livy, ep. lxxxix: “Tribunorum plebis potestatem minuit, et omne ius legum ferendarum ademit.” We should infer from this statement, which is the sole authority for the view it presents, that he absolutely deprived the tribunes of legislative initiative, were it not that under his constitutional arrangements they actually proposed laws de senatus sententia; CIL. i. 204 (year 71); Bruns, Font. iur. p. 94; Dessau, Inscr. Lat. i. p. 11; Lange, Röm. Alt. iii. 154; Fröhlich, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 1559; Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 158; Lengle, Sull. Verf. 11; Drumann-Gröbe, Gesch. Roms, i. 390 f., 411. The conference between Sulla and Scipio, mentioned by Cic. Phil. xii. 11. 27, referred to this arrangement. Sunden, De rib. pot. imm. 10 ff. (cf. Long, Rom. Rep. ii. 399 ff.), holding that Sulla abolished the right of the tribunes to propose laws, refuses to accept 71 as the date of the epigraphic lex above mentioned.
It seems probable (Lange, Röm. Alt. iii. 175; Mommsen, Röm. Strafr. 654, n. 2), though it is not certain (Greenidge, Leg. Proced. 424, 430 f.), that the lex Plautia de vi was proposed by a tribune of 78 or 77 as the agent of Q. Lutatius Catulus, proconsul; Sall. Cat. 31; Schol. Bob. 368; Cic. Cael. 29. 70; p. 424 below. Probably the lex Plautia which recalled from exile L. Cornelius Cinna, brother-in-law of Caesar, and others who, having shared in the insurrection of Lepidus, had gone over to Sertorius, was a plebiscite de senatus sententia of 73; Suet. Caes. 5; Gell. xiii. 3. 5; Val. Max. vii. 7. 6; Dio Cass. xliv. 47. 4; Lange, Röm. Alt. iii. 185; Maurembrecher, Sall. Hist. Proleg. 78; Münzer, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 1287. Others assign the measure to 70; cf. Long, Rom. Rep. iii. 53. For other laws, see p. 424.
The statement of Livy’s epitomator concerning the lex Cornelia de tribunicia potestate would apply more accurately to the Cornelian-Pompeian law of 88; p. 406.
[2561] From Cic. Cluent. 40. 110 (cf. Long, Rom. Rep. ii. 400) we should infer that under the Cornelian government no tribunician contio was held; but we know that this is not true. In 76 a contio was summoned by L. Sicinius, tribune of the plebs; Orat. of Licinius Macer, in Sall. Hist. iii. 48. 8: “L. Sicinius primus de potestate tribunicia loqui ausus mussantibus vobis”; cf. Pseud. Ascon. 103; Plut. Caes. 7; Cic. Brut. 60. 216 f. In 74 the tribune Quinctius held contiones; Cic. Cluent. 34. 93; Sall. Hist. ibid. § 11. The oration of Licinius Macer, quoted by Sallust, Hist. iii. 48, is a tribunician harangue. Finally in 71 the tribune Palicanus held a contio outside the city that Pompey might attend; p. 426.
[2562] Cic. Verr. II. i. 60. 155: Q. Opimius was prosecuted in a finable action on the ground that as tribune in 75 (Pseud. Ascon. 200) he had interceded in violation of a Cornelian law, which must have fixed the fine. The statement of Caesar, B. C. i. 5. 1; 7. 3, that Sulla left the tribunes the right of intercession proves no more than that he did not wholly abolish it. Cf. further Sunden, De trib. pot. imm. 4; Drumann-Gröbe, Gesch. Roms, ii. 411, n. 10.
[2563] Cic. Verr. i. 13. 38: “Sublata populi Romani in unum quemque vestrum potestate.”
[2564] P. 245, 266, 315.
[2565] Cic. Leg. iii. 9. 22.