Lex Licinia Sextia

The Lex Licinia Sextia, also known as the Licinian Rogations, was a series of laws proposed by the tribunes of the plebs Lucius Sextius Lateranus and Gaius Licinius Stolo. These laws provided for a limit on the interest rate of loans and a restriction on private ownership of land. A third law which provided for one of the two consuls to be a plebeian was rejected. Two of these laws were passed in 368 BC, after they had been elected and re-elected tribunes for nine consecutive years and had successfully prevented the election of patrician magistrates for five years (375-370 BC). In 367 BC, during their tenth tribunate, this law was passed. In the same year they also proposed a fourth law regarding the priests who were the custodians of the sacred Sibylline Books. These laws and the long struggle to pass them were part of the two hundred year conflict of the orders between the patrician aristocracy and the plebeians, who made up most of the Roman populace. This conflict was one of the major influences on the internal politics of Rome during the first two centuries of the Roman Republic.

According to Livy, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius proposed three bills before the Plebeian Council (the assembly of the plebeians) in 375 BC. Two of them concerned land and debt (which were two issues which greatly affected the plebeians) and the third concerned the termination of the military tribunes with consular power (often referred to as consular tribunes), who had periodically replaced the consuls as the heads of the Republic (444, 438, 434-32, 426-24, 422, 420-14, 408-394 and 391-76 BC), the restoration of consuls and the admission of plebeians to the consulship by providing that one of the two consuls was to be a plebeian. The latter proposal created fierce opposition by the patricians, who held vast political power by monopolising the consulship and the seats of the senate, thinking that, as aristocrats, this was their sole prerogative, and abhorred the idea of sharing power with the plebeians. They persuaded other plebeian tribunes to veto voting on this bill. In retaliation, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius vetoed the election of the consular tribunes for five years, until 370 BC, when they relented because the Volscian town of Velitrae had attacked the territory of Rome and one of her allies. The election of consular tribunes resumed. With the soldiers engaged in the siege of Velitrae, the voting on the bills had to be postponed. Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius proposed a fourth bill regarding the sacred Sibylline Books.

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