Lex Hortensia

In Roman law, Lex Hortensia (287 BCE) was the final result of the long class struggle between patricians and plebeians, where the plebeians would periodically secede from the city in protest when they felt the were deprived of their rights. The secession of 287 would prove to be the final one, because in response the dictator Quintus Hortensius sponsored a law which gave the Plebeian Council the right to enact laws (plebiscites) that were not subject to vetoes by the senate. The Plebeian Council had already acquired the right to pass laws that were binding on both Plebeians and Patricians (in 449 BC), but up until this point, plebiscites were subject to vetoes by the Patrician senators (through the auctoritas patrum, or "authority of the fathers" or "authority of the Patrician senators"). This law also ended this requirement for laws (legres) passed by the Tribal Assembly, but not for the Century Assembly. Because the law was sponsored by Quintus Hortensius, it became known as the Lex Hortensia, or "the Hortensian law."

This law should not be viewed as the final triumph of democracy over aristocracy, since, through its close relations with the Plebeian Tribunes, the senate could still control the Plebeian Council. Thus, the ultimate significance of this law was in the fact that it robbed the Patricians of their final weapon over the Plebeians. The result was that the ultimate control over the state fell, not onto the shoulders of democracy, but onto the shoulders of the new Patricio-Plebeian senatorial aristocracy.

Other laws concerning the status of plebeians were:

• Lex Canuleia (445 BCE)
• Leges Liciniae Sextiae (367 BCE)
• Lex Ogulnia (300 BCE)

See also

• List of Roman laws
• Conflict of the Orders

References

• Abbott, Frank Frost (1901). A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. Elibron Classics. ISBN 0-543-92749-0.

External links

• The Roman Law Library, incl. Leges