Leges Valeriae Horatiae

Leges Valeriae Horatiae carried B.C. 449 by the consuls L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus. The probable import of one of these, relating to the binding force of plebiscita, has been stated above [PUBLILIAE LEGES]. A second was intended to secure the principle of the Lex Valeria de provocatione, enacting ne quis ullum magistratum sine provocatione crearet: qui creasset eum jus fasque esset occidi, neve ea caedes capitalis noxae haberetur (Liv. 3.55: cf. Cic. de Rep. 2.31, 54). This principle was re-asserted again almost at once by the Lex Duilia (Liv. loc. cit.), and many years afterwards by a third Lex Valeria, passed by M. Valerius, consul B.C. 300, which Livy (10.9) says was armed with more precise sanctions quod plus paucorum opes quam libertas plebis poterant.

A third Lex Valeria Horatia made sacrosancti the persons of the plebeian tribunes and aediles and the judices decemviri (Liv. 3.55): anyone who violated the enactment being made sacer to Jupiter, and his property confiscated to the temple of Ceres and Liber. The judices decemviri seem not to be two separate classes of judges, but the collegium of decemvirs.