Lex Ovinia
Lex Ovinia enacted probably circ. B.C. 312: apparently assigned to the censors the function of selecting the senate, but required them to choose the persons best qualified without distinction between patricians and plebeians (Festus, p. 246). Perhaps the strict meaning of Festus' text is that on coming into office they revised the list of the senate, those whose names were passed over ipso facto losing their seats (Hoffmann, Röm. Senat, pp. 3-18).
The nature of the Lex Ovinia mentioned by Gaius (4.109) is unknown.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.