Lex Publiliae Leges

Lex Publiliae Leges carried B.C. 339 by the Dictator Q. Publilius Philo: their substance is thus described by Livy (8.12): Tres leges secundissimas plebei, adversas nobilitati tulit: unam ut plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent: alteram, ut legum quae comitiis centuriatis ferrentur, ante initum suffragium Patres auctores fierent: tertiam, ut alter utique ex plebe, quum eo ventum sit ut utrumque plebeium consulem fieri liceret, censor crearetur. The first of these seems to stand in connexion with one of the leges Valeriae Horatiae, B.C. 449, which enacted ut quod tributim plebs jussisset populum teneret (Liv. 3.55): i. e. it restored the Comitia Tributa after the second secession of the plebs, and perhaps also provided that plebiscita which had no constitutional import, or which related purely to matters of private law, should have the force of statute, even without subsequent confirmation or enactment by the centuries. In B.C. 339, the patricians having now brought themselves to take regular part in the business of the Comitia Tributa, confirmation by the centuries must have seemed a superfluity in any case; and accordingly the first Lex Publilia seems to have dispensed with it for all plebiscita whatsoever. They still, however, required to be sanctioned by the senate before they acquired complete validity; but the necessity of this seems to have been abolished by the Lex Hortensia, B.C. 287, which enacted ut eo jure, quod plebs statuisset, omnes Quirites tenerentur (Gaius, 1.3; Dig. 1, 2, 2, 8; Laelius Felix in Gel. 15.27; Plin. Nat. 16.37). There is, however, great difference of opinion as to the real import of, and the relation between, these three leges, which, if literally taken, seem all to have enacted the same thing. Walter (Geschichte des röm. Rechts, § 65) thinks that the last two dispensed with the senatorial confirmation of plebiscita which were not proposed ex senatus auctoritate; Niebuhr (2.415; 3.170, 171, 491), that the Lex Publilia did away with the necessity of confirmation by the Comitia Curiata, and that the senatorial approval was dispensed with by the Lex Hortensia: while Mommsen (Röm. Geschichte, 2.3) and Lange (1.469-473) take the accounts given to us literally, and hold the last two laws to be merely re-enactments of the Lex Valeria Horatia, which got rid of confirmation by the senate and the Comitia Curiata as well. The view adopted above is that of Puchta (Institutionen, § 59).

As to the meaning of the second Lex Publilia, there is also some difference of opinion, occasioned by our uncertainty as to the signification of Patres in the text of Livy cited above. According to one view, it simply re-affirmed the constitutional doctrine that no measure should be submitted for enactment to the Comitia Centuriata without having been previously approved by the senate: such re-affirmation seeming desirable in consequence of the recent changes in respect of plebiscita, which were sanctioned by the senate after, and not before, being passed by the Comitia Tributa. But Livy's remark that all the leges Publiliae were adversae nobilitati makes the view of Niebuhr more probable, that by Patres is meant the Comitia Curiata; the assent of which was by this statute reduced to a mere formality by the requirement that it should be given before the centuries had considered whether they should pass any given measure or not.

The third Publilian law requires no explanation. We read of a plebeian being censor as early as B.C. 351 (Liv. 7.22; 10.8, 8): but this statute required that one of the censors should always be selected from the plebs.