Lex Thoria

Lex Thoria This agrarian law, proposed by a tribune named Sp. Thorius, is mentioned by Cicero (Cic. Brut. 36, 136; de Orat. 2.70, 284) and Appian (App. BC 1.27), and was one of three statutes by which such provisions of the Lex Agraria of C. Gracchus as had not been repealed by M. Livius Drusus were abrogated (Appian, loc. cit.). The first, whose author is unknown, was passed B.C. 121, and apparently confirmed the enactment attributed above [SEMPRONIA AGRARIA] to Drusus, which permitted the sale of lands assigned to the poorer citizens under the law of Gracchus: the second (Lex Thoria), B.C. 119 or 118, prohibited all future distributions of ager publicus, abolished the triumviri agris dandis assignandis established by Tiberius Gracchus, and confirmed the old possessores in their holdings subject to the payment of a tax (vectigal), which was to be divided among the needier citizens in lieu of land: the third (B.C. 111), possibly proposed by: the tribune C. Baebius (Sall. Jug. 32, 33), relieved the possessores of this tax altogether.

The relation of these leges to one another is connected with the fragments of an extant bronze tablet, containing inscriptions on both sides: on one, parts of the Lex Servilia de repetundis (the chief authority on which is Klenze's work); on the other, parts of a Lex Agraria. The largest and most important of the fragments is now in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. The Lex Agraria was cut on the rough back of the tablet, the smooth side of which was intended for and occupied by the Lex Servilia; and the agrarian law being considerably longer than the latter, the characters [on the reverse side] are remarkably small, the lines narrow, the abbreviations numerous, and the chapters only separated by two or three points, whereas on the other side the letters are uniform, large, and well made, the lines wide, the words written at full length, and the chapters of the lex separated by superscriptions... Further, the lines of the Agraria Lex are often so oblique that they cross the straight lines on the opposite side, which are cut very deep, and consequently are visible on the side on which the agrarian law is cut (Rudorff).

The main subject of the lex, to which the first eighteen chapters or forty-three lines refer, is the public land in Italy as far as the rivers Rubico and Macra. Its second part, covering fifty-three lines, relates to land both public and private in the province of Africa: the final portion to the Roman public land in the territory of Corinth. Rudorff (Zeitschrift für rechtsgesch. Wissenschaft, vol. x. pp. 1-194) is of opinion that the lex applied to other land also, and for two reasons. First, the Roman agrarian laws of the seventh century of the city (e. g. the Lex Servilia of Rullus) apparently related to all the provinces of the Empire. Secondly, the fragment of this lex, which is preserved, is so broad compared with its height that the whole tablet may be concluded to have contained three times as much as the portion which we have: for nearly all the bronze tablets, on which Roman laws are cut, are oblong in form, with the height much greater than the width. Of the two-thirds of the tablet which he supposes to have been lost, no trace has yet been discovered.

Rudorff, in his essay on this lex (written in 1839), identified it with the Lex Thoria, by which name it was known for some considerable time. But more recently (Röm. Rechtsgeschichte, 1.16: cf. his note in Puchta's Institutionen, § 72, l) he has accepted the conclusion of Mommsen (Berichte der Sächs. Gesellschaft, 1850, p. 92) that it really is the third of the leges above mentioned, which possibly was a Lex Baebia. It is certainly said by Cicero (Cic. Brut. 36, 136) that Sp. Thorius agrum publicum vitiosa et inutili lege vectigali levavit; but this Mommsen renders relieved the ager publicus of the useless agrarian law of Gracchus by imposing on it a vectigal. The 19th and 20th lines of the lex on the tablet (which decree the repeal of the vectigalia) seem to be conclusive in favour of this and against Rudorff's earlier theory.

The extant text of this statute is printed by Mommsen, Inscr. Lat. No. 200, and by Rudorff in the essay referred to: cf. Huschke, Kritisches Jahrbuch, 1841, pp. 579-620; Zumpt, Comment. Epigraph. 1850, pp.: 205-221; and Walter, Geschichte des röm. Rechts, § 252, and note 69 ib.