Lex Mamilia Roscia Peducaea Alliena Fabia

vol. XII p.2397

Lex Mamilia Roscia Peducaea Alliena Fabia

See Vančura above, p.1185. Fabricius has published a more accurate survey in S.-Ber. Akad. Heidelb. 1924/5, 1st. ed. Up to now [= 1925], there are five different viewpoints concerning this law:

1. Mommsen Ges. Schrift. V 200 sees the L. M. as Caesar’s law from 59. Vančura follows him, as well as Cichorius for the most part.

2. Rudorff Ztschr. f. gesch. Rechtsw. IX nr. 12 traces it back to Caligula.

3. Willems Le sénat I 497 traces it back to the five tribunes of the plebs in 55. <10>

4. Cary Journ. of Philol. XXXV 184 traces it back to the five praetors of 49.

5. Cichorius Röm. Studien 124 only links the law L. M. named in Cic. leg. I 55 to C. Mamilius Limetanus tr. pl. 109 (see there), who gets his cognomen from it, and instead attributes Caesar as the author the five-man-law referred to by the Gromatici.

Of the law, only sections 53-55 are now extant, and these make it clear to us that this was a law of significant influence. <20> Since Cicero makes a simple reference to it at the end of the 50s, implying the law to be already well known, it must have been passed a reasonable amount of time earlier. This would also line up with the reference to its sermo antiquus (Agenn. 27, 6 Th.). After Caesar’s radical legislation (see vol. X p.197, vol. XII p.1184), such a wide-reaching law as the L. M. would also have been impossible. The five authors it was named after can only refer to tribunes of the plebs, and these must have been the colleagues of Mamilius Limetanus in 109. <30> It is generally agreed that the C · F · L · R · on coins from 124-103 refer to a C. Fabius and a L. Roscius (Babelon I 485 nr. 12f.). Peducaeus is Sex. Ped. (see there), whose tribunate has previously been falsely placed in the year 113. This tribunes belonged to the populares, who proposed this bill against their optimate colleagues. This law also fits very neatly into the circumstances that followed the Lex of 111 (above p. 1179). <40> It required limitatio and terminatio for all of the estates owned by the optimates that had been declared ager publicus, and protected smaller landowners from being encroached upon. It transferred the authority over all disputes that arose from the limitatio to curatores once again, who were probably the Gracchiani iudices whom the people had elected. <50> Most importantly, it regulated the matter of what territory owned those parts of the ager publicus which had fallen into private hands: this land was no longer simply seized (which was a good thing for those who owned estates). Instead, it was passed over to the territories that bordered it, and their magistrates took on the duty of adjudicating this once this law was passed. This was also an important step in the direction of turning territories with partial citizenship into those with full citizenship (Mommsen St.-R. III 575).

[Kroll.]

This article is referenced by: Limitatio, C. Mamilius Limetanus (7)