Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

LEGES PUBLILIAE.

233

LEX ROSCIA.

wished. This measure was violently opposed
by the patricians, who prevented the tribes
from coming to any resolution respecting it
throughout this year; but in the following
year, b. c. 471, Publilius was re-elected tri-
bune, and together with him C. Laetorius, a
man of still greater resolution than Publilius.
Fresh measures were added to the former
proposition : the aediles were to be chosen
by the tribes, as well as the tribunes, and the
tribes were to be competent to deliberate and
determine on all matters affecting the whole
nation, and not such only as might concern
the plebes. This proposition, though still
more violently resisted by the patricians than
the one of the previous year, was carried.
Some said that the number of the tribunes
was now for the first time raised to five, hav-
ing been_only two previously.

PUBLILIAE, proposed by the dictator Q.
Publilius Philo, b. c. 339. According to
Livy, there were three Publiliae Leges. 1.
The first is said to have enacted, that plebis-
cita should bind all Quirites, which is to the
same purport as the Lex Hortensia of b. c.
286. It is probable, however, that the object
of this law was to render the approval of the
senate a sufficient confirmation of a plebisci-
tum, and to make the confirmation of the
curiae unnecessary. 2. The second law
enacted, tit legum quae comitiis centuriatis
ferrerentur ante itiitum suffragium patres
auctores fierent. By patres Livy here means
the curiae ; and accordingly this law made
the confirmation of the curiae a mere for-
mality in reference to all laws submitted to
the comitia centuriata, since every law pro-
posed by the senate to the centuries was to
be considered to have the sanction of the
curiae also. 3. The third law enacted that
one of the two censors should necessarily be
a plebeian. It is probable that there was
also a fourth law, which applied the Licinian
law to the praetorship as well as to the cen-
sorship, and which provided that in each
alternate year the praetor should be a
plebeian.

PUPIA, mentioned by Cicero, seems to
have enacted that the senate could not meet
on comitiales dies.

QUIXTIA, was a lex proposed by T. Quin-
tius Crispinus, consul b. c. 9, for the preser-
vation of the aquaeductus.

REGIA. A Lex Regia during the kingly
period of Roman history might have a two-
fold meaning. In the first place it was a
law which had been passed by the comitia
under the presidency of the king, and was
thus distinguished from a Lex Tribunicia,
which was passed by the comitia under the
presidency of the tribunus celerum. In later

times all laws, the origin of which was attri-
buted to the time of the kings, were called
Leges Segiae, though it by no means follows
that they were all passed under the presi-
dency of the kings, and much less, that they
were enacted by the kings without the sanc-
tion of the curies. Some of these laws were
preserved and followed at a very late period
of Roman history. A collection of them was
made, though at what time is uncertain, by
Papisius or Papirius, and this compilation
was called the Jus Civile Papirianum or Pa-
pisianum. The second meaning of Lex Regia
during the kingly period was undoubtedly
the same as that of the Lex Curiata de Im-
perio. [Imperium.] This indeed is not
mentioned by any ancient writer, but must
be inferred from the Lex Regia which we
meet with under the empire, for the name
could scarcely have been invented then ; it
must have come down from early times, when
its meaning was similar, though not nearly
so extensive. During the empire the curies
continued to hold their meetings, though they
were only a shadow of those of former times ;
and after the election of a new emperor,
they conferred upon him the imperium in
the ancient form by a Lex Curiata de Im-
perio, which was now usually called Lex
Regia. The imperium, however, which this
Regia Lex conferred upon an emperor, was
of a very different nature from that which in
former times it had conferred upon the kings.
It now embraced all the rights and powers
which the populus Romanus had formerly
possessed, so that the emperor became what
formerly the populus had been, that is, the
sovereign power in the state. A fragment of
such a lex regia, conferring the imperium
upon Vespasian, engraved upon a brazen
table, is still extant in the Lateral! at Rome.
REMN1A. [Calumnia.]
REPETUXDXRUM. [Repetundae.]
RHODIA. The Rhodians had a maritime
code which was highly esteemed. Some of
its provisions were adopted by the Romans,
and have thus been incorporated into the
maritime law of European states. It was
not, however, a lex in the proper sense of
the term.

ROSCIA THEATRALIS, proposed by the
tribune L. Roscius Otho, b.c. 67, which gave
the equites a special place at the public
spectacles in fourteen rows or seats (in qua-
tuordecim gradibus sive ordinibus) next to
the place of the senators, which was in the
orchestra. This lex also assigned a certain
place to spendthrifts. The phrase sedere in
quatuordecim ordinibus is equivalent to hav-
ing the proper census equestris which was
required by the lex. There are numerous