Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/80

 CHAPTER V.

THE LICINIO-SEXTIAN LAW AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PLEBEIANS IN THE GOVERNMENT, 367-312 B.C.

I. The Enactment, Character, and Results of the Licinio-Sextian Law.

The Bill of Licinius and Sextius. — The aristocratic plebeians had now had ample opportunity to realize by experience that they would never become the political equals of the patricians unless they gained the support of the rank and file of their order. The plebeians of the middle and lower classes probably saw that at the hands of the patricians they would never secure a fair share of the public lauds or any substantial improvement in the law of debt. Their own hardships and distress must have been the more galling when they saw that extensive territories were left to the members of the governing class for exploitation. Two members of the plebeian aristocracy, Gaius Licinius Stolo, and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, perceived that there was an excellent opportunity to obtain united and hence effective action on the part of all plebeians; and with this end in view they secured their own election as plebeian tribunes for 377. They set forth their policy in one comprehensive bill as follows: consular tribunes should henceforward never be elected, and at least one of the consuls was to be a plebeian; secondly, no one should occupy more than three hundred and eleven acres (500 jugera) of arable public land, or keep more than one hundred head of cattle and five hundred sheep in the public pastures;