Lex Hortensia
The Lex Hortensia of 287 BC made resolutions of the plebeian assembly binding on the whole Roman people, and ended the Conflict of the Orders. The struggle had run for over two centuries. Rome's patricians monopolised the priesthoods, the magistracies and the interpretation of law; the plebeians had numbers, and the one weapon that mattered — the secessio, walking out of the city and refusing to serve in the army. They had used it repeatedly. The first secession around 494 BC won them the tribunes of the plebs, magistrates whose persons were sacrosanct and who could veto any act of state. The Twelve Tables were published around 450 BC so that the law could be read rather than pronounced. The Licinio-Sextian laws of 367 BC opened the consulship. The Lex Poetelia around 326 BC abolished debt bondage. The final secession came over debt again. The plebeians withdrew to the Janiculum, and the senate appointed Quintus Hortensius as dictator to settle it. His law removed the requirement that plebiscites be ratified by the senate or the patrician assembly. What the plebeian council passed was now law for everyone, patricians included, without further approval. In form it was a democratic revolution. In practice the plebeian leadership had by then merged with the old patricians into a new nobility of officeholding families, and the assemblies were structured so that wealth counted heavily. Rome gained a settled constitution and immediately used it to conquer Italy. The tribunate survived as an instrument the late republic's politicians used against each other, and Augustus took its powers for himself.
- Year: 287 BCE
- Category: Political
