Lex Hortensia
Passed during a secession of the plebs under the dictator Quintus Hortensius, the Lex Hortensia removed the requirement that plebiscites be ratified by the Senate, granting the concilium plebis full legislative authority over patricians and plebeians alike. The law is conventionally treated as the closing act of the two-century Struggle of the Orders, integrating the plebeian leadership into the governing class and producing the patricio-plebeian nobility that would dominate the middle Republic. Structurally the reform did not abolish the tension between senatorial oligarchy and popular politics so much as redirect it onto new ground, where it would re-emerge with the Gracchi and the late-Republican crisis.
- Year: 287 BCE
- Category: Political
