313] INTRODUCTION 1 5 



cided by the acceptance of the lex Valeria-Horatia of 449, 

 to give the plebiscitum the validity of law binding upon all 

 Roman citizens, provided, of course, that the plebiscitum, 

 with the consent of the Senate, was laid before, and adopted 

 by, the comitia centuriata and then given the aiictoritas 

 patrum in the Senate.^^ Thus, after all, it was the post 

 festum ratification by the Senate which made the plebiscite 

 law for all Romans. However, as Borgeaud states, " dur- 

 ing this new period in general all the plebiscites obtain the 

 formal, even though more or less bought, adhesion of the 

 Senate."^* Thus the plehs, for all practical purposes, suc- 

 ceeded in making its will supreme for all Rome through 

 the enforced sanction of its decisions by the Senate. 



Attempts were of course made to check this legislative 

 supremacy of the plehs. A little more than a hundred years 

 after the passage of the lex Valeria-Horatia the reforms of 

 Quintus Publius Philo effected a considerable modification 

 of the power of the plehs in favor of the practically dis- 

 franchised patricians. The lex Valeria-Horatia had won for 

 the plebiscitum legal validity for all Romans. The will of 

 the plehs generally secured the auctoritas patrum. The lex 

 Ptiblilia Philonis of 339, still held the plebiscitum to be law 

 for all the Romans, but this law stipulated, so it seems, 

 that the tribiini plehis henceforth must solicit the consent 

 of the Senate {patrum auctoritatem) before they could sub- 

 mit any proposed law to the vote of the plehs. Such at 

 least is the theory entertained by M. Willems^^ and accepted 

 by Borgeaud. However, in the course of time the plehs 

 refused to abide by this limitation of its acquired preroga- 

 tives. If and when the Senate refused its auctoritas in 

 advance to those matters which the plehs wished to do or 

 to have done, the latter did not hesitate to enforce its will 



!• " Ut quod tributim plebes iussisset, populum teneret " (Livius, 

 bk. Ill, 55). See also Madvijf, quoted by Borgeaud, p. 130, note i; 

 WillouKliby, The Political Theories of the Ancient World, New 

 York, London, 1903, pp. 235-236. 



>* HorKeaud, p. 132. 



" Ibid., pp. 133-137- 



