Publiliae Leges
Three laws carried B.C. 339 by the dictator Q. Publilius Philo: their substance is
described by Livy (viii. 12). The first of them seems to stand in connection with one of the
leges Valeriae Horatiae (B.C. 449) which enacted
ut quod
tributim plebs iussisset populum teneret (
Livy, iii.
55)—i. e. it restored the Comitia Tributa after the second secession of the
plebs, and perhaps also provided that plebiscita which had no constitutional import, or which
related purely to matters of private law, should have the force of statute, even without
subsequent confirmation or enactment by the centuries. In B.C. 339, the patricians having now
brought themselves to take regular part in the business of the Comitia Tributa, confirmation
by the centuries must have seemed a superfluity in any case; and accordingly the first Lex
Publilia seems to have dispensed with it for all plebiscita whatsoever. They still, however,
required to be sanctioned by the Senate before they acquired complete validity; but the
necessity of this seems to have been abolished by the Lex Hortensia (B.C. 287), which enacted
ut eo iure, quod plebs statuisset, omnes Quirites tenerentur (
Gaius, i. 3; Dig. 1, 2, 2, 8; Laelius Felix in
Gell. xv. 27; Pliny ,
Pliny H. N. xvi.
37). There is, however, great difference of opinion as to the real import of, and the
relation between, these three leges, which, if literally taken, seem all to have enacted the
same thing. See Walter,
Geschichte des röm. Rechts. 65.