Lex iudiciaria

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The Lex iudiciaria was a law of Gaius Sempronius Gracchus from 123/122 BC. BC, which reformed the judiciary of the Roman Republic in favor of the equestrian order and at the expense of the senators . However, whether this is one or more laws and whether this (s) law (s) included the entire judicial system or only related to the repetition procedure is still not clearly clarified in research.

The controversy results from the poor tradition of the lex iudicaria and is based on often inconsistent statements by historical authors and some parts of a bronze plaque (the so-called tabula Bembina ), which once carried a repetition law on one side, whereby the research is largely unanimous that this can be dated to the time of the tribunate of Gaius Gracchus.

The traditions can be divided into three groups. Plutarch speaks of adding three hundred knights to the list of judges, which had previously comprised three hundred senators. According to Livy , six hundred knights were admitted to the Senate and were given double weight in the Senate compared to the Senators. The third group includes Appian , Velleius Paterculus , Diodorus , Cicero , Florus and Varro , who speak of a complete transfer of jurisdiction from the senators to the knights. Here Appian mentions both that the reason for this measure are the bribery cases, through which the reputation of the courts would have suffered (repetition cases), and that the knights should be given all courts.

literature

  • Miriam Griffin : The 'Leges Iudiciariae' of the Pre-Sullan Era. In: The Classical Quarterly . Vol. 23, No. 1, 1973, pp. 108-126, JSTOR 638133 .
  • Robert J. Rowland, Jr .: C. Gracchus and the Equites. In: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. Vol. 96, 1965, ISSN  0065-9711 , pp. 361-373, JSTOR 283738 .
  • Karin Sion-Jenkis: From the Republic to the Principate. Causes for the constitutional change in Rome in historical thought of antiquity (= Palingenesia . 69). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-515-07666-2 , pp. 115 f., (Also: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1996).