Note 2158 — Chapter XV · COMITIAL LEGISLATION From Hortensius to the Gracchi 287-134

It was in the capacity of administrator of public property that the senate controlled this field. The only other instance of popular legislation in this period touching state economy was the plebiscite of M. Lucretius, 172 (Livy xlii. 19. 1 f.; cf. xxvii. 11. 8; Gran. Licin. xxviii), for renewing the tribunician law of 210, which directed the censors to farm the vectigalia of Campania; p. 337 above.—In 169 a tribunician rogation of P. Rutilius threatened to annul the censorial contracts (Livy xliii. 16. 6) as a rebuke to the censors for their arbitrary management of the business. When this object was secured, the bill was allowed to drop. It is true, as Ihne, Hist. of Rome, iv. 24, n. 1, remarks, that no one questioned the right of the people to cancel an administrative act of the censors; but it was quite another thing to find a college of tribunes unanimously disposed to interfere. The significant fact is that in all the time between the peace with Hannibal and the tribunate of Ti. Gracchus no important financial act was passed by the comitia.