Note 2560 — Chapter XVII · COMITIAL LEGISLATION From Sulla to the End of the Republic, 82 to about 30

Livy, ep. lxxxix: “Tribunorum plebis potestatem minuit, et omne ius legum ferendarum ademit.” We should infer from this statement, which is the sole authority for the view it presents, that he absolutely deprived the tribunes of legislative initiative, were it not that under his constitutional arrangements they actually proposed laws de senatus sententia; CIL. i. 204 (year 71); Bruns, Font. iur. p. 94; Dessau, Inscr. Lat. i. p. 11; Lange, Röm. Alt. iii. 154; Fröhlich, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 1559; Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 158; Lengle, Sull. Verf. 11; Drumann-Gröbe, Gesch. Roms, i. 390 f., 411. The conference between Sulla and Scipio, mentioned by Cic. Phil. xii. 11. 27, referred to this arrangement. Sunden, De rib. pot. imm. 10 ff. (cf. Long, Rom. Rep. ii. 399 ff.), holding that Sulla abolished the right of the tribunes to propose laws, refuses to accept 71 as the date of the epigraphic lex above mentioned.

It seems probable (Lange, Röm. Alt. iii. 175; Mommsen, Röm. Strafr. 654, n. 2), though it is not certain (Greenidge, Leg. Proced. 424, 430 f.), that the lex Plautia de vi was proposed by a tribune of 78 or 77 as the agent of Q. Lutatius Catulus, proconsul; Sall. Cat. 31; Schol. Bob. 368; Cic. Cael. 29. 70; p. 424 below. Probably the lex Plautia which recalled from exile L. Cornelius Cinna, brother-in-law of Caesar, and others who, having shared in the insurrection of Lepidus, had gone over to Sertorius, was a plebiscite de senatus sententia of 73; Suet. Caes. 5; Gell. xiii. 3. 5; Val. Max. vii. 7. 6; Dio Cass. xliv. 47. 4; Lange, Röm. Alt. iii. 185; Maurembrecher, Sall. Hist. Proleg. 78; Münzer, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 1287. Others assign the measure to 70; cf. Long, Rom. Rep. iii. 53. For other laws, see p. 424.

The statement of Livy’s epitomator concerning the lex Cornelia de tribunicia potestate would apply more accurately to the Cornelian-Pompeian law of 88; p. 406.