Published: 2022-08-20

‘Leges’ and ‘privilegia’ in Republican Rome

Jan Zabłocki

Abstract

This article presents the questions Aulus Gellius puts in Chapter 20, Title 10 of his Attic Nights on the nature of rogatio, lex, plebiscitum, and privilegium, and the differences between them. He cites Capito’s defnition of lex as a generale iussum populi aut plebis rogante magistrate (“A law ... is a general decree of the people, or of the commons, answering an appeal made to them by a magistrate”) and observes that if this definition is right, then the measures de imperio Cn. Pompei, de reditu M. Ciceronis and de caede Clodii quaestio cannot be considered leges. These resolutions applied to specific persons and should therefore be considered privilegia. Aulus Gellius not only sees a distinction between concepts like lex, plebiscitum, privilegium, and rogatio, but also observes that the parties which contributed to the drafting of a legislative act were the magistrate (magistratus) on the one hand, and the people (populus), or of the commons (plebs) on the other hand.

Keywords:

Aulus Gellius; Te Attic Nights; Cicero; Capito; rogatio; lex; plebiscitum; privilegium.

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Citation rules

Zabłocki, J. (2022). ‘Leges’ and ‘privilegia’ in Republican Rome. Zeszyty Prawnicze, 22(2), 267–280. Retrieved from https://czasopisma.uksw.edu.pl/index.php/zp/article/view/10033

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