The ''lex Caecilia Didia'' was a law put into effect by the

consuls A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...

Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos and Titus Didius in the year 98 BC. This law had two provisions. The first was a minimum period between proposing a

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

and voting on it, and the second was a ban of miscellaneous provisions in a single Roman law. This law was reinforced by the '' lex Junia Licinia'' in 62 BC, an umbrella law introduced by Lucius Licinius Murena and Decimus Junius Silanus.

Provisions

The Bobbio Scholiast describes the first provision: "The Caecilian and Didian law decreed that the period of ''trinundium'' be observed for promulgating laws." The ''lex Caecilia Didia'', then, determined how much time had to be allowed between the publication of a law and its vote in the assembly.Berger, Adolf. ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law''. ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society'' Vol II, No. 43, 1953. pp. 548, 546. The period of time designated by ''trinundium'' has been taken to mean either three Roman eight-day weeks (that is, 24 days) or ''tertiae nundinae'', on the third market-day (17 days). The second provision of the ''lex Caecilia Didia'' forbade ''leges saturae'', "stuffed" laws, which were

statute A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...

s dealing with heterogeneous subject matters. This meant that in a single Roman bill, there could not be a collection of unrelated measures — what might in modern terms be called omnibus bills.

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

gave an interpretation of the law in his ''Oratio de domo sua'' ("Speech concerning His House") after his return from exile: "What other force, what other meaning, I should like to know, has the Caecilian and Didian law, except this; that the people are not to be forced in consequence of many different things being joined in one complicated bill." It did not take long for the ''lex Caecilia Didia'' to be put into action. Most significantly, in 91 BC the consul Lucius Marcius Philippus, in his capacity as an

augur An augur was a priest and official in the ancient Rome, classical Roman world. His main role was the practice of augury, the interpretation of the will of the List of Roman deities, gods by studying events he observed within a predetermined s ...

, managed to have the laws of the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus the Younger abrogated on the grounds that they contravened the second provision of the ''lex Caecilia Didia''. This act is often seen as a major contributory factor in the outbreak of the

Social War (91–88 BC) Social War may refer to: * Social War (357–355 BC), or the War of the Allies, fought between the Second Athenian Empire and the allies of Chios, Rhodes, and Cos as well as Byzantium * Social War (220–217 BC), fought among the southern Greek sta ...

Political background

The ''lex Caecilia Didia'' was a direct response to the events of 100 BC and an attempt to reduce hasty legislation passed in the '' comitia''. In that year,

Gaius Marius Gaius Marius (; – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbrian War, Cimbric and Jugurthine War, Jugurthine wars, he held the office of Roman consul, consul an unprecedented seven times. Rising from a fami ...

gained his sixth term as consul. Under Marius, the popularist

tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the Tribune of the Plebs, tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs ac ...

Saturninus and the

praetor ''Praetor'' ( , ), also ''pretor'', was the title granted by the government of ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected ''magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to disch ...

Glaucia proposed and passed liberal land laws assigning land in the province of Africa to Marius’s veterans. However, the radical nature of these bills and the forcible methods Saturninus and Glaucia used in ensuring their passage alienated a large part of the Roman people and eventually even Marius. As a result Saturninus’s laws were repealed, and the ''lex Caecilia Didia'' was introduced. The goal was to curb the passage of radical bills, with the assumption that the period of ''trinundium'' would give the citizens time to understand the proposed law or to be persuaded to vote against it.Abbot, Frank Frost. ''A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions''. Boston: Ginn, 1901. pp. 100.

Provisions

Political background

Bibliography

See also