TRIBUNITIA (B.C. 70), restored the old tribunitia potestas, which
Sulla had nearly destroyed. [TRIBUNI.]
DE VI, was a privilegium, and only referred to the case of Milo.
PORCĬAE DE CĂPĬTE CĪVĬUM, or DE PRŌVŎCĀTIŌNE, enacted that no Roman
citizen should be scourged or put to death.
PORCIA DE PRŌVINCIIS, about B.C. 198, the enactments of which are
doubtful.
PUBLĬCĬA, permitted betting at certain games which required
strength.
PUBLĪLĬA. In the consulship of L. Pinarius and P. Furius, B.C.
471, the tribune Publilius Volero proposed, in the assembly of the
tribes, that the tribunes should in future be appointed in the
comitia of the tribes (_ut plebeii magistratus tributis comitiis
fierent_), instead of by the centuries, as had formerly been the
case; since the clients of the patricians were so numerous in the
centuries, that the plebeians could not elect whom they wished.
This measure was violently opposed by the patricians, who prevented
the tribes from coming to any resolution respecting it throughout
this year; but in the following year, B.C. 471, Publilius was
re-elected tribune, and together with him C. Laetorius, a man
of still greater resolution than Publilius. Fresh measures were
added to the former proposition: the aediles were to be chosen by
the tribes, as well as the tribunes, and the tribes were to be
competent to deliberate and determine on all matters affecting the
whole nation, and not such only as might concern the plebes. This
proposition, though still more violently resisted by the patricians
than the one of the previous year, was carried. Some said that the
number of the tribunes was now for the first time raised to five,
having been only two previously.
PUBLĪLĬAE, proposed by the dictator Q. Publilius Philo, B.C. 339.
According to Livy, there were three Publiliae Leges. 1. The first
is said to have enacted, that plebiscita should bind all Quirites,
which is to the same purport as the Lex Hortensia of B.C. 286. It
is probable, however, that the object of this law was to render the
approval of the senate a sufficient confirmation of a plebiscitum,
and to make the confirmation of the curiae unnecessary. 2. The
second law enacted, _ut legum quae comitiis centuriatis ferrerentur
ante initum suffragium patres auctores fierent_. By patres
Livy here means the curiae; and accordingly this law made the
confirmation of the curiae a mere formality in reference to all
laws submitted to the comitia centuriata, since every law proposed
by the senate to the centuries was to be considered to have the
sanction of the curiae also. 3. The third law enacted that one of
the two censors should necessarily be a plebeian. It is probable
that there was also a fourth law, which applied the Licinian law to
the praetorship as well as to the censorship, and which provided
that in each alternate year the praetor should be a plebeian.
PŪPĬA, mentioned by Cicero, seems to have enacted that the senate
could not meet on comitiales dies.
QUINTĬA, was a lex proposed by T. Quintius Crispinus, consul B.C.
9, for the preservation of the aquaeductus.
RĒGĬA. A _Lex Regia_ during the kingly period of Roman history
might have a two-fold meaning. In the first place it was a law
which had been passed by the comitia under the presidency of the
king, and was thus distinguished from a _Lex Tribunicia_, which was
passed by the comitia under the presidency of the tribunus celerum.
In later times all laws, the origin of which was attributed to
the time of the kings, were called _Leges Regiae_, though it by no
means follows that they were all passed under the presidency of the
kings, and much less, that they were enacted by the kings without
the sanction of the curies. Some of these laws were preserved and
followed at a very late period of Roman history. A collection
of them was made, though at what time is uncertain, by Papisius
or Papirius, and this compilation was called the _Jus Civile
Papirianum_ or _Papisianum_. The second meaning of _Lex Regia_
during the kingly period was undoubtedly the same as that of the
_Lex Curiata de Imperio_. [IMPERIUM.] This indeed is not mentioned
by any ancient writer, but must be inferred from the _Lex Regia_
which we meet with under the empire, for the name could scarcely
have been invented then; it must have come down from early times,
when its meaning was similar, though not nearly so extensive.
During the empire the curies continued to hold their meetings,
though they were only a shadow of those of former times; and after
the election of a new emperor, they conferred upon him the imperium
in the ancient form by a _Lex Curiata de Imperio_, which was now
usually called _Lex Regia_. The imperium, however, which this
_Regia Lex_ conferred upon an emperor, was of a very different
nature from that which in former times it had conferred upon the
kings. It now embraced all the rights and powers which the populus
Romanus had formerly possessed, so that the emperor became what
formerly the populus had been, that is, the sovereign power in the
state. A fragment of such a lex regia, conferring the imperium upon
Vespasian, engraved upon a brazen table, is still extant in the
Lateran at Rome.