The lex Caecilia Didia was a law put into effect by the consuls 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 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 .
7-450: 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 . 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
14-500: Is a unique source for some information about ancient Rome , particularly biographical data and certain details of historical events, and appears to have had access to sources now lost. Although many commentaries and scholia were produced at the monastery, which was famous for its literary culture and vast library, the label "Bobbio Scholiast" has attached itself mainly to the scholia on a selection of Cicero 's speeches. This biographical article about an Italian writer or poet
21-492: 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. Bobbio Scholiast The Bobbio Scholiast (commonly abbreviated schol. Bob. ) was an anonymous scholiast working in the 7th century at the monastery of Bobbio and known for his annotations of texts from classical antiquity . He
28-462: The popularist tribune Saturninus and the praetor 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 As a result Saturninus’s laws were repealed, and
35-522: 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 , managed to have the laws of the tribune Marcus Livius Drusus the Younger abrogated on
42-456: 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) . 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 gained his sixth term as consul. Under Marius,
49-539: The third market-day (17 days). The second provision of the lex Caecilia Didia forbade leges saturae , "stuffed" laws, which were statutes 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 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
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