Tribunus Plebis?
c. 153
(Broughton MRR III)
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The Leges Aelia et Fufia were two distinct but interconnected laws, probably tribunicial (Mommsen, Str. 1.111), passed about a century before Clodius' tribunate in 58 (Cic. Pis. 10; cf. Vat. 23). They regulated the use of obnuntiatio and the days when comitia for the passage of laws and for election of magistrates might be held (Cic. Har. Resp. 58;{453} Sest. 33, 56, 78-79, 83, 114, 129; Vat. 16-18, and 23; Dom. 39; Prov. Cons. 45-46; Pis. 9-10; Phil. 2.81-83, and 99; Att. 1.16.13; 2.9.1; 4.3.3, and 16.5, and 17.4; Ascon. 8 C; Schol. Bob. 148 Stangl). Lange (2
.477) suggests that these laws should be dated in 153, when the Consuls began to enter office on January first. Niccolini (FTP 406-409) and Rotondi (288f.) both date them ca. 158 B.C. (Broughton MRR I)
See MRR 1.452-453. Authors of two distinct but closely related laws, the Leges Aelia et Fufia. G. V. Sumner has clarified the content and purpose of these laws, the former confirming the validity of such religious procedures as the obnuntiatio in obstructing or preventing the passage of unwelcome legislation in the assemblies, and the latter in regulating the rights and times for voting on laws, the whole intended to limit tribunicial activity. As to their date, Sumner takes Cicero's phrase centum prope annos (Pis. 10) to be rhetorical exaggeration, and, turning to the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus as a time when the need to curb tribunicios furores ( Vat. 18) was greatest, finds in Q. Aelius Tubero (155), triumvir (rerum capitalium, not tribune as in MRR 1.502), and perhaps tribune ca. 132, a suitable author for the Lex Aelia, and in the grandfather of Q. Fufius Calenus (10), Pr. 59, Cos. 47, a suitable possibility for the Lex Fufia (AJPh 84, 1963, 337358). In this Sumner rejects the probable implication of Cic. Vat. 23 that these laws were at least pre-Gracchan (sanctissimas leges, Aeliam et Fufiam dico, quae in Gracchorum ferocitate . . . vixerunt) and the evidence of considerable tribunicial obstruction of magistrates in the period of the Spanish wars, even to the extreme of throwing consuls into prison, and interference with the levy from about 150 on (L. R. Taylor, JRS 52, 1962, 19-27, esp. 22-24; cf. T. Frank, CAH 8.367). L. R. Taylor also conjectured that these laws, ""directed mainly against tribunicios furores,"" may have been introduced by Aelius and Fufius as praetors (op. cit. 23). For other discussions, see Gruen, AJPh 84, 1963, 337-358, and LGRR 255; Astin, Latomus 25, 1964, 421-445. In spite of many uncertainties, Cicero's centum prope annos and the implication that the laws were pre-Gracchan favor a date toward the middle of the second century.[3x]"
(Broughton MRR III)