Tribunus Plebis
before 110
(Broughton MRR I)
Expand
A full discussion of Thorius' tribunate and of his law would involve a separate treatise on the agrarian legislation of this period. The group with which Cicero names him in the Brutus (136) are to be dated for the most part in the last decade of the second century, while the connections of one reference (De Or. 2.284) favor some time within the span of the public career of Ap. Claudius Pulcher, more probably the Consul of 79 than his father the Consul of 143, who died in 131 or 130, and before the dramatic date of the dialogue itself in 91 (Mommsen, CIL 1
1
.75). The reference implies moreover that the Thorian law was valid at that time for the regulation of pasture land. The validity of the evidence in Appian, on the other hand, depends upon emending the name {Gr} or {Gr} in the Mss to {Gr}. Appian placed this so-called Thorian law second in a series of three which all fall within fifteen years after the death of Gracchus (presumably Tiberius), and so before 118. This law, according to Appian, ended the distribution of public land and gave possession to present holders subject to the payment of a {Gr}, but Cicero in the Brutus (136: is qui agrum publicum vitiosa et inutili lege vectigali levavit) appears to refer, if the ambiguous text be taken in its most natural sense, to a law that relieved the public land from a vectigal, and furthermore to a law, unlike the second in Appian's list, which was soon superseded by a third abolishing the {Gr}, and remained sufficiently valid, however vitiosa et inutilis, to be mentioned in the Senate in a discussion of Lucilius' (Lucullus' in some Mss) too free use of the public pastures. It would appear that the Lex Thoria mentioned by Cicero must be identified with either the Lex Agraria of 111, the author of which remains unnamed, or some subsequent piece of legislation. If the Lex Agraria superseded the Thorian law, we should expect to find some reference to it by name, but none appears. If it is the Lex Thoria, as many claim, it can be reconciled with Cic. Brut. 136 only by supposing him to mean "relieved the public land from a faulty and useless tax law;" but that relief, unless Appian has either blundered or been wrongly emended, consisted in the imposition of a {Gr}. I am therefore inclined to think that Appian's Borian or Bourian law, despite the fact that this unexampled name must be emended in some way (there were Aburii in Roman public life; see 187, Tribunes of the Plebs; 176, Praetors; 171, Legates), was not the Lex Thoria mentioned in Cicero, and that the Thorian law should not be identified with the Lex Agraria of 111 but with some later bill of doubtful constitutionality which relieved the pasture lands from a vectigal. The date must fall before 91 B.C. The identification of Appius ille maior (Cic. De Or. 2.284) with Ap. Claudius, Cos. 79, suggests that Cicero adopted in this passage the point of view of his own time, though he is usually rather careful of dra{543}matic propriety, rather than that of the speaker in the dialogue. If it refers to the elder Appius, who died in 131 or 130, the Lex Thoria preceded that date and is completely irrelevant to the discussion of Appian's second law. See the works cited in RE and CAH 9.97-101, and 915; Gelzer, Gnomon 5 (1929) 658; and especially D' Arms, AJPh 56 (1935) 232-245, whose view I have presented above. (Broughton MRR I)
Carried a law to regulate the vectigal on public lands, and in particular on pasture lands (Cic. De Or. 2.284; Brut. 136; cf. App. BC 1.27). (Broughton MRR I)
Tr. pl. -. See MRR 1.541 and 542, note 2. Earlier views regarding the much discussed Lex Thoria are summarized in F. Niccolini, FTP 178-184. In MRR 1.542, note 2, I accepted the interpretation presented by E. F. D'Arms in AJPh 56, 1935, 232-245. See now the various views presented by Gabba, Appiano 69-73, and ed. of Appian BC 1 (1958) pp. 93-96, comm. on 1.27; Badian, Studies (1963) 235-241; Douglas, Brutus (1966) 249; and cf., briefly, Sumner, Orators (1973) 90-91. Badian accepts Thorius as the proper correction for Appian's #, and interprets Cicero's Brutus 136 as meaning He relieved the public land of a faulty and useless law by means of a rent. The Lex Thoria may well be the second of Appian's three, the third being the Lex agraria of 111. Note also J. S. M. Willcock (CQ 32, 1982, 474-475) who would emend levavit in Cic. Brut. 136 to locavit, and translate the passage "Sp. Thorius ... who let out the public land for a rent by means of a faulty and useless law." The puzzle remains unsolved.
(Broughton MRR III)