The Lex Repetundarum and the Political Ideas of Gaius Gracchus

Abstract

It may be taken as proven, so far as anything is ever finally proved in ancient history that the Roman law contained in the fragmented bronze tablet once owned by Cardinal Bembo is the lex repetundarum, or recovery law, of Gaius Gracchus, or of a political associate who shared the same ideas about the so-called ‘extortion court’, despite the doubts of Professor Mattingly, who, reviving the thesis of Carcopino and earlier scholars, sought to identify it with the later law of Servilius Glaucia. This law, which may be conveniently called the Lex Sempronia; is probably the only law of Gaius Gracchus that was concerned with jurors. It is both a lex repetundarum and a lex iudiciaria, because at this time there was no other regular political jury court except the court of recovery. The Lex Sempronia which succeeds the Lex Calpurnia of 149 (and its adjunct the obscure Lex Iunia), replace the senatorial jurors of the previous system by jurors who are not drawn from the senatorial class. But it does many other things, and it is an absolute treasure-house of information about the political and social ideas of its author. Historians have not effectively used it information for the general interpretation of the political thinking of Gaius Gracchus because they suffer from a fixed idea.