I'm writing a world history blog, but my faculty is not the Faculty of Letters, but the Faculty of Law. For a while, I was seriously aiming to become a lawyer, but I wasn't fit for it at all, and I was immediately frustrated.
That's why I really hate reading and writing about the law. It can be said that it is painful.
I haven't written it yet, but I'm sure it would be fun to write about the Battle of Farosaros and the Battle of Actium. On the other hand, writing about the Hortensius method may not be fun for both the writer and the reader.
However, when writing an article like this, I found one thing.
It is the law that forms the nation.
A good person comes out in a good legal system.
This time, let's take a closer look at the Hortensius law, which is important in Roman history and shaped Rome!
Features of the Hortensius method
The Hortensius law, which was enacted in 287 BC, has the following characteristics.
・ The resolution of the Commoner's Assembly becomes a national law without the approval of the Senate.
This is the only content.
But this is important.
With the enactment of the Hortensius Act, the long-standing struggle between the commoners and the aristocrats came to an end.
The expansion of the political rights of the commoners was completed in the Hortensius law, starting with the Twelve Tables law and going through the Likinius-Sextius law.
As a result, the meaning of the civic gathering, which is a gathering including the Plebeian Council and the aristocratic class, became greater, and a democracy unique to Rome, which was different from Athens, was completed.
Background of the establishment of the Hortensius method
Of course, the Twelve Tables Law and the Likinius-Sextius Law were established in the background of the establishment of the Hortensius Law, but it can be said that the influence of the Samnite War was more than that.
At the time of the Sextian-Licinian Act, Rome was still only one of the city-states in Italy, but it was also a time of expansion to unify the Italian peninsula.
The Samniums are an excellent people for fighting in the mountains, and Rome will spend 40 years fighting Samnium, but the situation is that the distribution of land to the aristocrats will increase over postwar processing. Happened. Alternatively, many commoners will be dissatisfied with this because there is a difference in the distribution among the commoners.
This dissatisfaction is not surprising, as in Rome those with citizenship were obliged to bear the hoplite service and equipment.
Hortensia, the dictator of the time, took this situation seriously. This is because the commoners have left Rome one after another.
In a sense, it was a law to resolve the dissatisfaction of the commoners.
Effect of enactment of Hortensius law
In Rome, there was a fierce conflict of status between Plebeians (commoners) and Patrician (nobles), but at this time, the power of Nobiles, an emerging aristocrat, will grow.
Nobiles is a general term for those who have inherited Senators and others against the backdrop of large land ownership and the monetary economy that has begun to permeate. It is different from Patrician in that it can also be used as such.
It may be ironic that the influential commoner class became Nobiles and began to take control of national affairs as a result of the Hortensius law beginning to improve the status of the commoners.