The struggle for and passage of the so-called Licinio-Sextian rogations of 367 b.c. is generally regarded as the climactic moment of the ‘struggle of the orders’. According to Livy, this year saw the ratification of a package of three laws. One limited possession of land. Another required that all money having been paid toward the interest on a debt be counted against the principal, and that the remainder of the debt be paid off in three annual instalments. The third law, which has received far the most attention in the sources and in modern scholarship, ended the practice of the annual election of tribuni militum consulari potestate, restoring the two-man consulship and requiring that one of the two consuls each year come from the plebs. Footnote ¹ The centrality of the struggle over these laws in Livy's account of the fourth century and their obvious effect, as reflected in the fasti by the subsequent election of two consuls every year, have led scholars to accept as genuine the tradition that an important reform of the Roman constitution took place in this year. However, every element of the laws, and of the narrative of how those laws came to be, has come under the scrutiny of modern scholarship. The most thoroughgoing of these criticisms is that offered by von Fritz, who argued that Livy and his sources completely misunderstood the tradition that they were interpreting.Footnote ²

According to von Fritz, Livy's account is so plagued by contradictions and impossibilities that it cannot possibly be accepted as historical. However, that very problem can lead to some hope for modern scholars, he argued, because the contradictory nature of the narrative could only have resulted from the misunderstanding on the part of Livy's sources of what was a kernel of genuine historical tradition. After all, no one would create so self-contradictory an account if he were simply composing a fiction from a blank slate. The struggle for and passage of the Licinio-Sextian rogations must, he argued, be taken out of the context of the so-called ‘struggle of the orders’ if we are to understand their true historical significance. In reality, the ‘reorganization of the Roman government’ in 366 b.c. was effected in order to allow the Romans to deal with the changing requirements on the state as it recovered from the Gallic sack. The undifferentiated college of tribuni militum consulari potestate had to be replaced by magistracies of more defined specialization to take on the increased military and domestic requirements burdening the community. In this way was born the elaborate system of magistracies with which we are more familiar from later centuries – the election of the two-man consulship was restored, one praetor was elected for the first time, and curule aediles were created to supplement the plebeian aediles which had existed since the first decades of the Republic. If there was any debate between patricians and plebeians in the run-up to the passage of the bill, it was secondary to the administrative needs of the state, and it was a simple matter of whether or not plebeians would be allowed to have a share in the restored consulship.

The apparent flaws of Livy's account, as well as the hope of extracting kernels of historical truth from the nonsense, have dominated recent scholarship. As a result, any historian attempting to unpack the complicated history of the ‘struggle of the orders’ and of the fourth century must begin with the assumption that Livy's account is fundamentally self-contradictory and incongruous, and, therefore, must attempt to reorganize and reinterpret the genuine kernels to be found in Livy's account into a coherent replacement narrative, using whatever method the individual scholar has for distinguishing the ‘genuine kernel’ from ancient speculation and reconstruction.Footnote ³

But, I argue, the case has not been made that Livy's account is actually contradictory and incongruous. A flawed reading of the text of Livy has led many scholars to dismiss as incongruous and inconsistent what will prove to be an internally consistent narrative. To avoid potential confusion and the muddling of two separate and equally important considerations, in this paper I concern myself only with Livy's account. I do not ask the question: to what extent does Livy's account reflect the historical reality of the events leading up to the passage of the Licinio-Sextian rogations? Instead, I focus on the question: is Livy's account internally consistent, and does it in any way contradict Livy's overall narrative in the first decade? I will show that Livy's account of these events is not only internally consistent, but is also completely consistent with, and indeed helps to explain, Livy's full narrative of the political and social struggles throughout these books. This approach is inspired by the work of Ridley, who by these means has made great strides in our understanding of Livy's ideas about the consular tribunate, the concilium plebis, and the social and political struggles of early Rome in general.Footnote ⁴ He criticizes what he calls the ‘jig-saw approach’ of most scholars to questions about early Roman history. Instead of combining bits of information from Livy with the accounts of various other sources (or even with the assumptions of scholarly consensus), treating all of our sources as parts of a single, monolithic ‘tradition’, we must make every effort to understand what Livy, our only continuous account of the period, believes. It is only then that we may begin to attempt to incorporate evidence from Livy's history into our historical interpretations of the early Republic. In this paper, I am faced with the methodological challenge of attempting to discern an important element of Livy's historical thought in spite of the fact that he did not write treatises, as modern scholars do, in which assumptions and theses are (at least ideally) clearly stated. Instead, I am forced to make inferences from the narrative, the use of speeches, and the attribution of motive to the historical actors.Footnote ⁵ As a result, the conclusions I reach may not prove entirely decisive, though I hope they will be useful not only in making sense of a fascinating episode from Livy's history, but also in understanding how Livy understood the social and political struggles that characterized Rome's early history.

Von Fritz argues that ‘the tradition concerning the events which cumulated in these fundamental innovations and, though to a somewhat lesser degree, even concerning the character and meaning of these innovations themselves, is full of incongruities, contradictions, and historical impossibilities’.Footnote ⁶ His criticisms begin with the story of the sisters Fabiae (6.34.5–11). This story cannot be taken as historical truth, von Fritz argues, because of what Livy says in the earlier chapters in his history. Prior to 377, there are several years in which one or more members of the college of consular tribunes were plebeians – and Livy is aware of this. Since according to Livy's account the consular tribunate was open to plebeians, ‘there can have been no constitutional rule preventing Licinius from attaining the same position as that which his brother-in-law attained’.Footnote ⁷ This criticism is not totally damning to the historical veracity of Livy's account, according to von Fritz, because it is simply an anecdote whose historicity should be disregarded anyway. However, analysis of the anecdotes in the story ‘may help toward a better insight into the nature of the tradition’.Footnote ⁸ What stands out to von Fritz about this anecdote is that ‘Livy obviously did not realize in the least that his story was in conflict with everything he had told before’.Footnote ⁹

By the standards of most modern historians, von Fritz is correct to dismiss this story from historical consideration, since it is anecdotal. It adheres to a principle of Livy's historiographical thought that has been rejected by modern historical methodology: parua, ut plerumque solet, rem ingentem moliundi causa interuenit (6.34.5). Von Fritz is also correct that this paruum is vital to understanding how Livy interprets the events which he describes. But I believe he misinterprets just how Livy understands the episode and how he incorporates it into his narrative of events. The anecdote does not, in fact, contradict what Livy has written for previous years. To be sure, there was in fact no constitutional rule preventing Licinius from holding the consular tribunate. But this is not what Livy is suggesting. Nowhere does Livy claim that plebeians were refused access by law to the highest office of state. Instead, their loss of access is a de facto situation, based upon the struggles of the plebs, due mostly to debt and the cruelty of their creditors. For, in the very same chapter in which Livy describes the anecdote of the Fabiae, he informs us that the situation had gotten so bad for the plebs, that even their principes, far from running for the consular tribunate, were too weakened and demoralized even to stand for plebeian office. ‘The patres’, explains Livy, ‘seemed to have reacquired for all time the monopoly of an office taken up by the plebs for only a few years’ (6.34.1–4: possesionemque honoris usurpati modo a plebe per paucos annos reciperasse in perpetuum patres uiderentur). The patrician monopoly of the consular tribunate, Livy clearly states, is not a legal but a practical one. This would in no way conflict with the story of the unsatisfied Fabia, whose plebeian husband would be prevented by an unfavourable political situation from attaining to the office held by her patrician brother-in-law.Footnote ¹⁰

Having dismissed the anecdote of the origins of the struggle as self-contradictory, von Fritz moves on to other elements of the story, ‘which, though not absolutely self-contradictory like the story of Ambustus’ daughter, nevertheless are somewhat difficult to believe.'Footnote ¹¹ First, it is not readily apparent to von Fritz why it would be necessary for the plebeians to have the consulship restored in order to pass a law regarding debts, since the consular tribunate, which was the supreme office of the state at the time, was already accessible to them. Since the plebeians already had access to the highest office of state, what is the advantage of the consulship? Further, why would the plebeians not simply wait until the law regarding the plebeian consulship was secured before proposing laws regarding debt and land? Proposing all three laws together would have made it more difficult to pass any one of them. He believes it to be particularly perplexing that Livy did not seem to notice this problem, because later in his narrative, Livy says that in 368 the plebeians were ‘ready to drop the law concerning the consulship on the condition that the two other laws were to be passed and ratified’ (6.39.2).Footnote ¹² Licinius and Sextius should have been aware that they would have met with less resistance trying to pass one of these laws at a time, and this is proven by the later anecdote. The plebs was willing to compromise, so why did Licinius and Sextius not follow the easier political road?

It would certainly seem implausible that the plebeians would think it to be ‘so essential to have the consulship restored if they wished to pass a law regarding debts, since, at that time, the consular tribunes were the highest magistrates and since this office was already accessible to the plebeians’. But Livy never claimed that Licinius and Sextius thought it was necessary to have the consulship in order to pass laws on land and debt. That would obviously be nonsensical, since they, as plebeian tribunes, were proposing the three laws together. Livy instead says the debt problem seemed to Licinius and Sextius to be an ‘opportunity for reform’ (6.35.1: occasio uidebatur rerum nouandarum) – that is, a pretext for Licinius and Sextius to propose their consulship law. This explains why they would not simply wait to propose the consulship law until after they had passed the laws on debt and land. To be sure, proposing all three of these laws at once would engender powerful opposition, and Livy is aware of this, and in his account so were the reformers (6.35.5: cuncta ingentia et quae sine certamine maximo obtineri non possent). As has already become clear, the reformers were not interested in passing the debt law or the land law independently. The uneasy domestic situation was merely an opportunity for these men to pursue their own agenda. It will become clear as the narrative wears on just why they could not take an easier route, proposing debt and land laws first, and then pursuing the consulship law.Footnote ¹³

Another difficulty, according to von Fritz, is the fact that, beyond the intransigence already mentioned, Livy says that Licinius and Sextius did not believe it was sufficient to allow plebeians to be elected to the consulship, but insisted that one of the consuls must be a plebeian. Livy does explain their reasoning for so insisting, but von Fritz is unsatisfied with the explanation. Livy has the tribunes harangue the assembled plebeians in 369, insisting that eligibility for plebeians to hold the consulship was insufficient, since no plebeian would actually be elected unless it should be required. The tribunes reminded the plebs that the consular tribunate had been created to allow plebeians to hold the state's highest office, but that for the first forty-four years of the institution's existence no plebeians were elected.Footnote ¹⁴ According to von Fritz, ‘it is hardly believable that the institution of the consular tribunate should have been created with the express purpose of making this office accessible to plebeians – and this after a long and violent agitation on the part of the plebeians – and that then the plebeians should nevertheless for forty-four years have been satisfied with the mere legal possibility of being so elected, never making a determined effort to have this possibility actualized’. He contends that this problem can be solved by simply removing that element from the narrative – the law did not include a requirement that one consul every year must be plebeian. This is further supported by the fact that many colleges in the next few decades were entirely patrician. Certainly, he argues, this cannot be if there had been a law insisting that one consul each year be plebeian, ‘[c]onsidering the high respect in which laws formally passed by the people were held as late as the last century of the republic’. A violation of a law long fought over and hard won would have inspired ‘a much more violent reaction’ than the protests of tribunes that Livy describes in the next books.Footnote ¹⁵

For the purposes of this study, I leave aside the question of whether or not the law actually contained a provision that one consul each year must be plebeian. Many scholars have followed von Fritz in believing that it did not.Footnote ¹⁶ But is there a problem with Livy's narrative? Is it impossible for the plebeians to have created the office specifically for the purposes of opening up to themselves the highest office and then, satisfied with creating the mere possibility, to fail to elect members of their own class? Livy here is totally consistent with what he has said before, and what he will say later. Licinius and Sextius must include the demand because, if they do not, their ambition of holding the consulship would ultimately fail, because the plebs in Livy's history of this period shows a recurring tendency not to elect plebeians to the highest office of state. Livy's explanation for this will become clear as the narrative unfolds. This conclusion also answers the argument that the plebeians would not have ignored this law in future decades, in choosing to elect several all-patrician consular colleges. Whatever actually happened in these years, Livy's account is consistent. The plebs proved reluctant to elect plebeians to the highest office in the past, and they remained so, even after the passage of the Licinio-Sextian laws.Footnote ¹⁷

Livy's account of how the patricians resisted these laws and induced the colleagues of Licinius and Sextius to use their veto is considered problematic on three accounts. First, the ‘anarchy’ raises the question of basic plausibility. Perhaps Livy assumed that during the five-year solitudo magistratuum, the state was governed by interreges. It has not seemed plausible to modern scholars that all of Rome's affairs could have been overseen by a magistracy which can only be held by an individual for five days at a time.Footnote ¹⁸ Further, von Fritz is troubled by the need, assumed by Livy, of the patricians to use the tribunician intercession to prevent passage of the laws, since ‘in the period in question, laws, in order to become valid, still required the patrum auctoritas’.Footnote ¹⁹ A third question is raised by the manipulation of the tribunician veto by the patricians, which, he argued, must be a retrojection of post-Gracchan realities. In the later period, tribunes were usually elected from the nobilitas, and the struggle between patricians and plebeians was long over. Consequently, in that context the use of a tribunician veto to block popular legislation was to be expected. In the fourth century, however, things were much different. This conflict was between patricians and plebeians. The tribunes were the elected representatives of the plebeians, chosen ‘to defend them against the encroachments of the patrician magistrates’. It would be strange, therefore, if the patricians were able to find among the plebeian tribunes men willing to intercede against bills proposed for the benefit of the plebeians.

There is no reason to defend the account of the five-year ‘anarchy’. The problems of fourth-century chronology and ancient annalists' attempt at solving it are well known and need not concern us in an analysis of Livy's text.Footnote ²⁰ The question of the nature of the patrum auctoritas as an institution in this period is a difficult historical issue, but for my purposes it is necessary only to state that Livy is not contradicting himself here. Whatever the actual status of the patrum auctoritas as an institution in the fourth century, it will become clear that Livy did not believe that it was necessary for the patres to be auctores in order for this bill to become law.Footnote ²¹ Only a misreading of Livy's text leads to that conclusion. But what about the problem of plebeian tribunes being manipulated by the patricians? This is getting away from Livy, introducing scholarly consensus about the historical realities of the fourth century to call the narrative into question. For Livy, this was standard practice for the patricians and nowhere does he contradict himself on the matter.Footnote ²²

But if intercession were the patricians' only recourse, von Fritz argues, it does not make sense that the plebs would every year return Licinius and Sextius as tribunes and also persist in electing tribunes who were hostile to the laws, since, if Livy is right and the struggle over the rogations lasted for ten years, it would seem that each year the patricians were able to find friendly tribunes willing to issue their veto.Footnote ²³ This does offer a difficulty that is not easily solved. However, rejecting this element of the narrative as an incongruity in Livy's portrayal of events fails to acknowledge the subtlety and complexity with which Livy has treated the plebs throughout his account of this episode and his entire history of the early centuries of the Republic. It is clear from the fact that Licinius and Sextius need to include the laws regarding debt and land in exchange for the support of the plebs that Livy presents the plebeian ‘movement’ as an uneasy coalition. We shall see shortly just how uneasy Livy perceives it to be. In Livy's understanding, the consulship law was unpopular with the majority of plebeians simply because it did not please them to have to elect a plebeian consul every year. Divisions over policies such as this one could easily account for divisions amongst the tribunes, and there is no reason why Livy could not have conceived of the plebs in these terms, so that it is not very difficult to account for the repeated election in the narrative of tribunes hostile to any one or more of the rogations.

Next, von Fritz says that (in reference to 6.38.3) ‘[i]n 368, according to Livy, there were no tribunes left who were willing to intercede against the Licinian proposals’.Footnote ²⁴ Consequently, Camillus was appointed dictator. Camillus, however, did not use his emergency powers to veto the proposals. Instead, ‘for some mysterious reason that is nowhere explained’, there are again tribunes who would intercede against the proposals. Then, when Licinius and Sextius tried to push forward the vote in spite of the veto of some of their colleagues, Camillus stepped in and defended the tribunician veto against the would-be reformers. Let us look more closely at Livy's language here. In suggesting that first there were no tribunes left who were interested in vetoing the rogations, von Fritz apparently reads et cum tribus uocarentur nec intercessio collegarum latoribus obstaret (6.38.3) as if Livy meant ‘and when the tribes were called and there was no intercession from their colleagues to stand in the way of the proposers …’ But this is not Livy's meaning. We should read the passage as: ‘and when the tribes were called and the intercession of their colleagues did not thwart the proposers…’ Both readings are possible, but the latter makes sense of the passage, while the other creates confusion. I suggest that that is sufficient reason to accept the latter reading.Footnote ²⁵ The patricians appointed Camillus as dictator when Licinius and Sextius refused to be thwarted by their colleagues' veto. The misreading of Livy's text has caused blatant and shocking incompetence to be read into the account where none is present.

Thereupon followed the mysterious abdication of Camillus, the appointment of Manlius, and the subsequent co-optation of a plebeian magister equitum. But, says von Fritz, Livy's account even in this respect is riddled with incongruities.Footnote ²⁶ Livy, he says, has the vote put before the plebs, a vote taken, and the passage of the agrarian and debt laws, while the consulship law fails. Von Fritz says in a footnote that Livy's language (6.39.2: nam de faenore atque agro rogationes iubebant, de plebeio consule antiquabant) ‘says in the clearest possible terms that an official vote on all three bills was actually taken’.Footnote ²⁷ The fact that the plebs would reject the consulship law is ‘strange considering everything that is supposed to have preceded.’

But, while von Fritz insists that Livy describes ‘in the clearest possible terms’ the plebs as having voted on all three bills, reading the imperfects iubebant and antiquabant as reflecting a completed action is implausible. Another interpretation is that Livy meant that votes were in process, or were on the point of being taken, but were not completed.Footnote ²⁸ Consequently, von Fritz's concerns over how the reformers could insist that the plebs vote on the three bills as a lex satura when the vote had already taken place are unnecessary.Footnote ²⁹ One need not wonder what was missing from these bills' becoming law – the voting was never completed. Von Fritz imagines that Licinius and Sextius were able to do this, because the laws had not yet been ratified by the patrum auctoritas.Footnote ³⁰ But conjecture about constitutional strictures is not necessary here.Footnote ³¹ According to Livy, the vote was never allowed to be completed.

We must not get so caught up in the legal complexities of the comitia tributa – as if we could figure out the minutiae of such an institution's procedure even in the better-attested periods of Roman history – that we pass over the fact that the plebs for some reason has nearly sacrificed the opportunity to pass much-needed (and desired) laws on debt and land in order to prevent the passage of a law which would require that one consulship every year be granted to a plebeian. These climactic moments serve to unravel and explain some of the problems apparently created in the earlier part of the narrative. Specifically, Livy explains here precisely why it was necessary for the tribunes to present the laws together – it was due to the opposition of the majority of plebeians to the consulship law. He then went on to explain, in the brilliant speech which he attributed to Ap. Claudius, just why they rejected the law.

While von Fritz passes over this dramatic moment with the dismissive assertion that it is ‘strange considering everything that is supposed to have preceded’,Footnote ³² one is left to wonder which part of what preceded makes this strange. In fact, suddenly much of what Livy has already said begins to make sense. It is clear now just why, in Livy's telling, Licinius and Sextius must insist on passing all three laws together, even though that would be more difficult than passing the debt and land laws separately before pursuing the plebeian consulship. According to Livy, if they had done it that way, the plebs would never have approved the consulship law, because they did not want it to pass.Footnote ³³

At this point Livy injects the great speech of Ap. Claudius. Von Fritz dismisses the speech as irrelevant to the discussion ‘since the speeches in ancient historiography belong to a different category and cannot be considered on the same level with historical narrative’. This assertion is absolutely correct, but that does not mean that speeches should be excluded from our interpretation of a narrative. Speeches in ancient historiography are a means for the author to lay out the issues at stake, and therefore should be considered as a vital piece of evidence for interpreting how an author understands his subject.Footnote ³⁴ Ap. Claudius' speech serves precisely this purpose for us. Prior to the speech, we are left with the peculiar fact that plebeians do not want to pass a law that would require that one man from the plebs (supposedly their own ‘class’ and ‘movement’) be elected consul every year. We might think that they simply did not care whether plebeians were consuls, but that would not explain why they would reject the bill at the cost of losing the bills that they actually wanted to see passed. No, the plebeians were actively opposed to the law. Livy uses this speech to offer his explanation for this apparently strange behaviour. Livy has Ap. Claudius, admittedly in the context of a heated political debate, call the possibility of seeing Licinius and Sextius as consuls a portentum in the eyes of the people, quod [plebs] indignaris, quod abominaris (6.40.11; cf. 41.4–9). The language is religious. Why would the election of plebeians to the consulship be an abomination in the eyes of the plebs? Claudius explains: because Roman tradition requires that every matter, either military or domestic, undertaken by the Romans be undertaken only after the auspices have been taken, and the patricians control the auspices.Footnote ³⁵ To be sure, this speech is not one that was given by a historical figure in a historical situation in the year 368. This speech reflects Livy's understanding of the events that he is describing – but that is the point here. Ap. Claudius is appealing to the religious sentiments of the plebs. This is the same religious sentiment that has compelled them to oppose a bill which would require that a member of the plebs hold the consulship every year. This sentiment reveals, at last, how Livy would explain the rarity with which plebeians were returned as consular tribunes in the preceding years, and why, even after the law is passed, all-patrician colleges were sometimes elected.

In this light we must consider also the passage of the law regarding decemuiri sacris faciundis. The law replaced the old board of two men, and required that half of the ten be plebeian.Footnote ³⁶ According to Livy, it was regarded as a ‘path to the consulship’ (6.42.2). The ratification of this law is no simple momentum changer in a protracted struggle – it is a fundamental prerequisite to convincing the majority of the plebs that it would be acceptable to allow their fellow plebeians admission to the consulship. Livy does not explain precisely how control of half of the board of ten men, which was responsible for consulting and interpreting the Sibylline Books in times of crisis, constituted a uia ad consulatum. At the very least, guaranteed access to an important religious office would have meant a great deal of distinction for certain plebeian families. But one can take interpretation further than that. The interpretation of the Sibylline Books was a means of determining the will of the gods in a moment of crisis for the Republic. The decemuiri played an influential role in discovering the divine will and, ultimately, in shaping Rome's response to the crisis (at least ostensiblyFootnote ³⁷) on the basis of what they found in the books.Footnote ³⁸ Certainly the duties were not the same as the auspicia of the consuls, but it could be argued that they were both very similar in nature (i.e. as receipt and interpretation of divine communication) and hardly less important. I suggest that, as Livy understood it, the plebeians' gaining seats in this vital priesthood would have served as a strong influence on those plebeians who had been reluctant to guarantee one annual consulship for plebeians. If elite plebeians could serve as decemuiri sacris faciundis, a position vital for the survival of the Republic in times of crisis, then why, in the minds of plebeians, should they not be allowed to hold the consulship, whose primary obligation was to protect the state from foreign enemies?Footnote ³⁹

To return to the narrative, while Camillus was again dictator in 367, the Licinio-Sextian rogations were finally passed. Livy tells us that ‘the dictator and senate were defeated with the result that the tribunician rogations were adopted’ (6.42.9: dictator senatusque uictus ut rogationes tribuniciae acciperentur). Sextius was then elected as the plebeian consul for the following year. Von Fritz insists that this is where we learn that what was missing from the legislation was the patrum auctoritas, for the patres refused to be auctores. He then proceeds to consider several permutations of the theory of the patrum auctoritas and how it might make sense in the context of Livy's narrative. But none of these is necessary, or even desirable, because, as we have seen, there is no sense in the account of Livy that the auctoritas was necessary to ratify the laws. The proposals had already been adopted (such is certainly the better reading of 6.42.9 than that Livy said the dictator and senate had ‘accepted’ the bills, but then subsequently refused to ratify them). Instead the patricians insisted that they would not be auctores of the election of Sextius to the consulship. Since the consuls were elected in the comitia centuriata, there is no question that the patres had to be auctores of these elections. This reading becomes certain when one considers the fact that, while Livy has Ap. Claudius assert in his speech that both the centuriate and curiate assemblies required the patrum auctoritas, he never even suggests that such ratification is necessary for the tribal assembly.Footnote ⁴⁰ Again, there is no need to search for complexities that are unstated and, as it turns out, not even implied by Livy, in the Roman constitution of the fourth century.

Ultimately, von Fritz argues that the incongruities and inconsistencies which he believed plagued Livy's account were the result of Livy or his sources attempting to squeeze a real kernel of historical truth into a narrative of struggle between patricians and plebeians. This ‘kernel of truth method’ is, I believe, a sound approach to the history of the early Republic, and has been widely adopted by specialists in the field.Footnote ⁴¹ But this approach rests on finding truth in the inconsistency of our sources. I have attempted to show that Livy's account is internally consistent, and helps to make sense of Livy's general understanding of the social and political conflict of the early Republic. For the sake of clarity, I include here a brief recapitulation of my reading of the episode.

A brief period of external peace during the early 370s was accompanied by an economic crisis, with poverty and indebtedness oppressing the plebs, and patrician creditors increasing their cruelty to go along with their growing economic power. Even the most influential plebeians became so burdened that it was difficult for them to hold plebeian office, let alone the military tribunate. But this crisis paved the way for the ambitions of the plebeians Licinius and Sextius. Under the guidance of the patrician M. Fabius Ambustus, the tribunes proposed a law to relieve indebtedness, another to limit the excessive landholdings of the patricians, and a third to restore the consulship on a permanent basis and reserve one spot each year for a plebeian. The tribunes were only interested in the third law, but proposed the first two laws in order to gain the support of the indebted and oppressed plebs. This was necessary, since the majority preferred to preserve the de facto patrician monopoly over the supreme magistracy, which is why the patricians had dominated the military tribunate, even though the office was technically open to plebeians. In the face of the veto of their colleagues, Licinius and Sextius prevented the election of any but plebeian magistrates for five years. This ‘anarchy’ ended because of a military threat, but the conflict continued. Gradually, though, support for the bills increased over the years, to the point where half of the tribunician college came out in support. In 368, though some tribunes still insisted upon imposing their veto, Licinius and Sextius brought their rogations up for a vote. Even Camillus as dictator, either because of a problem with his appointment or because of the threats of the tribunes, was unable to prevent the vote being taken.

But when the laws were finally presented to the plebs, they were willing only to pass the laws regarding debt and land, and rejected the consulship law. After Licinius and Sextius harangued the plebs, Ap. Claudius appealed to their religious sentiments, reminding them of the dire consequences if plebeians were to hold the highest office. Afterward, a law reserving half of the spots on the newly expanded board of ten sacris faciundis was passed, which provided the plebeians with a springboard for advancing to the consulship. Indeed, in the next year, the Licinio-Sextian rogations were put up for a vote once again and passed, in spite of senatorial opposition.

This reading has the advantage of making sense of the account. But it also serves to tie together Livy's ideas about what modern scholars call the ‘struggle of the orders’. In spite of the fact that patricians and plebeians are often in conflict during these centuries, there is not a single extended conflict between patres and plebs as a single unified political entity.Footnote ⁴² In Livy's Ab urbe condita, the majority of plebeians seem to believe that the patricians play a vital and necessary role in the Roman stateFootnote ⁴³ – their monopoly of auspicia provides them with a special claim to high office. This explains the fact that, while tribunes constantly strive for the passage of laws which would open up high office to the principes plebis, such as Canuleius' attempt to open the consulship to plebeians, or the ultimately successful proposals of Licinius and Sextius, they must justify themselves to the plebs in contiones, or offer supplementary laws favourable to the poor and indebted. Even when the tribunes were successful in creating the military tribunate and gaining access to it in 444, Livy believes that they failed in gaining election to the office for forty-four years. It is not self-evident to the majority of Romans why wealthy plebeians should be allowed to hold the consulship. In fact, they are apt to believe that such a thing would be dangerous.

Livy's account of the affairs of 376–367 is not incongruous or inconsistent. Although it may not reflect the historical realities of this period, it does reflect a coherent understanding on Livy's part of the social struggles of the early Republic. For Livy, the interests of the poorest plebeians and the principes plebis are quite different, and they are aware of this. The plebs in Livy is not a unified movement, or ‘state within the state’, as is believed by many modern scholars. Instead, the plebs represents the great majority of citizens, and is only very rarely unified against the patricians. Even in those cases when they are brought together, such as in this episode, it is only when the tribunes are able to link the interests of various, and admittedly sometimes overlapping, groups (the indebted, the landless and the wealthiest plebeians), and that unity is extremely tenuous. The patricians, on the other hand, are able to divide the plebeians by insisting on the importance of their control of the auspices – and this argument is effective precisely because many plebeians believed it to be true. In effect, Livy's ‘struggle of the orders’ is not a struggle between patres and plebs, but a debate between the patricians and the wealthiest plebeians to win the support of the plebs – and this is an argument which, for much of the history of the early Republic, the patricians were able to win.