Talk:De Legibus

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The summary of book 3 contains quite a few interpretations, that are not unanimously accepted: --Seegurke (talk) 02:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keyes 1922 proposed that limiting capital cases to the centuriate assembly only refers to captial cases in the assemblies, i.e. perduellionis.
 * The minor magistrates are only identified by function. Quaestorship is interpreted as not being part of the "cursus honorum" because quaestors are nowhere refered to by name. Cicero only says, there shall be minor magistrates who are concerened with money, minting, punishment, and judging lites, and serving as lieutenants in the army. It is not clear from the text, whether Cicero only gives a summary or whether he imagines a single board of minor magistrates responsible for those things.
 * The minor magistrates are also ordered to obey the senate, which might be interesting.
 * Having been a consul was pbobably never a formal prerequisite for becoming censor, although other candidates wouldn't stand a chance. The article here is simply wrong.
 * Censors being supposed to interprete laws, is already an interpretation. They are ordered to "recall to the laws". This could be as ordinary as checking circulating copies of the laws for correct wording. (See Rawson.)
 * Missing from the article is the number of "moral laws" like "imperia iusta sunte", "duella iusta iuste gerunto". Even though, they do not fit our modern idea of law (and probably the standard interpretation of the word in Cicero's time) they are a central part of the text.