Talk:Licinio-Sextian rogations

Provision for sons
I can find no evidence in the sources listed on The Roman Law Library (i.e. Livy 6, Val. Max. 8.6, Gellius 20.1) that the lex de modo agrorum had the provision that sons could hold half a claim of land (i.e. 250 iugera), as stated in this article. That Licinius himself claimed 1000 iugera and tried to pass off half of it as his son's is no evidence at all - he must have been claiming that his son was entitled to his own, full claim (i.e. 500 iugera). In fact, Appian 1.9 reads thus: 'he [Tib. Gracchus] added a provision to the former law, that the sons of the occupiers might each hold one-half of that amount'. This seems directly to contradict the article here, but Appian could, of course, be confused. Does anyone have any further sources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.76.7.204 (talk) 11:01, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Title: Foo-Bar Rogations or rogatio foo-bar
Hey, sorry to call on you again,, but I expect you might know a bit more than I do on this topic. Given that most of the Roman law articles are given names such as lex Hortensia or lex Valeria, ought this be re-renamed to a Latin title to match? Ifly6 (talk) 16:36, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, no need to say sorry. Well, since you moved the page to "rogations" and it's no longer formally classified as a law, I suppose a Latin title wouldn't be very appropriate. The common name seems to be simply "Licinio-Sextian rogations" (hyphen) or "Licinian–Sextian rogations" (n-dash), probably with a lowercase R. There is also "Sextian–Licinian" or "Sextio-Licinian" but those don't appear to be that common. Avilich (talk) 17:28, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Title again
I find the article's current title less than ideal—nearly all of the sources I have refer to this law as the "Licinian Rogations", or by its Latin title, lex Licinia Sextia—not "Licinio-Sextian Rogations" and never rogatio Licinia-Sextia (Google's ngram viewer couldn't even find this formulation in English-language sources). And since lex seems to be feminine—all Roman laws known by the names of their proposers take the feminine form of the nomen—"Licinio-" makes no sense grammatically; it's how we would form the name in English, but it's not an English name, and doing so violates the rules of Latin. The common name in English is "Licinian Rogations", in which "rogations" is usually, but not always capitalized, as part of a proper name. So I think it should either go under that title—not to slight Sextius, but because that's just how it's usually known—or by its Roman name, lex Licinia Sextia, with other titles redirecting to whichever one it is. P Aculeius (talk) 11:16, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * FWIW, OCD4digital's article is titled leges Leciniae Sextiae, and Cornell's (The Beginnings of Rome) index entry is laws/leges ... Liciniae-Sextiae. Cornell's text uses Rogations for the process/events of 367, and for the end product Law(s), legislation or leges. So I find the Licinio-Sextian Rogations (several instances); the first such lex de modo agrorum was the Licinian Law of 367 BC; the Leges Liciniae-Sextiae; the Licinio-Sextian legislation; the Lex Licinia (5 times in quick succession); the Licinio-Sextian Laws (several instances, including on same page as Licinio-Sextian Rogations); the Licinio-Sextian Law (re consulship). I don't find any of those uses of Licinio odd; they're all with English nouns (laws, legislation, rogations) not Latin (lex, leges), as is the current title. NebY (talk) 12:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * As noted in the page history, Cornell Beginnings 1995 p 339 uses Licinio-Sextian rogations. That is under a section heading on p 333 THE LICINIO-SEXTIAN ROGATIONS (verbatim) followed by his citing on p 334 Livy's narrative for 376 to 367 BC that two tribunes, [Licinius] and [Sextius], brought three proposals (rogationes) before the plebs. Drogula Commanders and command (2015) p 40 uses "Sextian-Licinian rogations" and quotes Stewart with "Licinio-Sextian reforms"; p 37 emphasises this qua rogatio in opposition to lex. The phrase rogatio Licinia Sextia has never appeared at all at any time in the article text. I agree with NebY that the specific way the names are turned into adjectives is not odd inasmuch as the title is in English. Ifly6 (talk) 15:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't feel that "Licinio-" violates any grammatical rules. On the other hand, "Licinia Sextia" in the Latin formulations is simply two adjectives, and if moderns want to put a hyphen or an n-dash between them, that's up to the moderns. Anyway:
 * If "laws" is technically wrong, and since "rogations" is a word that most English readers couldn't understand in this context without help, and since we are led to prefer an English name to a Latin one if available, I would go for "Licinian–Sextian legislation", easily found in reliable sources via Google. Andrew Dalby 09:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I rather go for "reforms" if we really want to entirely avoid any discussion as to "rogations": "reforms" is attested in the secondary corpus and would best summarise how it is – probably inaccurately – reported in the ancient sources (big changes which the patricians failed to stave off for a decade). Ifly6 (talk) 00:35, 23 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't have any issue with the word "rogations"—IMO the common phrase for this law is the "Licinian Rogations" with or without capitalizing "rogations" (and without mentioning Sextius—I'm not saying it's "fair", just that it's how the law is usually called), with my second choice for the title being its Latin name, consistent with how many (but not all) other articles about Roman laws are titled: lex Licinia Sextia, which is also found in various reference sources. It may be that the present title is more common in recent works, and since nobody seems to support either of my preferred titles, I'm willing to drop it—no sense arguing endlessly for something that's clearly not going to happen.  So unless new opinions appear or somebody changes their mind, I think this discussion has served its purpose.  P Aculeius (talk) 16:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I will point out that the page was created at lex Licinia Sextia in 2008, and remained under that title until 2021, when Ifly6 moved it to "Sextian-Licinian Rogations", and subsequently moved it to "Sextian-Licinian rogations", then to "Licinio-Sextian rogations". Not sure this history will change anybody's mind.  P Aculeius (talk) 16:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I have a sort of feeling there's no consensus for change :) Andrew Dalby 08:18, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Bergk 2011
Bergk in Beck et al (eds) Consuls and res publica (2011) makes some interesting points on the rogations, largely based on the fact they are rogations: the compromise didn't seem to hold and it may be related to Publius Manlius' dictatorship with a plebeian master of horse and then his conduct of elections that returned a plebeian consul. Camillus then played a role in convincing the rest of the patricians to accept the status quo, limited to a few special plebeian families (the Genucii and Licinii). Ifly6 (talk) 10:52, 17 March 2024 (UTC)