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The lex Hortensia, also sometimes referred to as the Hortensian law, was a law passed in Ancient Rome in 287 BC which made all resolutions passed by the Plebeian Council, known as plebiscita, binding on all citizens. (2025). 9780199261086, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199261086 It was passed by the dictator Quintus Hortensius in a compromise to bring the plebeians back from their secession to the Janiculum.
It was the final result of the long struggle between patricians and , where the plebeians would periodically secede from the city in protest ( secessio plebis) when they felt they were deprived of their rights. The law contained similar stipulations of the two earlier laws, the lex Valeria-Horatia of 449 BC and lex Publilia of 339 BC. Unlike the prior two laws, however, lex Hortensia eliminated the requirement that the Senate ratify, in the case of the lex Valeria-Horatia, or give its prior approval to, in the case of the lex Publilia, plebiscites before becoming binding on all citizens. Its passage secured the end of the Conflict of the Orders, and secured theoretically equal political rights between patricians and .
However, there is considerable reason to doubt this story, which Livy attributes to urban rabble in the forum, as large masses of urban poor did not really exist in the middle Republic. Furthermore, rural landowners controlled the vast majority of the votes in the Plebeian Council (), as they controlled 29 of the voting blocs that never numbered more than 35, since the Council was organised in the same way as the Tribal Assembly (), just with the exclusion of patricians. The more likely cause is therefore the desire of rural plebeians to control the distribution of public lands () won in the Third Samnite War.
Due to the extreme measures taken by the consuls, however, it is likely that considerable urban unrest predicated this reform. With both the urban and the rural sections of the populace clamouring for reform and the military necessities of manpower granting the plebs a strong negotiating position, the law entered the realm of the inevitable. Of course, necessary to pass such specific and controlling legislation was an organised movement, likely coordinated by the plebeian in the city.
Furthermore, the law created restrictions on when votes could be scheduled. For example, votes could no longer be held on market days, which could have interfered in economic business. However, this served as an impediment towards the participation of rural plebeians in the concilium plebis, as they were then unable to vote on convenient days when they would have been in the city.
As a question of legal semantics, there remained a difference between a plebiscitum, a plebeian law, and a lex, a law per se. The lex Hortensia simply changed the recognition of the plebiscitum such that it was treated as if it were a lex. Later, as the distinction became immaterial, all binding laws, formerly leges or plebiscita, became referred to leges as well.
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