List of Roman laws


This is a partial list of Roman laws. A Roman law is usually named for the sponsoring legislator and designated by the adjectival form of his gens name, in the feminine form because the noun lex is of feminine grammatical gender. When a law is the initiative of the two consuls, it is given the name of both, with the nomen of the senior consul first. Sometimes a law is further specified by a short phrase describing the content of the law, to distinguish that law from others sponsored by members of the same gens.

Roman laws

Post-Roman law codes based on Roman legislation

  • lex Romana Burgundionum one of the law tables for Romans after the fall of the Western Roman Empire
  • lex Romana Visigothorum one of the law tables for Romans after the fall of the Western Roman Empire

    General denominations

  • lex agraria A law regulating distribution of public lands
  • lex annalis A law regarding qualifications for magistracies, such as age or experience
  • lex ambitus A law involving electoral bribery and corruption; see ambitus
  • lex curiata Any law passed by the comitia curiata. These included Roman adoptions, particularly so-called "testamentary adoptions" and the lex curiata de imperio which granted imperium to senior Roman magistrates under the Republic, likely also ratifying the choice of a new king during the monarchy. It was the traditional basis for the later lex de Imperio allowing imperial succession.
  • lex frumentaria A law regulating the price of grain
  • lex sumptuaria A law regulating the use of luxury items and public manifestations of wealth

    Other

  • Constitution of the Roman Republic Set the separation of powers and checks and balances of the Roman Republic
  • Acceptilatio spoken statement of debt or obligation release
  • Constitutio Antoniniana granted citizenship to the Empire's freemen
  • Corpus Iuris Civilis codification by emperor Justinian
  • Syro-Roman law booka compilation of secular legal texts from the eastern Roman Empire
  • Stipulatio basic oral contract
  • Twelve Tables The first set of Roman laws published by the Decemviri in 451 BC, which would be the starting point of the elaborate Roman constitution. The twelve tables covered issues of civil, criminal and military law. Every Roman that went to school was supposed to know them by heart.
  • Licinio-Sextian rogations series of laws proposed by tribunes of the plebs, Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, enacted around 367 BC.
  • Infamia loss of legal or social standing
  • Fustuariuma severe form of military discipline in which a soldier was cudgeled to death.