Author Description

Twelve fragments of bronze were found near Urbino in the late fifteenth century, engraved with Roman laws - on one side a law concerning extortion, on the other an agrarian law. Dating as they do from the time of the Gracchi and of Marius in the later years of the Roman Republic, the laws are of considerable interest to Roman historians and are important evidence for the understanding of the revolutionary period that led to the overthrow of the Republic. In this volume, Dr Lintott offers a complete re-edition of these complicated and fragmentary texts, including a revision of the relationship between the fragments and full discussion of the manuscript sources of those now lost. The texts are accompanied by facing English translations and the commentary, which follows discusses in detail the issues involved in establishing and restoring the texts. A series of introductory chapters, written as far as possible in non-technical language, give a summary of the context of the laws from both a legal and an historical view point.