Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor), 3.9.5

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View: By Chapter

← Previous Next →

[5] That they might not for ever have this licence, he was about to propose a law providing for the appointment of five men to write out the statutes pertaining to the consular power; ¹ such authority over them as the people had granted the consuls they should enjoy, but they should not make a law of their own whims and caprices.

Ab urbe condita. Titus Livius (Livy). Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor). Medford, MA. .

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

History of Rome (English) (Foster, Benjamin Oliver; Moore, Frank Gardener; Sage, Evan T.; Schlesinger, Alfred C., translators. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919-1959. (Loeb Classical Library))

Editions (3)

Ab urbe condita Perseus (Pars I-IV, Libri I-XL. Editio Stereotypica. Weissenborn, Wilhelm; Mueller, Moritz, editors. Leipzig: Teubner, 1884-1911.) — 3.9.5 focus

[5] quae ne aeterna illis licentia sit, legem se promulgaturum, ut quinque viri creentur legibus de imperio consulari scribendis: quod populus in se ius dederit, eo consulem usurum; non ipsos libidinem ac licentiam suam pro lege habituros.

Ab urbe condita Perseus (Conway, Robert Seymour; Walters, Charles Flamstead; Johnson, Stephen Keymer, editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914-1935. (Oxford Classical Texts)) — 3.9.5 focus

[5] quae ne aeterna illis licentia sit, legem se promulgaturum ut quinque viri creentur legibus de imperio consulari scribendis; quod populus in se ius dederit, eo consulem usurum; non ipsos libidinem ac licentiam suam pro lege habituros.

Ab urbe condita Perseus (Livy in Fourteen Volumes. Foster, Benjamin Oliver; Moore, Frank Gardener; Schlesinger, Alfred C., editors. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919-1959 (printing).) — 3.9.5 focus

Translations (2)

History of Rome Perseus (Spillan, D.; Edmonds, Cyrus; McDevitte, William A., translators. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849-1868. (Bohn's Classical Library)) — 3.9.5 focus

[5] adopted instead of one, with unbounded, unlimited power; who, themselves unrestrained and unbridled, directed all the terrors of the law, and all kinds of severity against the commons. Now, in order that this licentious power might not continue perpetual, he would propose a law, that five persons be appointed to draw up laws regarding the consular

History of Rome Perseus (Volumes 1-2. Roberts, Canon, Rev, translator. London, New York: J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912.) — 3.9.5 focus

[5] To prevent this unfettered tyranny from lasting for ever, he said he would propose an enactment that a commission of five should be appointed to draw up in writing the laws which regulated the power of the consuls. Whatever jurisdiction over themselves the people gave the consul, that and that only was he to exercise; he was not to regard his own licence and caprice as law.

Notes on the current edition

Ab Urbe Condita With An English Translation, books 1-10, 21-45, with periochae 11-20

1. Terentilius probably aimed at restricting the power of the patricians by a codification of all the laws, not merely those, as Livy seems to think, which limited the authority of the consuls. The Fasti refer to the similar board actually created ten years later, as decemviri consulari imperio legibus scribundis (

decemvirs with consular authority for writing the laws

), and Livy has perhaps misunderstood some such phrase in the annalist he was here following.

Titus Livius (Livy) Ab urbe condita 3.9.5

Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor)

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

Current edition Perseus

Notes on the current edition

Stable identifiers