Gaius Licinius Stolo
Encyclopedia
"Stolo" redirects here. For the indigenous First Nations people, see Stó:lō
Stó:lo
The Sto:lo , alternately written as Stó:lō, Stó:lô or Stó:lõ and historically as Staulo or Stahlo, and historically known and commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish, are a group of First Nations peoples inhabiting the Fraser Valley of...

.


Gaius Licinius
Licinius
Licinius I , was Roman Emperor from 308 to 324. Co-author of the Edict of Milan that granted official toleration to Christians in the Roman Empire, for the majority of his reign he was the rival of Constantine I...

 Stolo
, along with Lucius Sextius
Lucius Sextius
Lucius Sextius Lateranus was a Roman tribune of the plebs and is noted for having been one of two men behind the Lex Licinia Sextia, permitting him in 366 BC to become what is often considered the "first plebeian consul"...

, was one of the two tribune
Tribune
Tribune was a title shared by elected officials in the Roman Republic. Tribunes had the power to convene the Plebeian Council and to act as its president, which also gave them the right to propose legislation before it. They were sacrosanct, in the sense that any assault on their person was...

s of ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 who opened the consul
Consul
Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

ship to the plebeians
Plebs
The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...

.

Records indicate he was tribune from 376 BC
376 BC
Year 376 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Mugillanus, Lanatus, Cornelius and Praetextatus...

 to 367 BC
367 BC
Year 367 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Cossus, Maluginensis, Macerinus, Capitolinus, Cicurinus and Poplicola...

, during which he passed the Lex Licinia Sextia
Lex Licinia Sextia
Lex Licinia Sextia was a Roman law introduced around 376 BCE and enacted in 367 BCE. It restored the consulship, allegedly reserved one of the two consular positions for a plebeian , and introduced new limits on the possession of conquered land.- Authors :It is named for the plebeian tribunes Gaius...

restoring the consulship, requiring a plebeian consul seat, limiting the amount of public land that one person could hold, and regulated debts. He also passed a law stipulating that the Sibylline Books
Sibylline Books
The Sibylline Books or Libri Sibyllini were a collection of oracular utterances, set out in Greek hexameters, purchased from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, and consulted at momentous crises through the history of the Republic and the Empire...

should be overseen by decemviri
Decemviri
Decemviri is a Latin term meaning "Ten Men" which designates any such commission in the Roman Republic...

, of whom half would be plebian
Plebs
The plebs was the general body of free land-owning Roman citizens in Ancient Rome. They were distinct from the higher order of the patricians. A member of the plebs was known as a plebeian...

 in order to prevent any falsification in favor of the patricians. The patricians opposed these laws, though they finally were passed. Licinius was then elected consul for 361 BC
361 BC
Year 361 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Stolo and Peticus...

 (Fasti Capitolini).

He was later charged with violating his own laws concerning the ownership of land and was forced to pay a heavy fine.

Although Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 describes the activities of Gaius Licinius in great detail, it is likely that his description is not accurate; much of it is suspiciously similar to events in the age of the Gracchi
Gracchi
The Gracchi brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, were Roman Plebian nobiles who both served as tribunes in 2nd century BC. They attempted to pass land reform legislation that would redistribute the major patrician landholdings among the plebeians. For this legislation and their membership in the...

 two hundred years later, and it is quite possible that the annalist Licinius Macer
Licinius Macer
Gaius Licinius Macer was an official and annalist of ancient Rome.A member of the ancient plebeian gens Licinia, he was tribune in 73 BC; Sallust mentions him agitating for the people's rights...

 invented episodes of his family's activities.

He was married to the youngest daughter of Marcus Fabius Ambustus
Marcus Fabius Ambustus (consular tribune 381 BC)
Marcus Fabius Ambustus was an ancient Roman politician who was the son of Caeso Fabius Ambustus. He was consular tribune in 381 BC. He had two daughters, of whom the elder was married to Servius Sulpicius Praetextatus, and the younger to Gaius Licinius Stolo, one of the authors of the Lex Licinia...

. An anecdote frequently told said that Stolo's wife urged him to procure the consulship for plebeians through the Lex Licinia Sextia
Lex Licinia Sextia
Lex Licinia Sextia was a Roman law introduced around 376 BCE and enacted in 367 BCE. It restored the consulship, allegedly reserved one of the two consular positions for a plebeian , and introduced new limits on the possession of conquered land.- Authors :It is named for the plebeian tribunes Gaius...

, as she was jealous of the honors of Servius Sulpicius Praetextatus
Servius Sulpicius Praetextatus
Servius Sulpicius Praetextatus was an ancient Roman politician who served four times as consular tribune, 377 BC, 376, 370, and 368. He married the elder daughter of Marcus Fabius Ambustus...

, the patrician husband of her sister. As early as the turn of the 19th century, the German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr
Barthold Georg Niebuhr was a Danish-German statesman and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. Classical Rome caught the admiration of German thinkers...

 pointed out the historical untrustworthiness and contradictions in this tale.

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