The Lex Caecilia Didia was a law put into effect by the consuls

Roman consul

A consul served in the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic.Each year, two consuls were elected together, to serve for a one-year term. Each consul was given veto power over his colleague and the officials would alternate each month...

 Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos was a son of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Balearicus. He was a Consul in 98 BC, having fought at the Iberian Peninsula against the Celtiberians and the Vaccaei, suffering before these ones a memorable defeat.He married Licinia Prima, who after widowed married the...

 and Titus Didius

Titus Didius

Titus Didius was a general and politician of the Roman Republic. He is credited with the restoration of the Villa Publica, and is notorious for his proconsulship in Hispania Citerior ....

 in the year 98 BCE. This law had two provisions. The first was a minimum period between proposing a Roman law

Roman law

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

 and voting on it, and the second was a ban of miscellaneous provisions in a single Roman law. This law was reinforced by the Lex Junia Licinia

Lex Junia Licinia

The Lex Junia Licinia or Lex Junia et Licinia was an ancient Roman law produced in 62 BC that confirmed the similar Lex Caecilia Didia of 98 BC....

in 62 BC, an umbrella law introduced by Lucius Licinius Murena

Lucius Licinius Murena

Lucius Licinius Murena was Roman consul in 62 BC. His father had the same name.At the end of the First Mithridatic War, he was left in Asia by Sulla in command of the two legions formerly controlled by Gaius Flavius Fimbria...

 and Decimus Junius Silanus

Decimus Junius Silanus (Consul 62 BC)

Decimus Junius M. f. D. n. Silanus was a consul of the Roman Republic. He may have been the son of Marcus Junius Silanus, consul in 109 BC. He was the stepfather of Marcus Junius Brutus, having married Brutus' mother, Servilia.-Political career:...

.

Provisions

The Bobbio Scholiast

Bobbio Scholiast

The Bobbio Scholiast was an anonymous scholiast working in the 7th century at the monastery of Bobbio and known for his annotations of texts from classical antiquity...

 describes the first provision: "The Caecilian and Didian law decreed that the period of trinundium be observed for promulgating

Promulgation

Promulgation is the act of formally proclaiming or declaring a new statutory or administrative law after its enactment. In some jurisdictions this additional step is necessary before the law can take effect....

 laws." The Lex Caecilia Didia, then, determined how much time had to be allowed between the publication of a law and its vote in the assembly. The period of time designated by trinundium has been taken to mean either three Roman eight-day weeks (that is, 24 days) or tertiae nundinae, on the third market-day (17 days).

The second provision of the Lex Caecilia Didia forbade leges saturae, "stuffed" laws, which were statute

Statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. The word is often used to distinguish law made by legislative bodies from case law, decided by courts, and regulations...

s dealing with heterogeneous subject matters. This meant that in a single Roman bill

Rogatio

In Roman constitutional law, rogatio is the term for a legislative bill placed before an Assembly of the People in ancient Rome. The rogatio procedure underscores the fact that the Roman senate could issue decrees, but was not a legislative or parliamentarian body...

, there could not be a collection of unrelated measures — what might in modern terms be called omnibus bill

Omnibus bill

An omnibus bill is a proposed law that covers a number of diverse or unrelated topics. Omnibus is derived from Latin and means "for everything"...

s. Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 gave an interpretation of the law in his Oratio de domo sua ("Speech concerning His House") after his return from exile: "What other force, what other meaning, I should like to know, has the Caecilian and Didian law, except this; that the people are not to be forced in consequence of many different things being joined in one complicated bill."

Political background

The Lex Caecilia Didia was a direct response to the events of 100 BCE and an attempt to reduce hasty legislation passed in the comitia. In that year, Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius

Gaius Marius was a Roman general and statesman. He was elected consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens, eliminating the manipular military formations, and reorganizing the...

 gained his sixth term as consul. Under Marius, the popularist

Populares

Populares were aristocratic leaders in the late Roman Republic who relied on the people's assemblies and tribunate to acquire political power. They are regarded in modern scholarship as in opposition to the optimates, who are identified with the conservative interests of a senatorial elite...

 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...

 Saturninus

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus

Lucius Appuleius Saturninus was a Roman popularist and tribune; he was a political ally of Gaius Marius, and his downfall caused a great deal of political embarrassment for Marius, who absented himself from public life until he returned to take up a command in the Social War of 91 to 88...

 and the praetor

Praetor

Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...

 Glaucia

Gaius Servilius Glaucia

Gaius Servilius Glaucia was a Roman politician who served as tribune of the Plebs in 101 BC and praetor in 100 BC. He arranged for the murder of an elected tribune of plebs to make spot for Lucius Appuleius Saturninus who was the next one to become tribune by the votes...

 proposed and passed liberal land laws

Agrarian law

Agrarian laws were laws among the Romans regulating the division of the public lands, or ager publicus.There existed three types of land in ancient Rome: private land, common pasture, and public land...

 assigning land in the province of Africa to Marius’s veterans. However, the radical nature of these bills and the forcible methods Saturninus and Glaucia used in ensuring their passage alienated a large part of the Roman people and eventually even Marius. As a result Saturninus’s laws were repealed, and the Lex Caecilia Didia was introduced. The goal was to curb the passage of radical bills, with the assumption that the period of trinundium would give the citizens time to understand the proposed law or to be persuaded to vote against it.