Lucius Sextius Lateran

Lucius Sextius, elected to the tribunes of the people together with Guy Licinius Calw Stolon (376 BC), put forward, together with his colleague, three bills aimed at improving the position of the plebs : on limiting large-scale land tenure, on sparing the payment of debts and on admission to consulate of candidates-plebeians. These bills were drafted by two tribunes with the participation of Marc Fabius Ambusta ^[1] and met fierce resistance from the senate, who had befallen other folk tribunes.

The struggle around initiatives Sextius and Licinius became the main content of the political life of Rome for the following years. Sextius and his colleague were invariably re-elected by the plebs and imposed a ban on the election of military tribunes ; five years (375 - 371 BC) in Rome there were no higher magistrates ^[2] .

In 370, support for bills in the ruling circles began to grow: there were already five out of ten tribunals for them; Marc Fabius Ambust, one of the military tribunes of this year, openly spoke in favor of reforms and developed efforts to attract the most influential senators to his camp ^[3] . The patricians tried to handle the plebs with the hands of a dictator (368 BC), but Mark Furiy Kamill and Publius Manlius Kapitolin , appointed to this position, could not do anything. Sextius and Licinius held a law that decemvirs on sacred matters should be partially elected from plebeians, and in 367 the first consular elections were held in a long time, one of the winners in which was Lucius Sextius. Thus, he became the first consul plebeian.

The colleague of Sextius was the patrician Lucius Emilie Mamertsin Throughout the year, the Senate deliberately minimized state activities in order to prevent the consul-plebei from acting; “Everything was hushed up and idleness reigned, as if in closed courts” ^[4] .

After the consulate, Lucius Sextius is not mentioned in the sources.