Editing Decemviri (section)

=== Valerio-Horatian laws (''leges Valeriae Horatiae'') ===

Lucius Valerius Potitius and Marcus Horatius Barbatus were elected as consuls. They passed the [[Valerio-Horatian Laws]] (''Leges Valeriae Horatiae''). The first law provided that the resolutions of the plebeian council were binding on the people. Then "they not only restored a consular law about the appeal, but they also safeguarded it for the future by the solemn enactment of a new law, that no one should declare the election of any magistrate without appeal, and that he who should so declare might be put to death [by anyone] without offence to law or religion, and that such a homicide should not be held a capital crime". They also reinstated the principle of the [[sacrosanctity]] of the plebeian tribunes "by restoring certain long-neglected ceremonies" and by putting what had been just a religious sanction into the statutes with a law which extended it to all plebeian magistrates, including the [[aediles]] and the decemviral judges. Additionally, they specified that the heads of those who violated these ceremonies were to be forfeited to Jupiter and their property sold at the temple of [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]], [[Liber]], and [[Libera (mythology)|Libera]]. They also introduced the practice of delivering the decrees of the senate to the aediles at the temple of [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]], "[u]p to that time they were wont to be suppressed or falsified, at the pleasure of the consuls". In addition, the plebeian council passed a law whereby those who left the plebeians without tribunes or elected a magistrate without appeal were to be scourged and beheaded. Livy noted that all the measures were passed against the will of the patricians, but they did not actively oppose them.<ref>Livy, 3.55</ref>