The Licino-Sextian rogations were a series of laws proposed by tribunes of the plebs, Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, enacted around 367 BC.
These and related laws (such as the Leges Genuciae) and the long struggle to pass them were part of the two hundred year conflict of the orders between the patrician aristocracy and the plebeians, who were most of the Roman populace.
In retaliation, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius vetoed the election of the consular tribunes for five years, until 370 BC, when they relented because the Volscian town of Velitrae had attacked the territory of Rome and one of her allies.
Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius proposed a fourth bill regarding the sacred Sibylline Books.
Livy wrote that "both the former [bills] would probably have been carried into law if [Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius] had not said that they were putting them en bloc."
He also wrote "[t]he plebs, satisfied with their victory, made the concession to the patricians that for the present all mention of consuls should be dropped."
[4] In 367 BC Marcus Furius Camillus was again appointed as dictator, this time to fight Gauls who had got into territories near Rome.
The senate, bruised by years of civic strife, carried the proposals of the plebeian tribunes and the two consuls were elected.
Indebtedness was a major problem among the plebeians, particularly among small peasant farmers, and this led to conflicts with the patricians, who were the aristocracy, the owners of large landed estates and the creditors.
This law provided for the termination of the military tribunes with consular powers and the return to regular consulships, one of which was to be held by the plebeians.
[7] This provided for the abolition of the Duumviri (two men) Sacris Faciundis, who were two patrician priests who were the custodians of the sacred Sibylline Books and consulted and interpreted them at times, especially when there were natural disasters, pestilence, famine or military difficulties.
Livy's account of the struggles of Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius and their legislation on the consulship has been analysed by T.J. Cornell.
He argues that the significance of the law on the consulship is unclear and its background is "extremely puzzling" due to obscurity around the military tribunes with consular power.
However, during one twelve-year period after the passage of the laws, from 355 to 343 BC, both consuls were patricians and the consulship became an unbroken line of shared office only after that.
"[11] Von Fritz and Sordi also think that the Lex Licinia Sextia on the consuls and the praetors was an administrative reform.
It was a small group of "rich men who made common cause with the poor and [ ] used the institutions of the plebeian movement to gain entry into the ranks of the ruling class", which necessitated a struggle against the exclusiveness of the patricians.
Some of these men were wealthy landowners who, thus, shared the same interests as the patricians, as the case of Gaius Licinius, who was fined for breaking his own agrarian law by exceeding the 500 iugera limit, shows.
The tribunate and the aedilship were increasingly occupied by young nobles who treated them as stepping stones for the consulship; "the men who held them did not consider themselves in any way bound to promote the interests of the mass of the plebs.