Porcian and Sempronian Law

A pair of sets of laws from Ancient Rome.

The most sacred rights of free­dom, con­firmed by the Por­cian and Sem­pron­ian laws, were sus­pend­ed by the mil­i­tary engagement. 

—Edward Gib­bon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

I can tell by the con­text that these are prop­er names, and so sort of falls out­side the nor­mal para­me­ters of my hunt for vocab­u­lary words. But I did have to look these up, and so here we are.

Sem­pron­ian Law refers to a set of laws writ­ten by Tiberius Sem­pro­nius Grac­chus and put in place by his broth­er Gaius Sem­pro­nius Grac­chus after the death of Tiberius. These laws first claim vast regions of agrar­i­an land for Rome and sec­ond, pro­vide for inex­pen­sive corn to Roman cit­i­zens. Sem­pron­ian there­fore refers to the Grac­chus’s nomen, or clan name.

Por­cian Law refers to Roman laws that pro­tect­ed cit­i­zens of Rome from injury and death. Por­cius was the nomen of the clan of which the Cato fam­i­ly, of which Cato the Cen­sor and Cato the Younger were mem­bers. If I’ve got this right, Mar­cus Por­cius Cato Licini­anus was Cato the Cen­sor’s son and the great-uncle of Cato the Younger.

The sec­ond lex por­cia pro­hib­it­ed cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment of Roman cit­i­zens with­out appeal. The first and third of these laws also con­cern the right of appeal, the first guar­an­tee­ing Roman cit­i­zens the right of appeal in cap­i­tal cas­es and the third pro­vid­ed the right of appeal for Roman cit­i­zens in mil­i­tary ser­vice, pre­vent­ing sum­ma­ry exe­cu­tion. The first and third of Por­cian Laws were pro­posed by mem­bers of the Por­cius clan but not part of the Cato family.

By the way, Cato the Younger’s beloved half-broth­er Quin­tus Servil­ius Cae­pio died at Thrace. The younger of the Grac­chus broth­ers respon­si­ble for the Sem­pron­ian Laws was Gaius. «Gaius» and «Thrace» are names that should be famil­iar to view­ers of Bat­tlestar Galactica.