The ''lex Roscia theatralis'' was a Roman law of 67 BC that reserved 14 rows of good seats in the theater for members of the

equestrian order The ''equites'' (; literally "horse-" or "cavalrymen", though sometimes referred to as "knights" in English) constituted the second of the property-based classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the senatorial class. A member of the equestrian o ...

. It was sponsored by the

tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

Roscius Otho. The ''equites'' or "knights" who had this privilege were presumably not all those who met the property requirements under the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

for admission to the order, but rather those who had the right of the "public horse", a smaller and more elite group. Cicero, ''Pro Murena'', 19 The Latin poet

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

refers to it satirically in his ''Epistulae'', and wonders whether ''melior est an puerorum nenia'' (it is really better than the children's nursery rhyme).

References

Roman law 67 BC 1st century BC in law Ancient Roman equites 1st century BC in the Roman Republic {{AncientRome-law-stub

See also

References