Abstract

Ever since Mommsen’s magisterial 1863 edition, the extortion law of the Tabula Bembina has been seen as a law of Gaius Gracchus. Since Mommsen’s intervention, only Carcopino and myself have seriously challenged the consensus. However, the sources imply that Gaius proposed a lex iudiciaria, not an extortion law, and, further, the role of the iudices editicii and the probability that chapters from the Lex Repetundarum on the reward for successful prosecutors were repeated in the Lex Tarentina of 104/3 BC together suggest that Klenze was right after all in identifying the law as the law of C. Servilius Glaucia. Lucilius’ apparent connection of the fierce Lex Calpurnia with Q. Scaevola’s trial in 119 or 118 BC seems to be the clinching evidence.