Gaius Canuleius, according to Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 book 4, was a tribune of the plebs in 445 BC. He introduced a bill proposing that intermarriage between patricians and plebians be allowed. As well, with his fellow tribunes he proposed another bill allowing one of the two annually elected consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

s to be a plebeian.

Despite fierce opposition from the patricians, his laws were eventually passed when the plebeians went on a military strike, refusing to defend the city against its attacking neighbors. That law, the Lex Canuleia

Lex Canuleia

The Lex Canuleia is a law of the Roman Republic passed in the year 445 BC. Named after the tribune Gaius Canuleius, who proposed it, it abolished a corresponding prohibition in the Twelve Tables and allowed marriage between patricians and plebeians, with children inheriting the father's social status...

, bears his name.

The accuracy of Livy's description of Canuleius' tribunate and the Struggle of the Orders in which his laws played a major part is doubted by some modern scholars.

See also

• Canuleia (gens)
  Canuleia (gens)
  The gens Canuleia was a plebeian family at Rome. Although members of the gens are known throughout the period of the Roman Republic, none of them ever obtained the consulship...
  
  
• Twelve Tables
  Twelve Tables
  The Law of the Twelve Tables was the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centrepiece of the constitution of the Roman Republic and the core of the mos maiorum...
  
  
• Conflict of the Orders
  Conflict of the Orders
  The Conflict of the Orders, also referred to as the Struggle of the Orders, was a political struggle between the Plebeians and Patricians of the ancient Roman Republic, in which the Plebeians sought political equality with the Patricians. It played a major role in the development of the...
  
  
• Roman Republic
  Roman Republic
  The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
  
  

External links

• Text of Ab Urbe Condita
• Complete works of Livy at The Latin Library
  The Latin Library
  The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain. Others have been downloaded from various sites on the Internet . Most of the recent texts have been...
  
   in Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
  only
  • Ab urbe condita (History of Rome), Books I-III (eBook in English) at Project Gutenberg.