ABSTRACT
Between 90 and 86 BCE a sequence of laws and declarations of the Senate provided for the nominal enfranchisement of the majority of Italy's population south of the Po. The two best documented of these enfranchisement measures are two laws. The first of these, the lex Iulia, extended Roman citizenship to all those allied Italian and Latin cities in Italy which had not joined the insurgency, and was most likely passed by the comitia centuriata in late 90 BCE once the consul L. Iulius Caesar had returned to the city. It is ironic that despite the prominence of the lex Iulia in the works of both ancient and modern scholars, it was not responsible for the enfranchisement of the insurgents. The second law was the lex Plautia Papiria, proposed by two tribunes and passed by the tribal assembly in 89 BCE, extended the possibility of citizenship to all those former insurgents who had surrendered at that time.
