Book 2
24
Next the Licinian law was passed Probably in 103 B.C. which, while allowing the outlay of one hundred asses on designated days, as did the law of Fannius, conceded two hundred asses for weddings and set a limit of thirty for other days; however, after naming a fixed weight of dried meat and salted provisions for each day, it granted the indiscriminate and unlimited use of the products of the earth, vine and orchard. This law the poet Laevius mentions in his Erotopaegnia. Fr. 23, Bährens, Fray. Poet. Rom., p. 292. Erotopaegnia means Playful Verses about Love ; a sixth book is cited by Charisius (i. 204 K). One fragment indicates that Laevius was a contemporary of Varro. His brief and scanty fragments show great variety in metre (cf. Prisc. ii. 258 K), and innovations in diction (Gell. xix. 7.) These are the words of Laevius, by which he means that a kid that had been brought for a feast was sent away and the dinner served with fruit and vegetables, as the Licinian law had provided: The Licinian law is introduced, The liquid light to the kid restored. Lucilius also has the said law in mind in these words: Let us evade the law of Licinius. 1200, Marx.
