leges

Leges is the Latin plural of lex, meaning laws or statutes. In ancient Rome, leges were formal statutory acts enacted by political bodies and formed the backbone of Roman statutory law. They could be proposed by magistrates and enacted by the assemblies of the Roman people or, under certain conditions, by the Senate acting on magistrates' proposals.

Key moments include the Twelve Tables (c. 450 BCE), the earliest extensive codification of Roman law, and the development of plebiscites. The Lex Hortensia of 287 BCE established that plebiscites passed by the plebeian council had the force of law for all citizens, both patricians and plebeians, marking a significant expansion of legislative authority beyond the patriciate.

Over time, leges varied in form and source: some were comprehensive codes; others were targeted statutes addressing specific issues such as debt, citizenship, or procedure. In the late Republic and under the Empire, many laws took the form of imperial constitutions issued by magistrates, emperors, or legal authorities, sometimes codified later in collections and the later Roman law tradition.

Leges continued to influence Western legal systems through the later Roman civil law tradition and the medieval and early modern reception of Roman law. In modern scholarship, leges is used to describe historical statutes in Latin or as a general term for laws in Roman and civil-law contexts.