Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

But not only did the tribe assemblies infringe the power of those of the centuries, they became the later model of the latter, and the tendency to detract from the influence of wealth was shown in the reorganisation of the comitia centuriata on a tribal basis.[1250] The date of this change is unknown; but, as the redistribution of the centuries in its final form assumes the existence of thirty-five tribes, the alteration may not be earlier than the year 241 B.C. The leading principle of the new arrangement was that the five classes were distributed over all the tribes in such a manner that there were two centuries of each class—one century of seniores and one of juniores—in a single tribe. Each class thus had two votes in a tribe and seventy votes in all. The eighteen centuries of knights still stood outside the tribe; so did the four centuries of fabri, accensi, tibicines and cornicines, and the fifth century of proletarii which probably existed at this time.[1251] The total number of centuries would thus be 373 (350 + 18 + 5). The majority of this number is 187, but the first class and the equites together now have but 88 votes, thus losing their preponderance in voting power. In spite of this arrangement by tribes there is no tribal vote. The unit of voting is still the century, and it is the number of centuries that decides the question. The organisation is still by classes, the seventy centuries of each class voting as distinct bodies.[1252] The equites seem still to have had the right of voting first,[1253] and the first class took precedence of the others; for the lot which designated the centuria praerogativa[1254] seems to have been cast only amongst the seventy groups of seniores and juniores belonging to this class.[1255]

The restoration by Sulla of the older method of voting (88 B.C.)[1256] was not a permanent reform. It disappeared during the Cinnan reaction, and it is questionable whether it was renewed by the dictator. If it was, it soon vanished with other items of his aristocratic reorganisation.

The comitia tributa was the most handy of all the assemblies of the full Populus, and was, consequently, the most frequently employed for the passing of leges. Its presidents were the patrician magistrates, usually the consuls and praetors and, for purposes of jurisdiction, the curule aediles. It elected these aediles and other lower magistrates of the people, as well as the twenty-four tribunes of the first four legions. Its jurisdiction was limited to pecuniary penalties.

The concilium plebis, practically the sovereign body of the state, differed from this last assembly in two respects. It could be summoned only by plebeian magistrates and it never included the Patricians.[1257] Besides issuing universally valid decrees (plebiscita), it elected the magistrates of the Plebs, and in its judicial capacity was the body which considered the penalties which they had formulated. By the strict letter of the Twelve Tables this jurisdiction should have been limited to the imposition of fines,[1258] but, besides instances of its capital jurisdiction at an early period of its history, it continued to possess the unquestioned right of pronouncing outlawry (aquae et ignis interdictio) against any one already in exile,[1259] and after the time of Caius Gracchus there are traces of an independent capital jurisdiction which it exercised against magistrates who had violated the provocatio.[1260]

The freedom of this plebeian assembly was for a time limited by Sulla’s ordinance (88 B.C.) directing that no measure should be brought before it which had not received the previous sanction of the Senate;[1261] but the old powers of unimpeded legislation were restored in 70 B.C. If Sulla also took the right of prosecution from the tribune,[1262] the higher jurisdiction of the Plebs was restored by the enactment which gave it back its legislative power, for tribunician prosecutions continue to the end of the Republic.

An anomalous use of the popular suffrage was made in the case of elections to the priestly colleges. Formerly they had been kept distinct from the secular life of the state, and even when the reforming spirit dictated that they should be submitted to the voice of the people, a religious scruple forbade the intervention of the comitia. The electoral body was composed of seventeen tribes selected by lot from the thirty-five, and this body, which was not the Populus,[1263] was presided over by a pontiff.[1264] This organisation was probably first applied about the middle of the third century B.C. to the creation of the pontifex maximus: it received a great extension at the close of the second century. A Domitian law, a plebiscitum of 104 B.C., applied election in a modified form to the religious collegia—probably to the four great guilds of pontiffs, augurs, quindecemvirs, and epulones. The college in question presented, the people elected and gave to the college again a congé d’élire, whereupon the chosen candidate was solemnly coopted by the members of his guild.[1265] Sulla abolished this mode of appointment, and perhaps with it the popular election of the chief pontiff, restoring the aristocratic mode of cooptation; but appointment by the seventeen tribes was restored again in 63 B.C., through a plebiscite of the tribune Labienus.[1266]

Our final task in connexion with the people and its powers will be to describe the preliminaries to the meetings of the comitia and the concilium, and the mode in which business was transacted at these gatherings.

The legal days of meeting (comitiales dies) were those which were neither holy (nefasti) nor dedicated to the work of justice (fasti). The 194 days thus left clear were further broken into by the nundinae, the first days of the eight-day week, on which not even a contio could be held,[1267] and by the movable festivals (feriae conceptivae) which were fixed by the magistrates. These rules of time were binding on all meetings of Populus and Plebs; those of place differed for the various assemblies. The assembly of the curiae met within the pomerium, usually in the Comitium on the north-west of the Forum.[1268] The centuries, on the other hand, must meet without the walls, and their place of assembly was usually the Campus Martius, but meetings are sometimes found in other places such as “the Peteline grove outside the river-gate,” and an unknown site called the Aesculetum.[1269] The two assemblies of the tribes were originally bound to no locality, except for the fact that the plebeian, as purely city, magistrates could not easily find their way outside the walls. But the eliciting of a rogatio from the tribes by the consul in his camp at Sutrium in 357 B.C. led, through the fear of military influence, to the rule that no resolution should be elicited from the people in the military domain,[1270] and since that date the two assemblies of the tribes were held within the first milestone. The open space of the Capitol (area Capitolii) was at one time their usual resort both for elections and for laws, but in the later period of the Republic it was found convenient to conduct the elections both of the lower and plebeian magistrates in the Campus Martius, while the Rostra in the Forum, the usual centre of demagogic strife and the ordinary gathering place for contiones, was chosen as the site for the legislation of the tribes.[1271]

The first step in the intercourse of a magistrate with the people, which was to produce a binding act, was the setting forth by the former of a decree specifying the day of meeting,[1272] and describing the nature of the act which he meant to introduce. This promulgation[1273] assumed various forms in accordance with the purpose of the projected meeting. In prosecutions it contained the name of the accused, the nature of the charge, and the penalty proposed; in elections at least the places to be filled, but probably in later times a list of the candidates as well;[1274] in legislation the text of the law which was to be the subject of the rogatio. No provision seems to have been made that the text should remain unaltered until a Licinio-Junian law of 62 B.C. provided that a copy of the promulgated enactment should be deposited in the aerarium as a guarantee that no amendment was inserted before the people was asked to accept it.[1275]