Political Organisation.
III. In a country where war was the principal occupation, the political organisation must naturally depend on the military organisation. A single chief had the superior direction, an assembly of men pre-eminent in importance and age formed the council, while the political rights belonged only to those who supported the fatigues of war.
The king, elected generally by the assembly of the gentes,[26] commanded the army. Sovereign pontiff, legislator, and judge in all sacred matters, he dispensed justice[27] in all criminal affairs which concerned the Republic. He had for insignia a crown of gold and a purple robe, and for escort twenty-four lictors,[28] some carrying axes surrounded with rods, others merely rods.[29] At the death of the king, a magistrate, called interrex, was appointed by the Senate to exercise the royal authority during the five days which intervened before the nomination of his successor. This office continued, with the same title, under the Consular Republic, when the absence of the consuls prevented the holding of the comitia.
The Senate, composed of the richest and most illustrious of the patricians, to the number at first of a hundred, of two hundred after the union with the Sabines, and of three hundred after the admission of the gentes minores under Tarquin, was the council of the ancients, taking under its jurisdiction the interests of the town, in which were then concentrated all the interests of the State.
The patricians occupied all offices, supported alone the burden of war, and consequently had alone the right of voting in the assemblies.
The gentes were themselves divided into three tribes. Each, commanded by a tribune,[30] was obliged, under Romulus, to furnish a thousand soldiers (indeed, miles comes from mille) and a hundred horsemen (celeres). The tribe was divided into ten curiæ; at the head of each curia was a curion. The three tribes, furnishing three thousand foot soldiers and three hundred horsemen, formed at first the legion. Their number was soon doubled by the adjunction of new cities.[31]
The curia, into which a certain number of gentes entered, was then the basis of the political and military organisation, and hence originated the name of Quirites to signify the Roman people.
The members of the curia were constituted into religious associations, having each its assemblies and solemn festivals which established bonds of affiliation between them. When their assemblies had a political aim, the votes were taken by head;[32] they decided the question of peace or war; they nominated the magistrates of the town; and they confirmed or abrogated the laws.[33]
The appeal to the people,[34] which might annul the judgments of the magistrates, was nothing more than the appeal to the curia; and it was by having recourse to it, after having been condemned by the decemvirs, that the survivor of the three Horatii was saved.