[477] Varro, L. L. v. 88: “Centuria qui sub uno centurione sunt, quorum centenarius iustus numerus;” Fest. ep. 53: “Centuria ... significat ... in re militari centum homines;” Isid. Etym. ix. 3. 48; cf. Huschke, Verf. d. Serv. 107.
[478] Estimates have been made by Müller, in Philol. xxxiv (1876). 127; Delbrück, Gesch. d. Kriegsk. i. 224; Beloch, Bevölk. d. griech.-röm. Welt, 42 f.; Smith, Röm. Timokr. 67. In the United States the ratio is more than four to one; Special Reports: Suppl. Analysis and Derivative Tables, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Washington, 1906. p. 170 f. The estimate given in the text is based upon the “Deutsche Sterbetafel” for men, in E. Czuber, Warscheinlichkeitsrechnung (Leipzig, 1903), p. 572, 574. The ratio is almost exactly three.
[479] Livy i. 43. 2. For the year 401, see Livy v. 10. 4: “Nec iuniores modo conscripti, sed seniores etiam coacti nomina dare, ut urbis custodiam agerent;” for 389, vi. 2. 6; for 386, vi. 6. 14; for 296, x. 21. 4: “Nec ingenui modo aut iuniores sacramento adacti, sed seniorum etiam cohortes factae libertinique centuriati. Et defendendae urbis consilia agitabantur;” cf. Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 409, n. 5. The last of the definite instances here mentioned could alone be historical, and in this case not centuriae or legiones but cohortes seniorum are spoken of.
[480] Cf. Delbrück, Gesch. d. Kriegsk. i. 227 f.
[481] If the senior centuries were formed in the way assumed by Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 261 (“Nicht selbständig gebildet worden, sondern daraus hervorgegangen, dass wer aus einer Centurie des ersten Aufgebots Alters halber ausschied, damit in die entsprechende Centurie des zweiten Aufgebots eintrat”), about a half generation must have been required to evolve them. An objection to his idea is that the military centuries as well as the legions were formed anew at each year’s levy (Polyb. vi. 20, 24), whereas the political centuries were made up by the censors (cf. Cic. Rep. ii. 22. 40: “In una centuria censebantur”), doubtless modified annually by the consuls. A military century and a political century accordingly could not have been composed of the same men.
The Tabulae Iuniorum contained the names of all juniors in honorable service in the field; Livy xxiv. 18. 7. Tabulae Seniorum are not mentioned. Classis Iuniorum (Fest. 246. 30) may apply to all eighty-five (or eighty-four) centuries of juniors, as Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 474, supposes, or to the first class; Tubero, Historiae, i, in Gell. x. 28. 1: “Scripsit Servium Tullium regem, populi Romani cum illas quinque classes iuniorum census faciendi gratia institueret.” It is doubtful whether there was a separate list of seniors.
[482] Cic. Rep. ii. 22. 40: “Illarum autem sex et nonaginta centuriarum in una centuria tum quidem plures censebantur quam paene in prima classe tota.”
[483] Soltau, Altröm. Volksversamml. 240.
[484] The confusion of the comitia with the army, which the ancient writers began, the moderns have intensified till the subject has become utterly incomprehensible. Chiefly to Genz, Servianische Centurienverfassung (1874) and Soltau, Alröm. Volksversammlungen (1880) belongs the credit of putting in a clear light the fact that the original Servian organization was an army. Both authors, however, have made the fundamental mistake of supposing that for a time during the early republic the army officiated as an assembly.
[485] Livy xxiv. 8. 19.