[788] Messala, De Auspiciis, in Gell. xiii. 16 (15). 1.
[789] Dion. Hal. vii. 16. 4; 17. 5; 22. 2; x. 41; Cic. Sest. 37. 79; Livy iii. 11. 8; xxv. 3 f.; xliii. 16. 7-9; (Aur. Vict.) Vir. Ill. 65. 5; cf. Lange, Röm. Alt. i. 604, 826; p. 266 below.
[790] Cic. Fam. v. 2. 7: Q. Metellus Nepos forbade Cicero to address the people in contio on the occasion of his retiring from the consulship—a prohibition which Cicero declares was never before heard of. For another case, see Dio Cass. xxxviii. 12. 3; Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 716; iii. 299 f.
[791] Lange’s supposition (Röm. Alt. ii. 716) that by the holding of a contio a tribune could prevent a patrician magistrate’s convoking comitia is not well founded. Livy, iv. 25. 1 (“Tribuni plebi adsiduiis contionibus prohibendo consularia comitia”), does not intend to express a constitutional principle; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 289; Liebenam, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 1150.
[792] Cic. Rab. Perd. 4. 11: “Tune, qui civibus Romanis in contione ipsa carnificem, qui vincla adhiberi putas oportere, qui in Campo Martio comitiis centuriatis auspicato in loco crucem ad civium supplicium defigi et constitui iubes, an ego, qui funestari contionem contagione carnificis veto ... qui castam contionem, sanctum Campum ... defendo servari oportere;” cf. 5. 15.
[793] Tac. Ann. ii. 32.
[794] Fest. 241. 29; Livy xxii. 57. 3; Suet. Dom. 8; Dio Cass. lxxix. 9. 3 f.; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. ii. 56, n. 4.
[795] Cf. Livy xli. 15. 10; Lex Gen. 81, in CIL. ii. Supplb. 5439.
[796] Livy iii. 66. 2; v. 11. 15; 12. 1; xxxviii. 52. 4; 53. 6. On the judicial contio, see p. 259.
[797] Livy xliii. 16. 5.