The Roman assemblies from their origin to the end of the Republic

by George Willis Botsford

[988] Caesar, B. G. vii. 21.

[989] Majority rule was unknown to primitive times. The members of the council talked together till they came to a unanimous agreement. If the Homeric Greeks in assembly failed to agree, each party went its own way; Od. iii. 150 ff. Among the Slavs the majority forced a unanimous vote by coercing the minority; Kovalevsky, ibid. 122 ff. For the Germans; Seeck, Gesch. d. Unterg. d. antik. Welt, i. 213.

[990] For the Homeric Greek assembly, see Hermann-Thumser, Griech Staatsalt. 67 f.

[991] Il. i. 11 ff.

[992] Ibid. i. 135 ff., 320 ff.

[993] Ibid. vii. 345 ff.

[994] In Italy, Livy i. 45. 2; 49. 8.

[995] This right is proved by the fact that the death of a king freed the neighboring states from their treaty obligations to his community, e.g., the Fidenates after the death of Romulus; Dion. Hal. iii. 23. 1; the Latins after the death of Tullus; Dion. Hal. iii. 37. 3; various neighbors after the expulsion of the last Tarquin; Dion. Hal. viii. 64. 2; cf. Rubino, Röm. Verf. 175, n. 2. At the time of the Caudine disaster (321 B.C.) the Samnite leader assumed that the Roman consuls were competent in their own right to conclude a definitive peace; Livy ix. 2 ff.

[996] Among the Quadi the right to declare war belonged to the council, not to the assembly; Amm. Marc. xxx. 6. 2. With the Saxons the will of the nobles was equivalent to the will of the people; Beowulf, cited by Seeck, ibid. i. 217. 7, see also his notes on p. 531. The Sabine senators (senes) are represented as responsible for the continual wars of their people with the Romans; Livy ii. 18. 11. In general the leading men and the senate were able by their own oath to bind the community; Caes. B. G. iv. 11; cf. 13. A chief might work his will by packing an assembly with men on whom he could rely; Tac. Hist. iv. 14. The Grand Duke of Russia, relying on his comitatus, sometimes went to war without consulting the people; Kovalevsky, Mod. Cust. and Anc. Laws, 142.

[997] Leist, Graeco-ital. Rechtsgesch. 130, 136 f. Under favorable conditions the assembly acquired sovereignty, as at Athens and for a time in Russia; Kovalevsky, Russian Political Institutions, 17. Schrader, Reallexikon, 923 f., following Mommsen (cf. also Post, Grundlagen des Rechts, 130; Cramer, Verfassungsgesch. d. Germ. u. Kelt. 61 et pass.), is altogether wrong in supposing the assembly to have been originally sovereign.