[1293] Röm. Gesch. iii. 382 f., followed by Plüss, Centurienverf. 23 ff. Niebuhr places the change in 304, when there were but thirty-one tribes, which would give for that date but sixty-two half-tribe centuries.
[1294] P. 216.
[1295] Niebuhr, ibid. His authorities for the two classes are Livy xliii. 16. 14: “Cum ex duodecim centuriis equitum octo censorem condemnassent multaeque aliae primae classis”; Cic. Phil. ii. 33. 82: “Prima classis vocatur, renuntiatur; deinde, ita ut adsolet, suffragia; tum secunda classis vocatur; quae omnia sunt citius facta, quam dixi. Confecto negotio bonus augur ... alio die inquit”; cf. p. 113. In the Livian citation, however, the mention of only the first class affords no hint as to the number of classes to follow; and the keen analysis of the Ciceronian passage made by Huschke, Verf. des Serv. 615 and n. 8, proves confecto negotio to signify not necessarily that the voting had been finished, but rather that the comitia had advanced so far as to preclude the obnuntiatio. It should be served before the assembly convened, not after the meeting began (“Non comitiis habitis, sed priusquam habeantur”; § 81). Confecto negotio, equivalent to comitiis habitis, is the negative of priusquam habeantur. This interpretation deprives the theory of two classes, held by Niebuhr, Ullrich, and others, of its only support.
[1296] P. 216, n. 1.
[1297] P. 216, n. 2.
[1298] Verf. des Serv. 623.
[1299] Ibid. 617 ff.
[1300] Ibid. 634. Similar is the view of Plüss, Centurienverf. 36 ff., 80, that for the period 179-86 the classes were groups of tribes based partly on the census and partly on social rank.
[1301] P. 216, n. 3. The long-known hypothesis here mentioned was sufficiently refuted by Huschke, ibid. 619 ff., but has been more recently revived by Madvig, Röm. Staat. i. 117 ff., who, however, so develops it as to make the five classes voting divisions of the century. This notion is controverted by Genz, Centuriatcom. nach der Ref., and defended without success by Gerathewohl, Reit. und Rittercent. 90 f.
[1302] This result is in fact suggested by the passage in Livy 1. 43. 12 f. (p. 217, n. 1); it is not to be wondered at that an increase in the tribes should bring about an increase in the centuries—a diminution in the centuries could not be spoken of in the same way.