Discriptio Centuriarum of the Comitia Centuriata
| Old centuries of knights | 6 |
| New centuries of knights | 12 |
| Classes | Junior Centuries | Senior Centuries | Ratings in Asses according to Livy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 40 | + 2 of artisans | 40 | 100,000 |
| II | 10 | 10 | 75,000 | |
| III | 10 | 10 | 50,000 | |
| IV | 10 | + 2 of musicians | 10 | 25,000 |
| V | 14 | + 1 of accensi | ||
| + 1 of the tardy | 14 | 11,000 | ||
| Below the classes: | |
| 1 century of proletarians | |
| SUMMARY | |
| Knights | 18 |
| Seniors and juniors | 168 |
| Supernumerary | 7 |
| Total | 193 |
Before the reform this assembly met in military array with banners displayed, each company under its centurion.[1253] The voting was oral. Probably it was at first by acclamation; if so the suggestion of individual voting, as we find it in historical time, must have come from the orderly military array, which offered itself conveniently for the purpose.[1254] The centurions may originally have served as rogatores, to collect and report the votes.[1255] Each century cast a single vote, which in historical time the majority of its members decided.[1256] The voting proceeded according to classes; the equites were asked first, hence their centuries were termed prerogative (praerogativae), then the eighty centuries of the first class. If the votes of these two groups were unanimous, they decided the question at issue; as ninety-seven was a majority, they had one to spare from their total number. If they disagreed, the second class was called and then the third and so on to the proletarian century. But the voting ceased as soon as a majority was reached, which was often with the first class; and it rarely happened that the proletarians were called on to decide the issue.[1257] The announcement of the prerogative votes greatly influenced the action of those which followed.[1258]
II. The Reform
The study of the centuriate assembly begun earlier in the volume[1259] and continued in the preceding part of this chapter shows it gradually developing its organization during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The main line of progress has been traced though details are unknown. The growth of popular rights in the latter half of the fourth century gave a great impetus to the activity of the assemblies in general, as is manifested in the Genucian, Publilian, and Hortensian legislation. In 312 when the change was made in the appraisements from land to money, many aerarii who had voted with the proletarians must have been advanced to the higher classes.[1260] This step toward the democratization of the comitia centuriata, following upon the reduction of the patrum auctoritas to a mere formality, could not help adding new energy to the institution, leading to further changes in a popular direction. The class ratings which are known to history were established no earlier than 269.[1261] Two other more important changes, which can be but approximately dated, must now be considered in detail. They are (1) the abolition of the equestrian prerogative and the introduction of the custom of drawing by lot a prerogative century from the first class on each occasion before the voting began; (2) the division of the citizens into classes and centuries within the several tribes. These two innovations are commonly grouped together under the name of the “reform.” As they have no necessary connection with one another, they need not have been simultaneous. Livy’s narrative of the happenings of 396[1262] and of 383[1263] seems to imply that they had been introduced before these dates.[1264] But the passages here referred to are uncertain; and at all events they belong to a period in which the centuries may still have been closely connected with the tribes.[1265] But should they be so interpreted as to apply to the reformed centuriate assembly, they might still be looked upon as historical anticipations for the reason that Livy’s[1266] account of the year 296 has reference to a feature of the old organization. This disposition of the three passages is supported by the following consideration. Had the reform been introduced much earlier than 269, the annalists would have assigned it to Servius Tullius, just as they assigned to him thirty tribes (reached in 318), all thirty-five tribes (reached in 241), and the census ratings in the sextantarian asses (established in or after 269);[1267] and in that case all memory of the original Servian system would have been lost. The circumstance that we are acquainted with it in some detail is proof of its survival into the third century B.C. In fact Livy’s[1268] chief reference to the reform indicates that it was completed, if not undertaken, after the number of tribes had been brought up to thirty-five (241). On the other hand it came before the opening of his third decade (218), which takes the new arrangement for granted.[1269] The contention is often made that Livy must have given an account of the reform in his second decade (292-219) now lost; and there is a universal agreement that the reform was brought about not by statute, but by arbitrary censorial disposition.[1270] The censor commonly assumed to be the author of the change is either Fabius Buteo, 241, or Flaminius, 220.[1271] Against the latter may be urged the silence of Polybius[1272] and Livy,[1273] who in speaking at length of his opposition to the nobles makes no reference to this reform. In favor of Fabius it may be said that in 241 the full number of tribes was completed; and the name of the thirty-fifth, Quirina, corresponding to Romilia, the first rural tribe, suggests that the Romans intended to create no more. In naming the last tribe the censors seem to have had in mind the completion of the new system, to each component part of which they apparently guaranteed a definite share of political power, which would have been impaired by the further creation of tribes.[1274]
A little reflection, however, will convince us of the impossibility of assigning the reform to any one censor or to a definite date. Livy could not have made much of it in the lost part of his history without leaving some trace in the epitome, which mentions far more trivial matters.[1275] The only explanation of the epitomator’s silence is that the reform was so gradual as to escape marked attention. This view is supported by a strict interpretation of Livy,[1276] who supposes the change to have come about naturally with the increase in the number of tribes, and of Dionysius,[1277] who ascribes the innovation, or a part of it, to no individual but to “certain powerful forces.” A conclusion as to the date of the reform, to be acceptable, must satisfy the conditions above mentioned. In earlier time, when there was a single classis, the centuries were made up within the tribes; but this simple system was rendered impossible by the increase in the number of classes.[1278] For convenience of administration the censors must soon after this enlargement have begun an effort to reduce the discord to harmony. One class may have been brought into agreement with the tribes more readily than another, and thus the readaptation may have extended through many lustra. The number of centuries probably did not long remain at one hundred and ninety-three. It may have received its first increase above that sum in 304, for instance, the date to which Niebuhr[1279] assigns the reform. The process may have been far advanced in 241, the date preferred by a majority of scholars, and completed by Flaminius in 220.[1280] The abolition of the equestrian prerogative may likewise have been gradual; it may have been retained in one class of comitial acts—elections or legislation, for instance—longer than in another. The conclusion that the changes were gradually introduced in the period from 304 to 220 would best explain all the known facts.[1281]
As no description of the reformed organization has come down to us, we are obliged to reconstruct it from the scant references of various writers. It is to be noted first that the five classes continued in the new system.[1282] They were still based on the census,[1283] and were called to vote in their order as before.[1284] The distinction between juniors and seniors was retained;[1285] and as these comitia were still called centuriata, the centuries necessarily continued as the voting units.[1286] But the reform brought them into direct relation with the tribes, which now served as a basis for the division into centuries and for their distribution according to age and class. On this point Livy[1287] remarks, “We ought not to wonder that the arrangement which now exists after the tribes have been increased to thirty-five, their number being doubled in the centuries of juniors and seniors, does not agree with the total number instituted by Servius Tullius; for he divided the city into four parts, ... which he called tribes.... Nor did those tribes have any relation to the distribution and number of the centuries.” From this passage we may infer (1) that in the reformed assembly the number and distribution of the centuries depended closely upon the tribes—a conclusion supported by other citations to be given hereafter, (2) that the number of centuries was changed, although we are not distinctly informed whether by diminution or increase. According to one interpretation the number of tribes was doubled by the number of centuries of juniors and seniors, and there were therefore seventy of these centuries, thirty-five juniors and as many seniors, each century forming a half tribe. This view is supported by passages in which the century bears the name of the tribe, as Aniensis iuniorum,[1288] Voturia iuniorum,[1289] Galeria iuniorum,[1290] as well as by those which in a more general way refer to voting or the announcement of the votes by or according to tribes in the centuriate assembly.[1291] It accords perfectly with other evidence that the century was an integral part of the tribe.[1292] This is the view adopted by Niebuhr.[1293] It is open, however, to the fatal objection of abolishing the classes, which in fact continued through the republic, as has already been shown.[1294] He does indeed allow for a first class comprising the country tribes and a second class made up of the others;[1295] but this hypothesis is overthrown by those citations which imply the continuance of all five classes,[1296] as well as by those which make the census an element of the later organization.[1297] Huschke,[1298] who places the reform in the earliest times of the republic, adopts Niebuhr’s view as to the number of centuries; but maintaining the continuance of the five classes,[1299] he considers them to be groups of tribes, the seventeen old rural tribes being distributed as follows: in the first class eight, in the second, third, and fourth respectively two, in the fifth three.[1300] But bearing in mind that these tribes were primarily local, we cannot at the same time regard them as census groups without ascribing to them an impossibly artificial character. For this reason the theory of Huschke should be rejected. To avoid this difficulty, while retaining the classes, the assumption has been made that the classes were subdivisions of the century, in other words that each century contained men of every class. This view is invalidated by the fact that the centuries continued to be divisions of the classes, which were still called to vote in their order.[1301]