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

by George Willis Botsford

It was in accordance with this regulation that another article of the Valerian-Horatian statute directed the aediles of the plebs to preserve the senatus consulta in the temple of Ceres.[1686] We cannot look upon these officials as keepers of the senatorial archives of that time,[1687] and hence must conclude that the documents in their charge were those decrees which authorized the presentation of tribunician bills, for with those alone the plebeians were directly concerned.

The patricians expected to find a further safeguard in the tribunician veto, which could be directed against a colleague.[1688] From the fact, however, that the tribunes continued to resort to the clumsy method of obstructing the levy, and afterward also of impeding the collection of the tributum,[1689] we must infer that as yet their intercession did not prevail against a patrician magistrate.[1690] Various popular seditions, too, are mentioned for the same period (449-287).[1691] That one which led to the Hortensian legislation is historical, and it is hardly possible that all the others are fictions.

Another conservative check was the application of oblative auspices to the plebeian assembly.[1692] Livy[1693] reports that in 293 the tribunes resigned because of a faulty election, held probably in violation of oblativa. In general, however, the plebeian gathering was relatively free from religious control till after the enactment of the Aelian and Fufian laws (about 150).[1694] It had the advantage of the comitia centuriata (1) in freedom from the impetrative auspices, (2) in freedom from the patrum auctoritas, (3) in mobility. Immediately after the adoption of the Valerian-Horatian statute it must have become evident that the tribunician assembly, through the character of its presidency, its composition, and its democratic spirit, was to outstrip the centuriate gathering in energy and aggressiveness, and to be in a word the chief factor of progress in legislation.

No enactment affecting the jurisdiction of tribunes is referred to Valerius and Horatius by the ancient writers; and yet the arrangement by which they thereafter brought their capital actions before the centuries could not have been made without the consent of the government. If, on the other hand, the tribunes now possessed an unconditioned power to subject patricians, whether magistrates or private citizens, to capital prosecutions, they would have found it so effective a means of political warfare as no longer to need obstruction and sedition in their struggle for plebeian rights. In capital cases the permission of a higher magistrate, ordinarily after 367 the praetor, was required; and before the enactment of the Hortensian statute, we may well believe, the tribunes had no means of forcing this permission. Some similar restriction must have been placed on their liberty to bring finable actions.

The comitia tributa under tribunician presidency had at length become an effective constitutional factor in legislation and in jurisdiction. But its action in the former sphere was dependent upon the favor of the senate, in the latter on that of a patrician magistrate. The range, too, of its legislation was restricted by the wide administrative powers of the senate. We shall find it in the following period winning freedom and enlarging the field of its activity.

The following literature is for the whole period from 449 to 287.

Schulze, C. F., Volksversammlungen der Römer, 341-70; Hüllmann, K. D., Staatsrecht des Altertums, 354-67; Niebuhr, B. G., Römische Geschichte, i. 624 ff., Eng. 283 ff.; see also index, s. Tributcomitien; Schwegler, A., Röm. Geschichte, see index, s. Tributcomitien; Mommsen, Th., Röm. Staatsrecht, iii. 300 ff.; Röm. Forschungen, i. 151-66; Röm. Strafrecht, 462-8, 473-8, 1014-6, et passim; Ihne, W., History of Rome, bk. VI. chs. i, viii; Ueber die Entstehung und die ältesten Befugnisse des röm. Tribunats, in Rhein. Mus. N. F. xxi (1866). 161-79; Entwickelung der Tributcomitien, in Rhein. Mus. N. F. xxviii (1873). 353-79; Peter, C., Gesch. Roms, bks. ii, iii; Lange, L., Röm. Altertümer, i. 586-681, 821-56; ii. 459-94, 533-42, 565-97, 613-42; De legibus Porciis libertatis civium vindicibus, in Kleine Schriften, i. 342-429; De plebiscitis Ovinio et Atinio disputatio, ibid. ii. 393-446; Ueber das poetelische Gesetz de ambitu, ibid. ii. 195-202; Kleineidam, F., Beitr. z. Kentniss d. lex Poetelia, in Festg. f. F. Dahn, ii. 1-30; Ihm, Ambitus, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. i. 1800-3; Madvig, J. N., Verfassung und Verwaltung des röm. Staates, i. 234-46; Voigt, M., XII Tafeln, i. 683-90; Karlowa, O., Röm. Rechtsgeschichte, i. 409; Girard, P. F., Histoire de l’organisation judiciaire des Romains, i. 149-59, 237 ff.; Puchta, G. F., Cursus der Institutionen, i. (10th ed. 1893) 166-9 (on lex and plebiscite); Mispoulet, J. B., Institutions politiques des Romains, i. 207-30; Études d’institutions Romaines, 66-81; Willems, P., Droit public Romain, 160 ff., 173 ff.; Greenidge, Legal Procedure of Cicero’s Time, 327-49; Herzog, E., Geschichte und System der röm. Staatsverfassung, i. 153 ff., 189-96, 216 ff., 248-64, 279-88, 1128-88; Glaubwürdigkeit der Gesetze bis 387 der Stadt; Lex Sacrata und das Sacrosanctum, in Jahrb. f. Philol. xxii (1876). 139-50; Dupond, A., De la constitution et des magistratures Romaines sous la république Romaine, 75 ff.; Borgeaud, C., Histoire du plébiscite, 57-76, 117-67; Hallays, A., Comices à Rome, ch. iii; Morlot, E., Comices électoraux sous la république Romaine, ch. iv; Ptaschnik, J., Die Wahl der Volkstribunen vor der Rogation des Volero Publilius, in Zeitschr. f. österreich. Gymn. xiv (1863). 627-38; Publilische Rogation, ibid. xvii (1866). 161-200; Die Centuriatgesetze von 305 und 415 U. C., ibid. xxi (1870). 497-525; Lex Hortensia 473 U. C. ibid. xxiii (1872). 241-53; Stimmrecht der Patricier in den Tributcomitien, ibid. xxxii (1881). 81-102; Ruppel, K. W., Teilnahme der Patrizier an den Tributkomitien; Soltau, W., Gültigkeit der Plebiscite, in Berliner Studien, ii (1885). 1-176; Clason, D. O., Kritische Erörterungen über den röm. Staat, 30-9; Schmidt, J., Die Einsetzung der röm. Volkstribunen, in Hermes, xxi (1886). 460-6; Meyer, E., Der Ursprung des Tribunats und die Gemeinde der vier Tribus, in Hermes, xxi (1895). 1-24, controverted by Vassis, in Athena, ix (1897). 470 ff.; Pais, Ancient Italy, chs. xx, xxi; Garofalo, F. P., L’origine e l’elezione dei tribuni e degli edili della plebe con un indice alfabetico dei loro nomi; Podestà, G., Il tribunato della plebe in Roma dalla secessione sul monte sacro all’approvazione della legge di Publilio Volerone; Eigenbrodt, A., De magistratuum Romanorum iure intercedendi; Ackermann, H., Ueber die raümlichen Schranken der tribunizischen Gewalt; Tophoff, De lege Valeria Horatia, Publilia, Hortensia; Hennes, Das dritte valerisch-horatische Gesetz und dessen Wiederholungen; Long, G., On the Passage in Appian’s Civil Wars (i. 8) which relates to the Licinian Law, in Classical Museum, iii (1846). 78 ff.; Kubitschek, Aedilis, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. i. 448-64; Humbert, G., Aedilis, in Daremberg et Saglio, Dict. i. 95-100; Bloch, L., Die ständischen und sozialen Kämpfe in der römischen Republik; Willoughby, W. W., Political Theories of the Ancient World, ch. xvi; Strachan-Davidson, T. L., Decrees of the Roman Plebs, in Eng. Hist. Rev. v (1890). 462-74; Dreyfus, R., Les lois agraires sous la république Romaine, pt. I. chs. i-iii; De Sanctis, G., Storia dei Romani, I. chs. xiii, xiv, xvii; Billeter, G., Gesch. d. Zinsfusses, 115 ff.

CHAPTER XIII
THE COMITIA TRIBUTA AND THE RISE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
From 449 to 287

For a time after the Valerian-Horatian legislation the senate and magistrates, as was intimated at the close of the preceding chapter, maintained their authority but slightly impaired against the rising popular power. It is true that in 427 the centuries acquired the right to declare a war of aggression.[1695] Defensive wars in behalf either of Rome or of an ally were regularly decided upon by the senate;[1696] and the question whether the war was necessary for the safety of the state admitted of a broad interpretation.[1697] From the beginning of the period to the year 321 treaties of peace and of alliance were still made either by a magistrate, with the authorization of the senate,[1698] or more commonly by the senate itself, even though the alliance or offer of protection was such as to render war with other states inevitable;[1699] and at the close of a conquest the senate disposed of the acquired territory and population.[1700] Through its authority alone, till 332, the censor bestowed the perfect or the limited citizenship.[1701]