Comitiae

Definition of Comitia

A Comitia was the Constitutional Assembly of the citizens of Rome and the legislative body that generated, through its official voice, the potestas (supreme civil powers) and imperium (supreme military powers) delegated to the magistrates. No magistrate could be elected to office, or a law enacted without first convening the Comitia and a majority vote passed on the issue.

In the earliest times, the Comitia met in the Forum and the place where they met was called Comitium. It elected kings, priests, magistrates, passed laws, declared war on enemies or concluded peace treaties with them; it also acted as the last Court of Appeal for Roman citizens. Only Roman citizens, if condemned by a lower Court, had the right of appeal.

Comitia Curiata

The first type of Comitia was called Comitia Curiata and was founded by Romulus. The term curiata means "made up of curiae", as Romulus divided the original founding Gentes (people, family groups) into 30 Curiae, and each Curia was made up of the Patrician Gentes. At this time, therefore, the Plebeians did not partake in the proceedings of the Comitia Curiata, and they enjoyed no political rights.

Voting in the Comitia Curiata took place by a majority of the 30 Curiae. Each Curia had one vote, and within each Curia every citizen would vote individually but the vote of the Curia would be determined by a majority of the votes of the individuals of that Curia.

The Comitia Curiata lasted until the promulgation of the new constitution by and during the reign of Servius Tullius. At this time the whole body of citizens was reclassified into Classes and Centuriae.

The Changes of Servius Tullius

(Sources: Livius I,43 & Dionysius IV.16,VII.59 & Ramsay et Lanciani, page 96)

The model adopted for reorganizing the population of Rome was essentially based on that of a military organization divided into Cavalry (Equites) and Infantry (Pedites).

The Equites were divided into 18 Centuries (Centuriae), and the Pedites into 6 Classes. Each Classis was ranked according to the wealth of their members and contained a number of Centuriae; half of the Centuriae were Iuniuores Centuriae because the age of the men was between 17 and 45 years old; the other half were called Seniores Centuriae and were made up of men over the age of 46. In all, the 6 Classes made up 193 Centuriae.

The ranking of Classes by wealth determined the level of taxes that the State could levy on their citizens. Additionally, when the need arose to assemble an army for defense, each class would contribute according to their means.

Refer to the following table for a listing of the Equites and Pedites into Centuriae and Classes.

Order	Wealth measured in Asses or pounds of Copper	Centuriae Equites	Centuriae Pedites
Equites		18
Pedites
1st Class	Greater than 100 000 Centuriae Seniores Centiruae Iuniores		40 40
2nd Class	Greater than 75 000 Centuriae Seniores Centuriae Iuniores Centuriae Fabrum		10 10 2
3rd Class	Greater than 50 000 Centuriae Seniores Centuriae Iuniores		10 10
4th Class	Greater than 25 000 Centuriae Seniores Centuriae Iuniores Centuriae Cornicinum et al		10 10 2
5th Class	Greater than 12 500 Centuriae Seniores Centuriae Iuniores		15 15
6th Class	Centuria Proletariorum et Capite Censorum¹		1
		18	175
		Total	193

According to Livius the 6th Class was incorporated in the 5th Class, but Dyonisius says that it was a distinct 6th Class. It does not really matter; what matters instead is that those citizens whose wealth was less than 1500 asses were incorporated into the Proletarii and those that had none into the Capite Censi. Livius also says that the wealth of the 5th Class was 11000 asses instead of 12500. It is not clear, also, whether those whose wealth was greater than 1500 but less than 11000, or 12500, were included in the 5th or 6th Class.

Those citizens with property valued greater than 125000 asses were styled Classici. The 18 Centuriae of Equites fell in this category of Classici. Those below this level were also styled Infra Classem.

The key point to note is that politically there was equality between Patrician and Plebeians, at least in the Constitution of Servius Tullius. In practice it took a while longer to reach this total equality, as will be explained in the next section.

Comitia Centuriata

The chief reason of the reclassification of the body of citizens into equites and classes, and both into centuries, was made in order to replace the Comitia Curiata (which represented only one order of citizens) with a new National Assembly, the Comitia Centuriata, representing both orders of citizens, Patricians (now mainly Equites) and Plebeians (now mainly Pedites), into a universus Populus Romanus. This was the merit of that Great Stateman, Servius Tullius, Rex.

Voting System in the Comitia Centuriata

Whenever the Comitia Centuriata convened to debate some issue, voting was decided by simple majority of centuries. Since there were a total of 193 centuries, as shown on the adjacent table, 193 divided by 2 gives 96 with a remainder of 1. This meant that the Assembly could never reach a vote of stalemate because even if the voting was 96 to 96, there was always one century that decided for the majority. The system is therefore apparently fair and fool-proof. But there is a caveat in this apparently fair distribution.

You should notice that the Equites and the First Class together could reach a majority of 98 votes, hence between these two levels they could enact any issue deliberated in the Comitia Centuriata. And this is precisely what happened. Additionally, since the number of individuals forming the 18 Centuria of Equites, and the 60 Centuriae of 1st Class Pedites, was of necessity equivalent to a relatively small number of individual, the net result was that few of the people decided for the majority of the people. Servius Tullius died and was unable to correct this loophole. Neither did the Patricians and the new First Class of new, de facto, patricians, had any interest in expediting a correction. It took the Infra Classes a considerable time to put things right, including the "first strike" anecdote reported in the page: Cursus Honorum, and the election of Tribunis Plebis by a new Assembly, the Comitia Tributa. Along the way the Patrician and their clients, the First Class of Pedites, maintained the right to continue to convene the Comitia Curiata to veto some motions passed by the Comitia Centuriata. This privilege was disputed and resulted in the Infra Classes winning the right that any law enacted by this Comitia Centuriata was enforceable, a priori, over that of the Comitia Curiata. This was the year 339 B.C. and the law is referred to as the Lex Publiliae, after Q. Publilius Philo, dictator. Note that in 472 B.C. another law was enacted by the Comitia Tribuna also referred to as the Lex Publiliae, after the tribunus plebis that proposed it in 473 B.C.: Publilius Volero, to ensure that, from then on, the Tribunis Plebis should be elected by the Comitia Tributa rather than the Comitia Curiata.

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