to any magistrate to introduce a citizen to the contio, and give him a right to speak (producere in contionem, dare contionem);[1] it was equally open to a colleague or superior to veto this permission;[2] but custom must have made such a use of the intercessio very infrequent. The right of granting a contio gave a limited power of debate on legislative matters to distinguished private individuals; but this was not its only use. It was the sole means by which political leaders, who might happen to be in a private station—as Pompeius after his return from the East, or Cicero after his recall from exile—could express their views;[3] it was also a convenient mode in which a magistrate might justify a line of conduct. We find a foreign king and a public informer thus produced to influence the popular mind. The jus contionis dandae meant an increase in magisterial power, and was no true concession to democracy; the demagogue in opposition, who was not a magistrate or useful to a magistrate, had no opportunity of making his voice heard in Rome.
The right of eliciting binding resolutions from the people when assembled in their comitia (jus cum populo agendi) always remained an inherent attribute of the imperium; as such it belonged, under ordinary circumstances, to the consul and praetor; under exceptional conditions, to the dictator, interrex, and consular tribunes. It was also possessed by one at least of the occasional delegates of the highest magistrates, the master of the horse.[4] By these magistrates the comitia might be assembled in any form—by curies, by centuries, or by tribes. None of the lower magistrates possessed in their own right the power to summon and preside over the assembly; but the extension of the provocatio and the consequent growth of popular jurisdiction rendered it necessary that the lower magistrates with judicial powers should meet the people. Thus the curule aediles defended
- ↑ Cic. ad Att. iv. 1, 6 "habui contionem, omnes magistratus praeter unum praetorem et duos tribunos pl. dederunt"; i. 14, 1 "Pisonis consulis impulsu levissimus tribunus pl. Fufius in contionem producit Pompeium"; ii. 24, 3 "Caesar is qui olim, praetor cum esset, Q. Catulum ex inferiore loco jusserat dicere, Vettium in rostra produxit."
- ↑ Sall. Jug. 34 "ubi Memmius (a tribune) dicendi finem fecit et Jugurtha respondere jussus est, C. Baebius tribunus plebis . . . regem tacere jubet."
- ↑ See note 1.
- ↑ Cic. de Leg. iii. 4, 10 "cum populo patribusque agendi jus esto consuli praetori magistro populi equitumque eique quem patres produnt consulum rogandorum ergo." For the question whether the praefect of the city had this right see p. 61; an argument for his possession of it in the Republic is his right of consulting the Senate.
