The comitia centuriata, once known as the "greatest of the comitia" (comitiatus maximus),[1] not only from its importance as expressing the sovereign will, but from the possibility of enforcing the attendance of the assembled army, always retained something of its military character and its association with the imperium. Its summons and presidency belong by right only to the magistrates with imperium. The consuls are its normal presidents for elections and for laws; the praetor approaches it for purposes of jurisdiction, and the interrex for the election of a consul. The election of magistrates with imperium and of the censors was confined to this body, and we have already seen how its supreme judicial authority was asserted and infringed.[2] The army alone could declare war,[3] but its legislative power, though never lost, was infrequently asserted after the recognition of sovereignty in the two assemblies of the tribes which were more easily summoned and organised.
But not only did the tribe assemblies infringe the power of those of the centuries, they became the later model of the latter, and the tendency to detract from the influence of wealth was shown in the reorganisation of the comitia centuriata on a tribal basis.[4] The date of this change is unknown; but, as the redistribution of the centuries in its final form assumes the existence of thirty-five tribes, the alteration may not be earlier than the year 241 B.C. The leading principle of the new arrangement was that the five classes were distributed over all the tribes in such a manner that there were two centuries of each class—one century of seniores and one of juniores—in a single tribe. Each class thus had two votes in a tribe and seventy votes
- [Footnote: et sacrorum detestatio et testamenta fieri solebant." It is not known what
particular acts were reserved for the "comitia calata" assembled centuriatim; Mommsen thinks the inauguration of the Flamen Martialis outside the city (Staatsr. iii. p. 307).]
- ↑ p. 107.
- ↑ pp. 107, 246.
- ↑ p. 244.
- ↑ Liv. i. 43 "Nec mirari oportet hunc ordinem, qui nunc est post expletas quinque et triginta tribus duplicate earum numero centuriis juniorum seniorumque, ad institutam ab Servio Tullio summam non convenire." Cf. Dionys. iv. 21. The description of Cicero (de Rep. ii. 22, 39 and 40) probably refers to the Servian arrangement, although Mommsen (Staatsr. iii. p. 275) holds that it refers to the reformed comitia. The description given in the text is in essentials that of Pantagathus (died 1567) ap. Ursinum in Liv. i. 43. For the different systems that have been adopted see Willems Le Droit Public p. 97. Mommsen (l.c.) admits the 70 votes for the 70 centuries of the first class, but thinks that the 280 centuries of the other classes were so combined as to form but 100 votes; the total votes being 70 + 100 + 5 + 18 = 193, as before.
