COMI'TIA (ante). It was a fundamental principle of the Roman constitution that the supreme power was inherent in the citizens, though it might be delegated by them to hereditary or to elected magistrates. All important matters, however, had to be brought before the sovereign people, who could either ratify or reject, but without dis cussion, the proposals made to them. Such, at least in theory, and, during the best days of the republic, in practice also, was the function of these popular assemblies. As may be readily understood, different elements had the ascendancy among the Roman people at different periods of their history. So far as it was possible for a state exposed to so many and such various influences to be conservative of its political traditions, Rome, whether monarchical, republican, or imperial, was essentially so. But, under the force of circumstances, from time to time innovations were introduced which mate rially altered the position of the two political parties—the patricians and the plebeians— into which the state was early divided, and by whose dissensions it was long distracted, and in none of her institutions can the progress of the struggle between these rising factions he more clearly traced than in the motive and power of those assemblies, or comitia, by which the supreme authority of Rome was in succession wielded. It is usual to describe the Roman comitia as of three kinds, named from the mode in which the people were organized and iu which they voted—the comitia curiata, or assembly of the curim; the comitia centuriata, or assembly of the centuries; and the comitia tribute, or assembly of the tribes. To them some add a fourth, the comitia calata (from calare, to call); but as this assembly had neither political functions nor a separate organization, it is unnecessary to do more than mention the name.
1. CommA CPRIATA. —The assembly of the curim is believed to have been coeval with the rise of Rome itself, and its origin is therefore rightly ascribed by tradition to the mythical founder of the city. The system seems to have been an essential part of the communities, of which Rome was originally only one. Its primary object cannot now be satisfactorily determined; but the purpose for which it came to be employed is sufficiently clear. From a very early period the Roman curim, or " wardships," as they may be called, numbered 30, being 10 for each of the three once independent communi ties—the Rhamnians, the Titles, and the Luceres—from whose amalgamation the Roman people sprang. At first, these curim were probably made up extensively of the free holders, or patricians, as the freeholders were afterwards designated, on whom devolved exclusively the right and the duty of bearing arms. It has been maintained by some that the class of dependents called by the Roman writers clients, as well as the bur gesses or citizens, had a right to vote in the assembly of the curies. No direct evidence, however, can be brought forward in support of this supposition, which, in the nature of the case, is highly improbable; and, if allowed to be present at all, they were very likely nothing more than spectators, or, as their name is said to imply, "listeners." In. an assembly each had one vote, and determination was by the majority of the individ ual voters in the different curim. As the number of the latter was even, and no pro
vision was made for deciding in case of there being an equal division on any question, it would seem as if this function had not been thought of in fixing the number of the curim, or had been subordinated to some other consideration.
2. Comerri CENTURIATA.-By the operation of obvious causes, a great increase soon took place in the number and influence of the dependent members of the Roman com monwealth. As a natural consequence, the way was paved for a reform of the consti tution, though we may well conceive that the step was hastened by the gradual thinning of the ranks of the old freeholders in the incessant wars in which Rome found herself involved with her neighbors. Thus, in the course of time a new class, the plebeians of history, arose out of the clients, preponderating in numbers, and by no means destitute of wealth. Though this class had not, perhaps, the rights of citizens, it was exempt from service in the field; and while the political inferiority of its members must have been galling, their immunity from the chances of war can hardly have been looked upon with equanimity by the ruling faction. It was to redress this twofold grievance that the reform ascribed to king Servius Tullius is generally believed to have been effected. But the whole scheme was one skillfully devised to assign duties to the plebeians rather than to bestow upon them rights, and it was evidently the work of a statesman who was in the interest of the patricians. The chief authorities for the details of the arrangement are Livy and Dionysius, whose accounts, though they differ in some par ticulars, agree in the main. We must bear in mind, however, that both of them describe the assembly of the centuries rather as it existed in their own day than as it was first constituted. Livy gives the whole number of the centuries as 194; Dionysius makes them 193. The voting in the assembly was by centuries, each possessing a collective vote exactly as in the case of the curim. It was so arranged that the 18 centuries of equities and the 80 centuries of the first class voted first. If they were agreed upon a question at issue, the other side were not called upon to vote at all. As the centuries, though nominally "hundreds," probably contained in the first class fewer, and in some of the other classes certainly many times more than that number, it is plain that in the assem bly by far the largest share of power was retained in the hands of the wealthy, of whom the original burgess element would long form the main portion. How far we have in this scheme merely a modification of an earlier arrangement, there are no means of determining. As Mommsen remarks, it is more than probable that the original assessments were laid upon land. Be this as it may, the Servian reform was originally a new military rather than a new political organization, its author intending that the privileges of the patricians assembled in the carim should remain as before.- But itv results were different from what had been anticipated. By a process easily understood, the rights of the curim gradually passed to the centuries. The assembly of the former continued, indeed, to meet, but the assembly of the latter became thenceforth the chief guardian of the rights of the Roman people.