# Roman assemblies

Politics of the Roman Republic :
509 – 27 BC :
Constitution and development :
Republican origins
Sullan reforms
Conflict of the Orders
Augustan reforms :
Magistrates and officials :
Senate :
Princeps senatus
Senatus consultum
Senatus consultum ultimum :
Assemblies :
Curiate
Centuriate
Tribal
Plebeian
Elections
Contiones :
Public law and norms :
Other countries :
vte :
The Roman assemblies were meetings of the Roman people duly convened by a magistrate. There were two general kinds of assemblies: a contio where a crowd was convened to hear speeches or statements from speakers without any further arrangements and a comitia where citizens were called and arranged into voting blocks.
When called to enact legislation or make decisions, such as on guilt or war, citizens were in the historical period always divided into voting blocks. Citizens voted directly in these blocks, with a majority of the blocks determining the decision of the assembly; this system was directly democratic with no representatives. There were three kinds of voting blocks – curiae, centuriae, and tribus – giving rise, respectively, to the curiate, centuriate, and tribal assemblies. In the middle and late republics, only the centuriate and tribal assemblies were politically relevant.
The assemblies elected all magistrates during the Roman Republic. They also had plenary authority to make laws, but only exercised this authority in accordance with procedures buttressed by Roman religious practices. Prior to a voting assembly, notice had to be given. On the day thereof, the presiding magistrate took auspices with the gods. When the people were summoned a prayer was conducted and the matter at hand introduced. Speakers invited by the presiding magistrate then could be given; citizens in the assembly had no presumptive right to participate except by listening to the proceedings. When the president called the people to vote, they did so by blocks with a result announced when a majority was reached.
The curiate and centuriate assemblies date to the regal period. Their functions in this early period are poorly documented but mainly relate to the election on the Roman monarch. After the overthrow of the Roman monarchy (dated traditionally to 509 BC) the centuriate assembly is said to have elected the magistrates that would become the consuls, with the tribal assembly being formed shortly after the creation of the republic. The plebeian council, on the other hand, was formed and became coequal with the other assemblies over the course of the Conflict of the Orders. The fall of the republic did not mean that the assemblies stopped to meet; however, their importance quickly diminished as the emperor accrued direct legislative power and the senate became the electoral assembly, with their becoming entirely obsolete by the third century AD.

## Comitia

A comitia was an assembly summoned to make a decision, about whom should be elected, whether a law should be passed, war and peace, or guilt. Most commonly during the republic, comitia were used for electoral purposes and the word comitia in Latin was used a metonymy for them. This contrasted with contiones (sg. contio) where nothing was enacted.
The word concilium (glossed in English as "council") also referred to some kinds of assemblies. This included foreign ones and assemblies of the plebeians at Rome; however, the word could be used to refer to meetings of the whole Roman people. Usage of concilium was rare in Latin – reference to an assembly of the tribes under the presidency of plebeian tribunes only as a concilium plebis is a modern convention – and there are instances where such an assembly was referred to as comitia tributa. Similarly, there are instances where concilium was used to refer to non-voting assemblies such as contiones.

### Curiate assembly

The curiate assembly (Latin: comitia curiata) was one of the assemblies of the Roman Republic and the oldest assembly at Rome. It was organised on the basis of curiae and is said to have been the main legislative and electoral assembly of the regal and early republican periods. Little concrete is known of its origins and early operation.

### Centuriate assembly

The centuriate assembly (Latin: comitia centuriata) was a popular assembly of ancient Rome. In the Roman Republic, its main function was electing the consuls, praetors, and censors. It was made up of 193 centuries (Latin: centuriae) which were apportioned to Roman citizens by wealth and age, hugely overweighting the old and wealthy.
The assembly, according to the ancient sources, dates to the regal period and initially closely resembled the Roman army of the period in form, with the equestrians serving as cavalry, the upper census classes serving as heavy infantry, and the lower classes serving as light infantry. Whether this was ever the case is unclear; regardless, by the third century BC the assembly did not closely resemble the Roman people under arms and it served a largely electoral purpose, as it was rarely called to vote on legislation or to decide – as was its theoretical legal right as place of final appeal – capital cases.
Assembly procedure was weighted towards the upper classes. Both before and after reforms some time between 241 and 216 BC, the first class and equestrians voted first. Their votes would be tallied and announced. Then the classes would vote in descending order of wealth. Once the requisite number of candidates received a majority of voting units, voting would end. Because the equestrians, first class, and second class made a clear majority of voting units, the lower census classes would never be called on if they were in agreement. There is scholarly disagreement as to the extent to which the comitia centuriata facilitated competitive elections, even within its de facto restrictive electorate. The traditional view is that Roman elections were largely unrepresentative of the population as a whole and dominated by the wealthy through social connections.

### Tribal assembly

The tribal assembly (Latin: comitia tributa) was one of the popular assemblies of ancient Rome, responsible, along with the plebeian council, for the passage of most Roman laws in the middle and late republics. They were also responsible for the elections of a number of junior magistracies: aediles and quaestors especially.
It organised citizens, by the middle republic, into thirty-five artificial tribes which were assigned by geography. The composition of the tribes packed the urban poor into four tribes out of the thirty-five. The requirement that citizens vote in person also discriminated against the rural poor who were not able to travel to Rome.
Each tribe possessed an internal structure and a single vote in the assembly, regardless of the number of citizens belonging to that tribe, which was determined by a majority of the citizens of that tribe present at a vote. Legislative proposals in the assembly as a whole passed when a majority of tribes voted in favour; elections similarly continued until a majority of tribes approved of sufficient candidates that all posts were filled.

### Plebeian council

The plebeian council (Latin: concilium plebis) was one of the popular assemblies of ancient Rome. In the standard conception of the classical republican constitution, it was essentially identical to the tribal assembly except that patricians were excluded and it was presided over mainly by plebeian tribunes. The main legislative assembly in the republic, it also elected the plebeian magistrates (tribunes and aediles) and heard some judicial matters.
It is the modern convention to refer to an assembly of the people, organised by tribe and under the presidency of a plebeian tribune, as a concilium plebis. This was, however, not necessarily the case. Ancient Romans did refer to such assemblies also as comitia tributa, suggesting that the common distinction between comitia and concilium as meetings of the whole and a part of the people respectively may be erroneous modern constructions.

## Contio

The contio (pl. "contiones"; from Latin "conventio" meaning "gathering") was an ad hoc public assembly in Ancient Rome, which existed during the monarchy as well as in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. At the contio, magistrates informed the Roman citizens on various topics related to politics. The main difference between the contio and other public assemblies in Rome, such as the comitia, is that the citizens who attended contiones were there to hear speeches and not to vote. The contio merely served a communicative function, offering magistrates the opportunity to give the people a report of what had been decided during a senate meeting or to discuss a proposed legislative bill (rogatio) in front of the citizens to help them make up their mind before they had to vote on it in other assemblies.