Roman assemblies

The curiate assembly (Latin: comitia curiata) was the oldest of the popular assemblies of 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 is known of its origins and early operation.^[9]

By the late republic, the curiae only met for limited pro forma purposes related to public religion;^[10] the historical thirty curiae were each represented by a single lictor rather than actual groups of citizens. The foremost of these purposes was the lex curiata de imperio, passed as a matter of course in the presence of three augurs, which related to the quality of a curule magistrate's auspices.^[11] When it met under the presidency of the pontifex maximus, the assembly was instead called the comitia calata to deal with matters relating to wills and selection of priests.^[12]

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.

While the assembly continued to exist during the Roman Empire, it served largely to approve decisions made by the emperor and senate. It is last recorded in the third century AD.

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.

The tribal assembly and the plebeian council were organised identically. What differed between them was the presiding magistrate, with the tribal assembly convened by consuls, praetors, or aediles and the plebeian council convened by plebeian tribunes. After the lex Hortensia in 287 BC endowed the plebeian council with full legislative powers, the two assemblies became practically identical.^[14]

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,^[15] 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.^[16]

The Romans believed that the council emerged from the Conflict of the Orders, created during a first secession of the plebs traditionally dated to 494 BC. Prior to 471, is not clear how the council was organised. It may have been organised by curiae, if ancient sources are to be believed, but it is more likely that it was undifferentiated, voting instead by head.^[17] Throughout the conflict, the plebeian magistrates are said to have fought with the patricians for political equality and the applicability of the plebeian council's decrees (plebiscita) to all Romans. At the close of this process, with the lex Hortensia in 287 BC, it had achieved both.

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.^[18] 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.^[19]

Magistrates also used the contio as a means of self-promotion, presenting themselves as capable and honest politicians who kept the interests of the people in mind (in other words, adhered to the popularis ideology), hoping to gain sympathy and support from the people.^[20] Aside from a political assembly, the word "contio" could also refer to a type of Roman military speech.