The Roman assemblies from their origin to the end of the Republic Flashcards
George Willis Botsford · Public domain edition · 433 cards · 115 chapters
Botsford argues that Rome's popular assemblies grew out of the primitive pagus and curia rather than arriving fully formed, and he tests ancient testimony against Niebuhr's influential reconstruction of the curia and patriciate. The deck covers his claims on the word populus, the three tribes, the curia's composition and functions, and the origins of patricians, plebeians, and clients.
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Chapter 1 · Question
What does the author say about the derivation of the word populus?
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Chapter 1 · Answer
The derivation of populus is unknown. Some scholars connect it with populari, 'to devastate,' giving it a military sense such as 'the army'; others link it to plenus, plebes, and Greek words meaning 'multitude' or 'mass,' with the idea of collective strength that might pass into 'army.' Fundamentally personal, it included all individuals making up the state, men and families alike, applying to territory only in a transferred sense.
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Section 14 cards
What does the author say about the derivation of the word populus?
The derivation of populus is unknown. Some scholars connect it with populari, 'to devastate,' giving it a military sense such as 'the army'; others link it to plenus, plebes, and Greek words meaning 'multitude' or 'mass,' with the idea of collective strength that might pass into 'army.' Fundamentally personal, it included all individuals making up the state, men and families alike, applying to territory only in a transferred sense.
Chapter 1
What three public functions characterized the Roman citizen?
The chapter states that the three characteristic public functions of the citizen were military service, participation in worship, and attendance at the assembly. Citizenship, or membership in the populus, is elaborately defined by the Roman jurists, but the ancient definition of an association based on common laws and shared public benefits is judged too abstract for the beginnings of Rome.
Chapter 1
How does the author explain the origin of the three primitive Roman tribes?
The author argues that no genuine tradition about the tribes' origin reached the earliest annalists, who could only deduce from tribal names and surviving institutions. He rejects modern speculations about independent character and diverse nationality as absurd, and proposes a comparative method: the tripartite division was widespread among Greek and Italian peoples, pointing to systematic imitation of a common pre-urban pattern rather than chance.
Chapter 1
How did the Italian city-state develop from the pagus?
The author argues the Italian city-state grew not from a tribe or combination of tribes but from the pagus, a district of the pre-urban populus with consecrated boundaries, usually centered on an oppidum. A pagus became a populus when it asserted political independence of the folk; the new state organized itself in tribes and curiae after the folk's pattern, and the oppidum became an urbs, the seat of government.
Chapter 1
Section 24 cards
What was the curia composed of, according to Botsford?
The author argues the curia was composed not of gentes, as many have imagined since Niebuhr, but of families. Each tribe had ten curiae, making thirty in all. The curia was a religious, social, and political group based on birth, and voting within it was by heads, not by gentes.
Chapter 2
How does Botsford refute Niebuhr's reading of Dionysius on the curia?
Dionysius says Romulus divided the curiae into decades led by decurions. Botsford argues the word decurion shows Dionysius means military decuriae of cavalry, not gentes; had he meant gentes he would have used the Greek word genē. Niebuhr's inference of ten gentes per curia is therefore unsupported.
Chapter 2
What does Laelius Felix's genera hominum passage actually mean?
Botsford argues Laelius states general organizing principles, not concrete voting units: wealth and age for the centuriate assembly, regions and places for the tribal, and hereditary connection for the curiate. So genera hominum denotes the curiae themselves, not subdivisions of them. Niebuhr's identification of genera with gentes is therefore mistaken.
Chapter 2
What religious and political roles did the curia have?
The curia had a meeting house, deities Juno and Tellus, and chief festivals the Fornacalia and Fordicidia, funded by the state. Its head, the curio, was in historical time merely a priest but had a lictor and flamen, proving he was originally a magistrate. The people elected a curio maximus. Politically, male members formed the comitia curiata, each curia casting one vote.
Chapter 2
Section 34 cards
According to the ancient writers, how did the patriciate originate?
The ancients held that the king chose from the people men eminent for age, ability, and reputation to sit in his council, the senate; these were called patres, and the adjective patricius applied to their families. Cicero, Livy, Dionysius, and Plutarch agree that natural distinctions of worth existed within the populus and were officially recognized, making the patriciate depend on connection with the senate.
Chapter 3
What was the ancient view of the order of plebs, patricians, and clients?
The ancients held the plebs existed from the beginning, prior even to the patriciate, as the mass of common freemen from whom the nobility was differentiated. They also placed the plebs before the clients: Cicero records that Romulus distributed the plebs in clientage among the chief men, and Dionysius adds that plebeians could choose patrons from the patricians.
Chapter 3
How did the ordinary client's relation to the state compare with the plebeian's?
The author argues clientage had various origins with gradations of privilege. The libertini were citizens with narrowly limited rights, but most clients followed their patron to war and the forum, testified and brought accusations in courts, and voted in the assemblies; when plebeians won the right to hold offices, clients were admitted to the same privilege. Thus the ordinary client did not differ essentially from the plebeian in his relation to the state.
Chapter 3
Why does the Latin language give no hint of an exclusively patrician populus?
The author argues, following Mommsen, that populus first means the whole body of citizens and secondly the commons as distinguished from the nobles, so it cannot thirdly mean patricians as distinguished from plebeians. In formulae like populus plebesque the words overlap, and joined with senatus they merely represent groups of institutions through which the state acts, not a patrician-only populus.
Chapter 3
Section 43 cards
According to the ancient writers, who composed the populus and the comitia curiata?
The ancient sources consistently describe the populus, and therefore the comitia curiata, as composed from earliest times of patricians, plebeians, and clients. The writers agree that plebeians and clients not only attended this assembly but voted in it and constituted the majority. The sources also report repeated enlargements of the populus, tribes, and curiae through admitting aliens, most of whom remained plebeian.
Chapter 4
Why does modern scholarship reject Niebuhr's method of recovering the annalists' views?
Niebuhr believed late-republican and imperial writers misread early sources through the lens of their own times, and that a skilled modern historian could recover the earlier annalists' standpoint. Scholarship now holds this untenable: except where an annalist is cited by name, his view is rarely recoverable, and it is inconceivable that Cicero or Augustan writers misunderstood so fundamental a matter as the original populus.
Chapter 4
How does the chapter refute Niebuhr's use of Labeo and Dionysius on summoning the curiae?
Niebuhr argued that Labeo's lictor and Dionysius's messenger-by-name for the curiate assembly showed it was patrician. The chapter replies that both describe historical practice, when the curiate assembly was ordinarily attended by only three augurs and thirty lictors, so horn-blowing would have been absurd, and summoning patricians by name shows they were too few to form a popular assembly.
Chapter 4
Section 54 cards
What evidence does Botsford give that plebeians belonged to the curiae throughout the Republic?
Botsford cites sources agreeing plebeians and clients voted in the curiate assembly in the early republic; plebeians were in the curiae in 208 B.C. when the first curio maximus was chosen from the plebs; in Cicero's time thirty plebeian lictors represented the comitia curiata; and plebeians performed arrogations there. He notes no ancient hint of any change in the curiae's social composition.
Chapter 5
How does Botsford rebut Schwegler's argument that plebeians in the curiate assembly would make Roman constitutional history inexplicable?
Botsford calls it a subjective argument that rejects sources to fit a preconceived theory. He notes analogies: the primitive German assembly included all warriors yet later states were monarchies and aristocracies; the Homeric Greek assembly included all freemen who had little power. Likewise plebeians in the comitia curiata lacked initiative and could not control government.
Chapter 5
What are Botsford's main objections to the theory of an exclusively patrician original populus?
He urges that it opposes unanimous ancient testimony; rests on wrong explanations of patres and patricii; is propped up by feeble reasons; the patrician numbers are too small; it ignores that plebs means 'the masses'; it contradicts Rome's liberal attitude toward aliens; and it assumes an advanced community with no inequalities of rank, which is outside human experience.
Chapter 5
How does Botsford treat the story of Romulus's asylum as evidence for the origin of the plebs?
Botsford says the asylum was a Greek, not Italian, institution, and the story is doubtless a myth, probably invented by fourth-century B.C. Greeks of southern Italy to disparage Rome's obscure origins. The Romans accepted it with modifications for partisan purposes but did not oppose plebs to patricians as foreigners to natives, since they held both groups participated in Rome's original settlement.
Chapter 5
Section 63 cards
According to the chapter, what originally grounds nobility and preeminence?
The chapter states that nobility was primarily grounded on ability, wealth, and renown, and was often heightened by a claim to divine lineage or close connection with the gods. Leadership arose from physical strength, knowledge, wisdom, or skill in divination, and success in war brought renown, booty, and later land. Inherited wealth and influence through several generations made nobility.
Chapter 6
Why does the author reject identifying patricians with conquerors and plebs with the conquered?
The author argues against it citing tradition, the derivation of several patrician gentes from foreign states, the fewness of the patricians, and the fact that patricians show no differentiations of rank like the conquering Spartans—they were a nobility, not a folk. Early Roman annexations of Latins and Sabines were incorporations on equal terms, with nobles granted the patriciate.
Chapter 6
What does the author conclude about subjective reconstruction of Roman history?
The author argues that comparative-sociological study confirms the authority of the sources and shows the ancient conception of early Rome to be sound and consistent. He therefore concludes that the method of subjective reconstruction introduced by Niebuhr, and still widely used by scholars, is unscientific.
Chapter 6
Section 74 cards
According to the chapter, what was the heredium and how do the sources describe it?
The sources say each family held two iugera, the heredium, from Rome's foundation. The author argues the sources treat it not as the only private land but as the smallest share allotted to any citizen, with the rich and noble possessing more; poor men worked as tenants or wage-earners on a rich neighbor's field.
Chapter 7
How does Dionysius describe Servius Tullius's division of the city into tribes?
Dionysius (iv. 14. 1 f.) says Tullius walled the seven hills, divided the city into four parts named after the hills—Palatina, Suburana, Collina, Esquilina—making four tribes where there had been three, and ordained that men stay in their part and register their census there; soldier levies and taxes were distributed among the four local tribes.
Chapter 7
Why does the author reject Fabius's and Cato's claim of thirty original Servian tribes?
The author argues Fabius drew on the censors' 'discriptio centuriarum,' which reflected the system before the First Punic War, and was kept from ascribing all thirty-three existing tribes to Servius only because two were added in 299. Had they checked records, they would have found only twenty-one tribes existed before 387.
Chapter 7
What does the author conclude about whether Servius instituted rural as well as urban tribes?
The author argues yes: since the local tribe was an aggregate of private estates and the four urban tribes were limited to the city, country estates under Servius must have been registered in rural tribes. He rejects Meyer's view that all citizens lived in the city, finding no basis in institutions or tradition.
Chapter 7
Section 83 cards
How did Appius Claudius Caecus's censorship in 312 change tribal enrollment?
Appius Claudius Caecus enrolled the landless citizens, both proletarians and aerarii, in the existing thirty-three tribes without discrimination, excepting only the cives sine suffragio. The measure gave the landless the upper hand in the assemblies, angered the proprietors, and endangered the peace of the state. In 304 Q. Fabius Rullianus removed the landless from the rural tribes and registered them in the four urban tribes as a compromise.
Chapter 8
Why does the chapter reject the claim that Servius created the tribes for tax collection?
The author argues the inference is wrong: had Servius intended the tribes for taxes as well as military purposes, he would have included all who were subject to taxation, not only those liable to service. Primitive Rome imposed no regular direct taxes on citizens; soldiers equipped themselves, and revenue came from gifts, public property, and tolls. The aerarii, taxed on property, were originally outside the tribes.
Chapter 8
How did the tribes function as both local districts and groups of persons?
The tribes were local, containing only ager privatus, as shown by the exclusion of the Capitoline and Aventine hills, yet they excluded public land and waste places, so they were only roughly districts. Harmony between the territorial and personal aspects was maintained by restrictions on transfer of residence, censorial transfers based on domicile, and assignment of new citizens to nearby tribes. Annexation after 241 made them geographically indeterminate, and by the late Republic the personal tribe depended on inheritance and the censors' will.
Chapter 8
Section 94 cards
What was the ultimate source of Livy's and Dionysius's accounts of the Servian classes?
The ultimate source was a censorial document, sometimes called the 'discriptio centuriarum' or 'Commentarii Servi Tullii,' though it actually belonged to the Censoriae Tabulae of the period just after 269. It listed classes, centuries, and ratings and gave directions for holding the centuriate assembly. The military divisions and equipment Livy describes had been discarded long before, so that material came from antiquarian study, first used by the annalist Fabius Pictor.
Chapter 9
Why does Botsford conclude the army was never identical with the comitia centuriata?
The author argues the two could not have applied at the same time: the proletarian century was exempt from service, the accensi velati and musicians lacked centuriate military organization, and the seniors had no centuriate military organization either. Only the juniors were pedites, and even their military century was not strictly identical with a voting century. Since one grew from the other, the military organization came first.
Chapter 9
According to Botsford, what did Servius Tullius actually organize?
If the original centuriate system is referred to Servius Tullius, the author argues he should be considered the organizer of the phalanx, which the military centuries constituted, not of the comitia centuriata. This harmonizes with the ancient writers' view that the comitia centuriata exercised no functions, and hence presumably did not exist, before the beginning of the republic.
Chapter 9
How did the earliest Roman equites differ from true cavalry?
The earliest Roman equites were heavy infantry who used horses merely as conveyance, much like the earliest Greek knights, and were primitively called celeres for their swiftness. Some horsemen had two horses, one for the warrior and one for his squire, as in Etruria. The Romans did not institute a true cavalry until the period of the Samnite wars. These early horsemen were noble.
Chapter 9
Section 104 cards
Why did ancient sources inflate the number of knights per century?
The author argues the historians wanted the number of knights under Servius to match Dionysius's figure of about 5000 under Augustus. This led them to assume 200 or even 300 knights to a century as early as Romulus's reign. The author treats these as evident misconceptions that can be cleared away to reach approximate truth.
Chapter 10
How did the priores and posteriores cavalry troops differ?
The author argues their essential difference was rank and wealth, not the relative time of their institution. The priores had two horses each, the posteriores one. Both divisions remained patrician long after Servius. The six troops kept their old tribal names and eventually became part of the comitia centuriata, though militarily the body was reorganized into twenty turmae.
Chapter 10
Why did the Romans adopt the five census ratings?
The author argues the normal lot was twenty iugera, and the Servian phalanx consisted of such possessors. As population grew without territorial expansion, lots were subdivided, weakening the phalanx in a time of military need. The five ratings were a temporary expedient, probably tied to the censorship of 443 or 435, later superseded by military pay.
Chapter 10
Why were senior centuries probably not part of Servius's system?
The author reasons a military century should hold a hundred men, but static populations have about three times as many juniors as seniors. Since junior and senior centuries were equal in number, senior centuries held only about thirty-three each. Seniors also guarded the city rather than taking the field, and their enrolment in centuries is specially mentioned when it occurred.
Chapter 10
Section 114 cards
Why does Botsford reject identifying the army with the junior voting centuries?
The author argues a military century of juniors could not equal a voting century: the army century held a fixed number for all ratings, while historical comitia centuries varied greatly in size, with each century of the four lower classes containing as many men as the entire first class. Men also shifted classes as property changed, and the physically disqualified could vote but not serve, while some soldiers were too young for the comitia.
Chapter 11
How does Botsford estimate the size of the early republican army?
He takes the state's area of about 983 square kilometers, allows a maximum of sixty persons per square kilometer (under 60,000 total), and counts men aged seventeen to sixty as about thirty per cent, giving under 18,000. With juniors to seniors roughly three to one and deductions for slaves and the incapacitated, perhaps 9,000–10,000 juniors and 3,000–4,000 seniors remain—enough for eighty-four foot centuries and six horse troops.
Chapter 11
What were the five money ratings after 269, and how did they arise?
Livy gives 100,000, 75,000, 50,000, 25,000, and 11,000 asses for the five classes. When the lighter two-ounce sextantarian as was legally adopted around 269, the ratings had to be raised to match the decline in the standard. The ratings of 312 are not recorded; Mommsen, assuming one proportional elevation, proposed 40,000, 30,000, 20,000, 10,000, and 4,400 asses.
Chapter 11
How does Botsford distinguish the ratings of 4000, 1500, and 375 asses?
Those assessed at 4000 or more asses belonged to the fifth class, held its political rights, and owed both military service and tributum. Those at 1500–4000 also belonged to the fifth class and paid tax but were exempt from service. Those at 375–1500 were proletarians, below the fifth class but taxable. Those below 375, the capite censi, were exempt from taxation; the 375 line predates 167, when the tributum ended.
Chapter 11
Section 124 cards
What does Belot argue about the five census ratings at the time of the First Punic War?
Belot argues that an economic revolution raising prices, plus the decreased weight of the as, multiplied the five ratings Dionysius gives for the earlier period by ten, producing 1,000,000, 750,000, 500,000, 250,000 and 125,000 asses for the five classes. Botsford grants the lighter as and the price revolution but rejects the theory's conclusions.
Chapter 12
How does Botsford refute Belot's identification of the first class rating with the highest appraisement in 214?
Botsford calculates that 150 ships at 375 men each need 56,250 sailors. Belot's 22,000 knights rated at 1,000,000 asses would each owe seven sailors, giving 154,000 men—more than enough for three such fleets. Since knights were only a twelfth of registered citizens, the total demanded would be absurdly larger, condemning the premises.
Chapter 12
What were the aes equestre and aes hordearium, and how were they funded?
The eques received 10,000 asses (aes equestre) to buy his horse for ten years' service and 2,000 asses yearly (aes hordearium) for maintenance. He was not paid in advance but given security, the sums made good by a regular contribution levied on the estates of widows and orphans, the only private property free from the burden of military service.
Chapter 12
How did the number of equites equo publico change from the Servian phalanx to the late Republic?
The Servian phalanx had two legions, later four, requiring at least 1,200 equites for active duty; allowing for reserves, the government raised the number to 1,800, with twelve new centuries open to patricians and plebeians while the old six stayed patrician. Cato urged a minimum of 2,200, and Augustus's revived parade of 5,000 suggests about that many in the late Republic.
Chapter 12
Section 134 cards
What two kinds of auspices did the Romans distinguish, and how did they differ?
Auspices were signs by which the gods declared their will. Impetrativa (or impetrita) were given in answer to prayer and were necessarily favorable; oblativa were sent unasked and might be favorable or the contrary. Auspices were not prophecy of future events but a means of ascertaining whether the deity approved a proposed action.
Chapter 13
Did plebeians have the right to take private auspices?
The author argues yes: plebeians enjoyed private religious rights equally with patricians, and no legal means existed to prevent auspices in plebeian houses. Cato, a plebeian, performed the rite at home. Patrician claims that conubium would disturb the auspices are read as asserting superiority of ceremony, not plebeian exclusion.
Chapter 13
What were the augurs, and what powers did the college hold?
Augurs were keepers and expounders of a sacred science, not magistrates or prophets; the college grew from about three to fifteen under Sulla. Independently they inaugurated priests and blessed fields and the people. Otherwise they advised magistrates, and the senate could refer doubtful ceremonies to them, then annul an act or ask a magistrate to resign.
Chapter 13
What was the templum, and how did augural districts affect assemblies?
The templum was a carefully marked out, oriented spot the magistrate occupied while performing the rite, and augurs were needed to establish it. The city, bounded by the pomerium, and the ager effatus beyond it were the two inner regions important for comitia: city assemblies had to be auspicated within the pomerium, and crossing it required special auspices.
Chapter 13
Section 144 cards
Why did celestial signs replace other public auspices in the city by the late Republic?
The author explains that heavenly signs, especially lightning and thunder, were easiest to understand and carried the greatest weight. Unlike other auspices, which had to be taken for each individual act, the celestial omens of the morning served the magistrate for all his undertakings during the entire day.
Chapter 14
How did heavenly signs affect the holding of assemblies?
Comitia and contiones were interrupted by storms, and it was impious to hold an assembly during lightning or thunder. Even at daybreak auspication, a flash of lightning on the left—favorable for other undertakings—meant the magistrate dared not hold the assembly that day. Some favorable comitial sign was expected, but the author notes its nature is unknown.
Chapter 14
What was the difference between nuntiatio and obnuntiatio?
When the magistrate was informed of an evil omen by a private person or an augur, the report was called nuntiatio; when reported by another magistrate, it was called obnuntiatio. The president could credit or reject a private citizen's report, but the law compelled him to accept an augur's nuntiatio or another magistrate's obnuntiatio.
Chapter 14
What did the Aelian and Fufian laws likely accomplish?
The author argues these plebiscites, probably passed about 150, likely granted tribunes the right to obnuntiate against patrician magistrates and gave patrician magistrates obnuntiatio against the plebeian tribal assembly. Cicero regarded them as holy means of weakening and repressing the tribunes and as the surest protection of the commonwealth.
Chapter 14
Section 154 cards
What juristic definition of comitia and concilium does Gellius quote from Laelius Felix?
Laelius Felix, quoted by Gellius, defined the terms by who is summoned: he who orders not the whole people but some part of it to be present ought to proclaim not comitia but a concilium. Botsford says scholars had invariably begun with this definition, merely illustrating it and dismissing as lax the many usages that could not be forced into line with it.
Chapter 15
How does Livy's usage of comitia contradict Laelius's definition?
Botsford shows Livy applies comitia to assemblies including only part of the people: the plebeian tribal assembly, comitia sacerdotum composed of seventeen tribes, and comitia held by soldiers or by patricians and clients alone. He also uses concilium for assemblies of the whole people, as in the trial of Horatius and the condemnation of Marcus Manlius.
Chapter 15
Why does Botsford reject Mommsen's view that concilium of the whole people means a non-voting contio?
Mommsen held that a concilium of all the people was an unorganized listening assembly, not summoned to vote. Botsford objects that the Horatius assembly voted on the acquittal, the consul's concilium populi afterward passed laws, and the Ardea passage implies deliberation leading to action. He also notes a single unclear case cannot support a generalization.
Chapter 15
How does Botsford treat Livy's use of concilium for foreign assemblies?
Botsford notes Romans applied familiar Latin terms to foreign institutions in the same sense used of Roman ones, since only thus could they be understood. He therefore finds Mommsen's claim that foreign assemblies are called concilia because their resolutions did not bind Rome absurd, since it would extend to foreign comitia like the Syracusan ones.
Chapter 15
Section 164 cards
How does Livy typically use 'concilium' for foreign assemblies?
The chapter states that Livy frequently uses concilia for foreign assemblies of the whole people, nobles and commons alike, citing examples from Alba Longa, the Latins, Etruria, Gauls, Samnites, Aetolians, Achaeans and many others. Rarely the word means a council of a few men, as at Livy x. 16. 3 for Etruria's leading men, and twice at Capua it means a plebis concilium.
Chapter 16
What does the chapter conclude about Livy's use of comitia versus concilium?
The author concludes that Livy frequently uses comitia for the tribal assembly of the plebs and always for the priestly electoral assembly of seventeen tribes. For concilium, Livy frequently uses it (rarely comitia) for foreign assemblies of all the people, and less frequently for Roman assemblies of all the people. Mommsen and others admit Livy's usage does not strictly conform to Laelius Felix's definition.
Chapter 16
How does Cicero's usage undermine Berns' claim about Laelius Felix's rule?
Berns claimed Cicero violated the rule only once, in Att. i. 1. 1 with 'comitiis tribuniciis,' but the author argues his examination was hasty. Cicero calls the plebeian assembly comitia in Q. Fr. ii. 14. 4, Att. ii. 23. 3, Fam. viii. 4. 3, Sest. 51. 109 and Leg. iii. 19. 44-45, where the comitia tributa condemned him and the comitia centuriata recalled him.
Chapter 16
What does the chapter say about Caesar's and Sallust's usage of these terms?
Caesar generally calls Gallic assemblies concilia, meaning tribal or national assemblies including nobles and commons, rarely a council of chiefs, and applies comitia to Gallic assemblies once (B. G. vii. 67). Sallust's concilium Gallorum in Hist. ii. 22 means a national assembly, while comitia usually means the centuriate gathering but in Iug. 37 designates the plebeian assembly. The author says neither differs from Livy.
Chapter 16
Section 174 cards
How does Cicero's usage of comitia and concilium compare with Livy's and Sallust's?
The author concludes that Cicero's usage does not differ from Livy's, and that Sallust's agrees too; no variation can be found in all extant republican literature. He notes Cicero often uses comitia for the plebeian tribal assembly and regularly for the seventeen-tribe electoral assembly, and is even ready to call the senate comitia if it usurps the elective function.
Chapter 17
What did Laelius define as the distinction between comitia and concilium, and does the author accept it?
Laelius formulated a distinction between comitia and concilium, apparently treating them as assemblies of the whole people versus a part. The author sets this definition aside: Cicero's distinction between an assembly of the whole people represented by all voting divisions and one of part represented by some divisions is incompatible with Laelius, and it is doubtful whether writers of the period even knew his definition.
Chapter 17
According to the author's inductive conclusions, how do comitia and concilium differ in scope and function?
The author concludes concilium may apply to non-political as well as political gatherings, while comitia is wholly political. Within politics, concilium is the more general term suggesting neither organization nor its lack, while comitia is restricted to the organized assembly. Among organized national gatherings, comitia is the wider term covering all functions, whereas concilium is restricted to legislative and judicial functions.
Chapter 17
How are comitia and concilium used when applied to foreign institutions?
The author states that applied to foreign institutions, comitia always designates electoral assemblies, while concilia, as at Rome, are always legislative or judicial assemblies. He supports this with citations from Caesar, Cicero, Sallust, Nepos and Livy, noting that most of the foreign concilia mentioned are known to have been assemblies of the whole people, noble and common alike.
Chapter 17
Section 184 cards
Why does Botsford argue comitia is always plural while concilium is singular?
The author argues comitia is a plural of parts: the curiae, centuries, or tribes were originally thought of as little assemblies whose sum formed the comitia. So comitia always refers to the voting units, while concilium views the assembly without reference to its parts. This is why modifiers appear only with comitia—comitia curiata, centuriata, tributa—never concilium curiatum, centuriatum, or tributum.
Chapter 18
Why could concilium not designate an electoral assembly?
Concilium carried the idea of deliberation, discussion, and conversation, possibly from 'con-calare.' Since an electoral assembly did not allow discussion, concilium was restricted to legislative and judicial assemblies where voting was preceded by deliberation. This is the fourth general use Botsford identifies.
Chapter 18
What did Laelius Felix wrongly conclude about comitia and concilium?
Laelius concluded that comitia should be restricted to assemblies of the whole people and concilia to assemblies of a part. Botsford argues against this: for the Republic and the age of Augustus the distinction was not whole versus part. Instead, all uses are explained by two facts—concilium is singular and comitia plural, and concilium suggests deliberation.
Chapter 18
What did contio originally mean, and what did it mean in Cicero's time?
Derived from conventio, contio originally meant 'a coming together,' a general term for public assembly, especially comitia; Macrobius and Cicero's archaic pontifical formulae still include comitia under it. By Cicero's day it was restricted to the non-voting assembly summoned by a magistrate or sacerdos, and further to the 'oration' delivered there.
Chapter 18
Section 194 cards
Who could speak in a contio, and who granted that privilege?
The right to address the people belonged primarily to the presiding magistrate, who granted it to his colleagues and all higher magistrates, and in some cases to senators, distinguished private persons, freedmen, foreign kings, and ambassadors. The president could exclude or limit discussion, and could compel a citizen to speak.
Chapter 19
How did Caesar handle Bibulus and Pompey over his agrarian bill in 59?
Caesar brought the bill before the comitia without the senate's consent. He asked colleague Bibulus if he objected; Bibulus said he would allow no innovation that year and left. Caesar then invited Pompey and Crassus, mere senators, to speak, and had the people beg Pompey to support the law against opponents.
Chapter 19
How did presidents allocate speaking time, and how did speakers abuse it?
The president fixed the amount of time granted. In the 55 debate on assigning provinces, Favorinus got one hour and Cato two. Favorinus spent his hour lamenting its shortness; Cato filled two hours with irrelevant matters until an officer dragged him from the rostra and ejected him from the Forum, though he returned to shout.
Chapter 19
What did the president do after deliberation to begin voting?
After the deliberation, or after the preliminary formality of opening the contio, the president ordered the assembly to form into voting groups — curiae, centuries, or tribes — and simultaneously ordered the departure of all who lacked the voting qualification. Lictors of magistrates with imperium and the tribune's viator cleared away the unqualified.
Chapter 19
Section 204 cards
According to Botsford, why did the pontiffs organize the people into curiae?
The author argues the curiate organization was not primarily for voting, since that notion is groundless. Because the business of these assemblies was largely religious, must have originated in earliest Roman times, and was usually under sacerdotal presidency, he suggests the sacerdotes, especially the pontiffs, introduced the curiate organization from the army to make their religious meetings more orderly and dignified.
Chapter 20
What were comitia calata, and who convoked and presided over them?
All assemblies meeting under pontifical presidency for religious purposes were called calata, from calare, 'to call,' a verb restricted in historical time to sacerdotal technical language. The pontiffs' calatores probably acted as curiate lictors in convoking the calata comitia curiata, over which they presided. The usual meeting-place was in front of the curia Calabra on the Capitoline Hill.
Chapter 20
What did the non-voting calata comitia do regarding the calendar?
Under the presidency of the king, and in the republic of the rex sacrorum, the people gathered to hear the proclamation of the fasti. On the calends a pontifex minor announced on which day, the fifth or seventh, the nones would fall; on the nones the king again summoned the people to hear the month's calendar, probably read by the same pontifex minor. The custom fell into disuse with the publication of the calendar in the Forum beginning in 304.
Chapter 20
What was adrogatio, and what procedure and restrictions did it involve?
Adrogatio was adoption of a person who was his own master and consented to pass under another's paternal power; the word signifies the act required a vote of the people. The case first went to the pontiffs, who weighed reasons, family, dignity, religion, and the adrogator's age. If they consented, it came before the comitia curiata under the college's chief, and the curiae voted. It could not apply to youths before the manly gown, wards, or women.
Chapter 20
Section 214 cards
What two-step process did Octavius follow to become Caesar's testamentary heir?
Octavius formally accepted the inheritance before a praetor with witnesses, and afterward was declared adopted by a vote of the curiae. The chapter states that because the case is nearly akin to adrogatio, the vote was undoubtedly taken in the calata comitia under pontifical presidency.
Chapter 21
What was transitio ad plebem and what motive drove it?
It was the direct passing of individuals or gentes from patrician to plebeian rank, analogous to but distinct from adrogatio. The motive was a desire to qualify for the plebeian tribunate or more generally to widen eligibility to office. The chapter notes several instances for individuals and the Octavia and Minucia gentes' claims.
Chapter 21
What did Metellus object was needed to validate Clodius's transitio, and what was the complete process?
Metellus, the consul, objected that a curiate law was needed, and the senate evidently agreed. The chapter suggests the complete process was abjuration of the patriciate, confirmed by a curiate law, and reception of plebeian rights through a plebi scitum. Clodius yielded for the present and the next year had himself arrogated by Fonteius.
Chapter 21
How does the chapter describe patricians being created in the regal period?
The author argues that toward the end of the monarchy, if not from the beginning, plebeians were admitted to the senate and through it to the patriciate by cooperation of king and senate, with the people uninvolved. After the monarchy fell, the people's vote replaced the king's will, while coöptation by the senate continued.
Chapter 21
Section 224 cards
How did early assemblies express approval, and what did such demonstrations show?
The Greeks signified approval by acclamation, the Germans by clashing their weapons, and the Celts by both. The author explains that such demonstrations aimed to express not the will of the majority but the intensity of conviction on the part of the assembly as a whole. The people also lacked any means of legally enforcing their will, which the author counts as a disadvantage beyond their lack of initiative.
Chapter 22
What did Dionysius claim Romulus granted the commons, and how does the author qualify it?
Dionysius states Romulus granted the commons three prerogatives: to elect magistrates, to ratify laws, and to decide concerning war whenever the king referred the matter to them. The author stresses Dionysius's own admission that these matters were referred at the king's pleasure only — a concession by the sovereign, not a right of the people. Rubino further shows that when ancient authors cite individual treaty cases, they never connect the assembly to the proceedings.
Chapter 22
How was war declared under the kings, and what does 'populus' mean in the declaration formula?
The king sent an ambassador to seek reparation; if refused, he consulted the senate, whose majority vote decided for war. The fetialis then declared war, stating that the populus Romanus had ordered it and the senate consented. The author argues that in such international formulae populus means the state, not the assembly, so the word is no evidence of a popular right to declare war.
Chapter 22
What was the assembly's legislative role under the kings, according to the author?
The author argues law in early stages is chiefly customary, so Rome inherited a mass of private and public customs resulting from gradual evolution rather than legislative power. Kings settled disputes by these usages, though people believed their judgments came from the gods, as Numa received sacred laws from Egeria. No elective or legislative act of the curiae was valid without the senate's authorization (patrum auctoritas).
Chapter 22
Section 231 cards
According to the chapter, what was the fundamental idea of lex?
The author argues lex was not a command by a sovereign nor a contract between ruler and ruled, but an obligation the citizens took upon themselves at the magistrate's request. The magistrate brought his formulated request (legem ferre), the citizens accepted it (legem accipere), replying individually 'ut rogas' or 'antiquo', binding themselves by oral promise—the strongest obligation they knew.
Chapter 23
Section 244 cards
What did the phrase optimo iure or optima lege signify in Roman usage?
It could mean "with perfect justice" or "most deservedly," and closely related, "perfect formality," as in making a bequest or creating a sacerdos or magistrate. Developed further, it conveyed completeness or perfection of title, not only to property but also to office, so that a holder of perfect title enjoyed all immunities, honors, and powers inherent in that absolute condition.
Chapter 24
Did the curiate law confer the imperium, according to the chapter?
No. The author states that in no instance do the ancients speak of "conferring" the imperium by the curiate law or deriving it from that law. Instead, sources mention conferring imperium by a senate decree or by the suffrages of the people in the centuriate or tribal assembly, and confirming it by the curiate law.
Chapter 24
What evidence does the chapter give that the lex curiata was not essential in practice?
The author cites L. Marcius, elected propraetor by the army in 212 without a lex curiata; the senate censured the election for transferring auspices to the camp but did not declare the magistracy illegal for want of the law. Also, magistrates of 49 fled Rome without the law yet held and continued military commands, and Pomptinus governed Narbonensis and won a triumph without it.
Chapter 24
How does the author explain the Pompeians' failure to hold elections at Thessalonica?
The author argues the want of a curiate law was a mere pretext. The Pompeians had already assumed the city, populus, and pomerium existed in the camp, and the senate could have decreed a dispensation. The author concludes the consuls, or more probably Pompey, did not wish elections or civil government in the camp, which would have disturbed discipline and roused jealousies.
Chapter 24
Section 253 cards
According to Botsford, what did the measure of 215 concerning the lex curiata likely do?
The author argues that after the election of 215, Fabius likely secured a measure—probably a senatus consultum—exempting holders of the imperium moving between promagistracy and magistracy (or re-elected) from repeating the curiate law. It relieved commanders in the field from coming to Rome to propose the law themselves, and the regulation was apparently permanent.
Chapter 25
What did Rubino maintain about the curiate assembly and the year 215?
Rubino held that the curiate assembly remained a real gathering of the people until the year after Cannae (215), when wartime exigencies produced a statute whereby the curiate act was passed by a vote of thirty lictors representing their curiae, reducing the sanction to a formality. Botsford notes the Festus passage is mutilated and finds Rubino's restoration objectionable on several grounds.
Chapter 25
How did the comitia curiata function in the late Republic, and who revived it?
Botsford concludes it became a mere formality attended by three augurs as witnesses and thirty lictors who cast votes at the presiding magistrate's command. Probably nearly disused after 215, it was revived before Cicero, chiefly by the optimates, who valued it for the auspices and as part of religious machinery for controlling refractory office-holders.
Chapter 25
Section 264 cards
How did the centuriate assembly's military origins show in its procedures?
It could not be convoked within the pomerium because the army had to stay outside the city; before reform it met in military array under its officers with banners displayed, usually in the Campus Martius; and only a magistrate cum imperio could convoke it for a vote under his own auspices. It was often called exercitus, though citizens carried weapons to no assembly.
Chapter 26
Why does the author reject the view that the censorial assembly was an army?
The census concerned property for apportioning taxes and burdens, so only those legally capable of holding property were summoned; sons under patria potestas, women, and children were excluded and reported by the father or guardian. It also included many exempt from service by age, health, or property. Further, the centuriate assembly was not the basis for the levy; soldiers were enrolled from the tribes.
Chapter 26
How were supernumerary centuries such as mechanics and musicians organized for voting?
Mechanics liable to skilled service were grouped in two centuries, smiths and carpenters, based on existing guilds; authorities differ on their class, with Livy and Cicero favoring the first class and Dionysius the second, and the weight of authority inclines to the first. Trumpeters and hornblowers each got a century on the basis of their guilds. The accensi velati also received a centuriate organization, probably a single century.
Chapter 26
What was the century of the proletarians and why did it exist?
The government so designated citizens who owned no land and were therefore poor; they were exempt from military duty except when serving with arms furnished by the state. Though few at first, their number grew until in Dionysius' time it exceeded all five classes together. At some point they were formed into a century with one vote, reported after all others, from the principle that no one should be excluded from voting because of poverty.
Chapter 26
Section 274 cards
What two centuriate organizations existed from the time of the comitia centuriata's origin?
The author distinguishes two: (1) the military organization, which continued unchanged until it shifted to the manipular formation, and (2) the political organization, which developed from the military but was at no time identical with it. The chapter stresses that these were separate throughout, so the political assembly's structure should not be read as simply the army's order.
Chapter 27
How did voting proceed in the centuriate assembly, and when did it stop?
Voting went by classes: the equites (prerogative centuries) were asked first, then the eighty centuries of the first class. If those two groups agreed, they decided the issue, since ninety-seven was a majority. Otherwise the second class was called, then the third, and so on, but voting ceased as soon as a majority was reached—often with the first class—so the proletarian century rarely decided.
Chapter 27
What two changes does the author group under the 'reform' of the comitia centuriata?
The two innovations are (1) abolition of the equestrian prerogative and introduction of drawing by lot a prerogative century from the first class before voting, and (2) division of citizens into classes and centuries within the several tribes. The author notes they have no necessary connection and need not have been simultaneous.
Chapter 27
What date does the author conclude for the reform, and why reject a single censor?
The author argues the reform cannot be assigned to one censor or definite date. Livy could not have treated it at length without leaving traces in the epitome, whose silence implies the change was gradual. The author concludes the changes were gradually introduced between 304 and 220, best explaining all known facts, rather than crediting Fabius Buteo (241) or Flaminius (220).
Chapter 27
Section 284 cards
What modification did Mommsen offer in Römisches Staatsrecht to his earlier view?
Mommsen kept the 373 centuries but argued they were combined so as to cast only 193 votes: the first class had 35 × 2 = 70 centuries voting individually, while the four lower classes, totaling 280 centuries, cast only 100 votes through unnamed grouped divisions. He admitted he could not say how the centuries were combined.
Chapter 28
What is Botsford's main objection to Mommsen's interpretation of Cicero?
Botsford argues the passage is exceedingly uncertain, that Cicero makes Servius Tullius the author of the organization, and that the principle of distribution by ordines, census, and aetates stayed the same from Servius to Cicero. He also notes Cicero calls the lower classes' divisions centuries, not groups, and calls the interpretation too strained and unnatural.
Chapter 28
How did Klebs explain the order of voting in the reformed centuriate assembly?
Klebs held that centuries voted by classes, each vote announced as soon as ascertained; after all had voted, a count was taken by tribes in an order determined by lot, and a second announcement in that order decided the election. Each candidate was declared elected once a majority of votes was reached in his favor.
Chapter 28
How did the reformed assembly treat the equestrian centuries and supernumerary centuries?
The equestrian centuries ceased to be prerogative; a century drawn by lot from the first class led the voting. The equites' votes were announced separately, and the sex suffragia, no longer exclusively patrician, were reported after the other eighty-two. Supernumerary centuries — artisans, musicians, accensi velati, proletarians, and the tardy — retained votes, likely reduced to one each after their colleges were united.
Chapter 28
Section 294 cards
What was the first recorded legislative act of the Roman people, and by which assembly?
The author identifies the lex de provocatione attributed to Valerius Publicola, consul in 509, as the earliest legislation of the centuriate assembly and the earliest recorded legislative act of the Roman people. The third Valerian law of appeal in 300 was also an act of this assembly, whereas the three Porcian laws on the same subject seem to have been tribal.
Chapter 29
What did the Twelve Tables provide about the people's votes, and what limit remained?
A law of the Twelve Tables provided that there should be resolutions and votes of the people, and whatever the people voted last should be law and valid—the first clear enunciation of the principle that the will of the people, whenever expressed, prevailed over every other authority. The author notes it was far from establishing popular sovereignty, however, for the initiative remained with the magistrates.
Chapter 29
How did the Publilian law of 339 change the patrum auctoritas?
Till 339 the patres could give or withhold the auctoritas. An article of the Publilian law required them to grant it to legislative acts of the centuries before voting began, while the issue was still in doubt, reducing it to a mere formality. This freed centuriate legislation from patrician control; henceforth only a majority of the entire senate could declare its resolutions illegal.
Chapter 29
What was the centuriate assembly's role in declaring war by the late Republic?
The author argues the assembly retained the constitutional right to decide aggressive war, though in practice magistrates and senate nearly regained their old control. The 427 controversy settled that the people's order was needed, and declarations followed against Carthage, Macedon, and others. Yet unauthorized wars by Manlius and Lucullus went unpunished, and ratification could ordinarily be counted on.
Chapter 29
Section 304 cards
Why did the optimates prefer the comitia centuriata after Sulla's reforms?
Sulla's constitutional legislation curtailed the powers of the plebeian tribunes and their assembly, proportionally increasing the importance of the centuries. Although his form of government was short-lived, the optimates thereafter naturally preferred the comitia centuriata for ratifying senatorial resolutions. To this assembly belong the leges Vibiae of the consul C. Vibius Pansa, 43, which confirmed Caesar's acts and replaced Antony's laws on colonies and on abolishing the dictatorship.
Chapter 30
How were censors elected, and how did this differ from other magistrates?
On the institution of the censorship, the law creating the office enacted that elections of censors should be ratified not by the curiae, as with other magistrates, but by the centuries themselves. Since the censors' primary function was the periodic reconstitution of the comitia centuriata, it was doubtless thought appropriate that this assembly alone be concerned with the election. The lex centuriata de potestate censoria remained a mere form, never noticed by historians.
Chapter 30
What did the Valerian law of appeal provide, and how effective was it?
The lex de provocatione of Valerius, consul in the first year of the republic—according to Cicero the first law carried through the comitia centuriata—provided that no magistrate should scourge or put to death a citizen without granting an appeal to the people. But the appellant had no legal means of enforcing the right against a magistrate; he could only throw himself on the mercy of the crowd. The author argues the first lex Valeria accordingly brought little real benefit.
Chapter 30
What was the function of the duumviri perduellioni iudicandae?
In perduellio accusations the consul of the early republic appointed duumviri perduellioni iudicandae for each case as it arose. Their function was to try the case and pronounce sentence, from which, if condemnatory, the accused had a right to appeal to the comitia centuriata. The office is obscure because, without formal abolition, it fell early into disuse, its function passing to the tribunate of the plebs. The author notes the duumviri were still employed in 384.
Chapter 30
Section 314 cards
What did the Twelve Tables require regarding resolutions on a citizen's caput?
The law of the Twelve Tables enacted that all resolutions concerning the caput of a Roman citizen should be offered to the centuries only. This increased the number of officials competent to bring capital actions before the comitia centuriata, and thereafter tribunes were required to prefer their capital accusations before this assembly, requesting auspices from a higher magistrate.
Chapter 31
What did Botsford conclude about tribunician capital jurisdiction before the Hortensian law?
The author argues that the many early tribunician prosecutions are largely mythical or actually belonged to the duumviri or quaestors, since few significant cases are recorded between 390 and the Hortensian law. He concludes the tribunes exercised no extensive capital jurisdiction before that law, after which their political jurisdiction was freed from restraint and they succeeded wholly to the duumviri's place.
Chapter 31
How was P. Claudius Pulcher punished after the battle off Drepana?
As consul in 249 he fought the naval battle contrary to auspices and lost his fleet. The comitia centuriata trial was interrupted by a storm, and colleagues' intercession saved him from the death penalty. At a new trial before the tribes he was fined 120,000 asses, 1000 for each ship lost. His colleague L. Junius escaped condemnation by suicide.
Chapter 31
What did the Porcian laws accomplish regarding citizens and punishment?
A Porcian law, probably by M. Porcius Cato the Elder in his praetorship of 198, forbade scourging or slaying a citizen under the imperium domi. Another, probably of P. Porcius Laeca, praetor 195, extended appeal to citizens in Italy and the provinces under military imperium, sending appellants to Rome. A third, assigned conjecturally to L. Porcius Licinus, consul 184, seems to have benefited Roman soldiers.
Chapter 31
Section 324 cards
What did the lex Sempronia de provocatione of 123 BCE forbid?
The author states that C. Gracchus, carrying out his brother's plan, passed this law absolutely forbidding capital sentence upon a citizen without an order of the people. It did not abolish extraordinary courts but required their establishment by popular vote, reiterated the Porcian ban on executing civilians, and made violators subject to trial for perduellio with penalty of interdict from fire and water.
Chapter 32
How did the senate circumvent the laws of appeal?
The author explains that the senatus consultum ultimum armed the consuls with absolute power of life and death in crises, and the senate circumvented the appeal laws on the plea that the accused had ceased to be citizens. Ti. Gracchus planned a new appeal law but died before enacting it; his followers were then condemned without appeal by an extraordinary quaestio under Popillius Laenas.
Chapter 32
What was the first quaestio perpetua and when was it established?
The author states the first standing court was established in 149 to try Roman officials accused of extortion (repetundae) committed in the provinces or Italy. Because prosecutors mainly sought recovery of extorted property, the court was essentially civil and seemed no infringement of popular rights, though the principle began applying to criminal cases even before Sulla.
Chapter 32
How was a capital trial before the comitia centuriata conducted?
The magistrate held a preliminary quaestio, then summoned the people to three contiones on alternate days for anquisitio, acting as accuser with witnesses, defense, and counsel. He then acquitted or condemned and fixed the penalty; if condemned, the accused appealed, and the magistrate turned the sentence into a rogation for the comitia, held after a trinum nundinum unless the accused wanted earlier.
Chapter 32
Section 334 cards
What two original functions did the plebeian tribunate develop from?
The tribunes' later vast powers grew from two original functions: protecting individual citizens, plebeian and patrician alike, through the auxilium, which required personal contact and thus laws keeping a tribune in the city overnight; and the right to summon the plebs to a contio, form them into voting groups (curiae, then tribes after 471), and take votes on plebiscites binding on the plebeian body insofar as they harmonized with state law.
Chapter 33
What was a lex sacrata and what did it make of an offender?
A lex sacrata was a law sworn to by the community—here the community of plebs—under which an offender became a homo sacer and could be killed with impunity. The oath made tribunes and aediles sacrosanct: anyone who killed or harmed them, or ordered harm, could be slain with impunity and his property confiscated. The author notes the resolution had no legal validity for the state or patricians.
Chapter 33
Why does the author deny the tribunes had a legal veto before 449?
The author argues the tribunes' veto rested on their jurisdiction: a magistrate who ignored a prohibition kept a valid act but became liable to tribunician prosecution. Since the tribunes lacked judicial competence until the Valerian-Horatian laws of 449, they lacked a veto against governmental action; and while that competence depended on the government's will, probably until the Hortensian law of 287, the veto was correspondingly limited.
Chapter 33
How did the tribunes' coercive and judicial functions arise, according to the author?
The author argues these functions resulted not from usurpation but from a mitigation of the harsh lex sacrata: instead of outlawing an offender, a tribune ordinarily imposed a fine, appealable to the plebeian assembly, or brought capital prosecution, likewise appealable. The author links this to the alleged Icilian plebiscite of 492, and says the ultimate basis of tribunician authority was the revolutionary power of the plebs.
Chapter 33
Section 344 cards
What did the law of 471 do for the tribunician assembly, and by what body was it passed?
It gave the tribunician assembly a tribal organization, brought about by the agitation of Publilius Volero, tribune of the plebs. Botsford argues that, since only passed bills were recorded, the measure must have been an act of the comitia centuriata. Livy says the motive was to free the tribunes from patrician influence exercised through clients' votes. The statute gave the assembly no new function, only provisions for electing tribunes and aediles by tribes.
Chapter 34
How did the tribal organization of 471 change the assembly's membership?
The curiae contained all citizens, the tribes only landowners. The tribal organization therefore excluded not all clients but only the landless, together with any other landless citizens. Botsford rejects Dionysius's view that the change eliminated auspical influence, and rejects Zonaras's claim that patricians were forbidden to attend, since evidence shows patricians present in tribunician assemblies after this date.
Chapter 34
What did the Valerian-Horatian statute of 449 provide regarding plebiscites?
Its second article held that whatever the plebs ordered in their tribal assembly should be valid for the people, making plebiscites equivalent to leges when passed under specified conditions. Botsford accepts it as historical because important plebiscites, such as the Canuleian, Licinian-Sextian, and Genucian, were passed under it. The advantage was minimized, however, by the requirement of previous senate consent for validity.
Chapter 34
What did the first article of the Valerian-Horatian statute establish about plebeian officials?
It provided that anyone injuring the tribunes, aediles, or decemviral judges should be devoted to Jupiter, with property forfeit to the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera. Livy, representing the tribunician view, says the original lex sacrata was renewed, reestablishing religious inviolability. Certain jurists argued the law made no one sacrosanct but merely threatened capital punishment, giving officials the same inviolability as ordinary magistrates.
Chapter 34
Section 354 cards
Under the Valerian-Horatian statute, what did the plebeian aediles preserve, and where?
The statute directed the aediles of the plebs to preserve the senatus consulta in the temple of Ceres. Botsford argues these officials were not keepers of the senatorial archives of that time; he concludes the documents in their charge were the decrees authorizing the presentation of tribunician bills, since those alone directly concerned the plebeians.
Chapter 35
Why does Botsford date the Trebonian law to 401 rather than 448?
Botsford finds the 448 date in Livy improbable, since an instance of coöptation is mentioned between the two dates. He argues the later date fits the political situation: patricians, nearly monopolizing the military tribunate with consular power, then reached for the more valuable plebeian tribunate. After 401 the law effectively excluded patricians from the tribunate.
Chapter 35
What advantages did the plebeian assembly have over the comitia centuriata?
Botsford lists three advantages: freedom from the impetrative auspices, freedom from the patrum auctoritas, and mobility. He argues that right after the Valerian-Horatian statute it must have become evident that the tribunician assembly, through its presidency, composition, and democratic spirit, would outstrip the centuriate gathering in energy and become the chief factor of progress in legislation.
Chapter 35
What limits did the tribal assembly still face in legislation and jurisdiction?
Botsford states its legislative action depended on the favor of the senate, and its jurisdictional action on that of a patrician magistrate. In capital cases the permission of a higher magistrate, ordinarily the praetor after 367, was required, and before the Hortensian statute the tribunes likely could not force it. The senate's wide administrative powers also restricted legislation.
Chapter 35
Section 363 cards
How did the centuriate and tribal assemblies divide jurisdiction over penalties?
The tribes punished with fines, while the centuries handled the extreme penalty—banishment or death, always with total confiscation of property. The prosecutor chose the penalty first, then adapted the form of action to it. The people decided without legal formalities or juror's oath, often swayed by favor and anger, unlike the Athenian heliasts who swore to judge according to law.
Chapter 36
What did the law of 430 establish about fines?
The consuls L. Julius and L. Papirius Crassus passed a centuriate law establishing a hundred pounds of copper as equivalent to an ox and ten to a sheep. Probably the same law provided that no fine should exceed half the value of the estate on which it was levied.
Chapter 36
What conclusion does the author draw about early tribunician finable actions?
The author argues that the finable actions attributed to the earlier period are in all probability largely unhistorical, and that before the Hortensian law the tribunes' jurisdiction in finable cases was limited and rare. He bases this on the relatively small number of cases assigned to the period after 362, similar to his reasoning about capital actions.
Chapter 36
Section 373 cards
What did the Canuleian plebiscite of 445 accomplish?
It reestablished conubium (intermarriage) between patricians and plebeians, which had been forbidden by a law of the Twelve Tables. In the same year a centuriate law created tribunes of the soldiers with consular power, elected indiscriminately from both social classes. The author presents both as signs of plebeian interest in raising the dignity of their order.
Chapter 37
What were the four articles of the Licinian-Sextian laws of 367?
According to Livy, they provided: (1) one consul must be plebeian; (2) interest already paid on debts should be deducted from the principal, with the balance paid in three equal annual instalments; (3) no one should occupy more than five hundred iugera of public land; (4) the right to pasture cattle and sheep on public land should also be limited. The author notes the first law of 368 expanded the duoviri sacris faciundis to decemviri with five plebeians.
Chapter 37
What did the Publilian statute of 339 provide, and why does the author explain it this way?
Passed by the dictator Publilius Philo through the centuriate assembly, it made plebi scita binding on all quirites, required the patres to give auctoritas before centuriate voting began, and required at least one censor to be plebeian. The author argues the first article answered patrician claims that plebi scita were invalid because passed by only part of the people, since patricians had by then withdrawn from tribunician assemblies.
Chapter 37
Section 384 cards
What principle did the senate enunciate when declaring the Caudine treaty invalid?
According to Livy, the senate declared the treaty made by the consuls at Caudium invalid because it lacked popular confirmation, enunciating the principle that nothing binding on the people could be sanctioned without their order. The author calls this the first recorded expression of the doctrine of popular sovereignty among the Romans.
Chapter 38
What did the Ovinian plebiscite change about the senate list?
The Ovinian plebiscite, dated between the Publilian legislation of 339 and the censorship of Appius Claudius Caecus in 312, transferred revision of the senate list from the consuls to the censors. It required the censors, under oath, to enroll all worthy men among retired magistrates of every rank, from curule officials down to quaestors.
Chapter 38
How was the promagistracy instituted in 327?
The author states that no prolongation of official power is known before 327. Because the senate dared not assume responsibility for so sweeping an innovation amid a movement toward popular rights, it had the tribunes bring before the people a rogation prolonging the imperium of consul Q. Publilius Philo to the end of the war with Naples, establishing the promagistracy by precedent.
Chapter 38
What did the Ogulnian plebiscite of 300 provide?
The Ogulnian plebiscite of 300 increased the number of augurs and pontiffs to nine each and provided that four augurs and five pontiffs should be plebeian. The author calls it the last step in opening offices to the plebs, and notes it was technically religious though of vast political consequence.
Chapter 38
Section 393 cards
What did the Hortensian law establish about plebiscites and the senate?
The Hortensian statute, carried by dictator Q. Hortensius through the comitia centuriata, provided that a resolution of the plebs should be valid for all citizens without the consent of the senate or its patrician portion. The author argues this settled the controversy to the patricians' disadvantage and placed plebiscites on an equal footing with laws, as shown by later usage and the sources.
Chapter 39
What did the lex Poetelia prohibit, and what servitude remained?
The lex Poetelia prohibited loans on the security of the person. It abolished contractual but not judicial servitude, though it probably mitigated the latter. It was proposed to the tribes, or possibly the centuries, by C. Poetelius Libo as consul in 326 or as dictator in 313. The author notes it was economic as well as social in character.
Chapter 39
How did the tribunate gain power under the Hortensian law?
The author argues the Hortensian law likely gave tribunes the right to sit in the senate, summon it, and preside when so convoked; a correlate of initiating legislation was the right to veto government acts, and the veto depended on the power to prosecute. Tribunes gained an unconditioned right to prosecute, and with absolute intercession and jurisdiction they ceased resorting to sedition.
Chapter 39
Section 403 cards
When did tribunician jurisdiction reach its highest development, according to the chapter?
The chapter concludes that the tribunes made little use of their judicial power until the period between the legislation of Publilius Philo (339) and that of Hortensius (287). It was not until after the Hortensian legislation that tribunician jurisdiction reached its highest point of development and was free from every restriction. Whether the activity after 339 stemmed from the Publilian enactment or gradual evolution of popular rights cannot be determined.
Chapter 40
What happened when L. Caecilius Metellus tried to prosecute the censors in 214?
Metellus, degraded to aerarius by the censors for urging knights to abandon Italy after Cannae, was elected tribune and tried to prosecute the censors before their administration closed. The remaining nine tribunes interceded and thwarted him, thereby preserving for a time the conservative principle of the magistrate's inviolability from prosecution while in office.
Chapter 40
How did Publius Scipio evade the prosecution brought by tribune M. Naevius?
Naevius charged Publius with official misconduct—granting too favorable peace terms to Antiochus to recover his son. At the second contio, falling on the anniversary of his victory over Hannibal, Scipio invited the people to the Capitoline to give thanks to the gods. The tribunes were vexed by the assembly's dissolution; before the third contio Scipio withdrew from Rome, and Ti. Gracchus prevented his colleagues from further harassing him.
Chapter 40
Section 414 cards
What three offenses fell under aedilician cognizance before the Hortensian law?
Before the Hortensian legislation, both curule and plebeian aediles had cognizance of usury, stuprum, and violation of the law limiting occupation and pasturage of public lands. After 287 they kept this function and added new cases, including prosecutions for the pasturage clause in 240, 196, and 193, fining usurers in 192, and fining grain dealers for cornering the market in 189.
Chapter 41
How did C. Furius Chresimus win acquittal on the magic charge?
In 157 C. Furius Chresimus was prosecuted by a curule aedile for injuring others' crops by magic, and the case came before the tribes in the Forum. He brought his farm tools into the assembly, called them his instruments of magic, and thereby induced the citizens to vote his acquittal.
Chapter 41
Why was Claudia, sister of Pulcher, fined 25,000 asses?
In 246 Claudia, sister of P. Claudius Pulcher who lost his fleet off Drepanum, was jostled by the crowd leaving the games. She said she wished her brother were alive to lose another fleet along with the troublesome crowd. The plebeian aediles tried her, the people fined her 25,000 heavy asses, and the case is described as a iudicium maiestatis apud populum Romanum.
Chapter 41
What did the Maenian plebiscite change about patrum auctoritas?
The Maenian plebiscite, adopted around 287, directed the patres in elections, as the Publilian statute had directed them in rogations, to give their auctoritas before voting began while the issue was still uncertain. It blocked the patricians' last efforts to monopolize the consulship and completed the reduction of patrum auctoritas to a formality. The sources name Appius Claudius Caecus as the chief offender the law rebuked.
Chapter 41
Section 424 cards
What did the first chapter of the lex Aquilia provide for unlawfully slain slaves or cattle?
The first chapter of the tribunician lex Aquilia provided that if a slave of another man or a quadruped of his cattle be unlawfully slain, the offender shall pay the owner whatever within a year is the highest value thereof. The second chapter secured the principal stipulator against adstipulators, and the third covered all other kinds of damage. It superseded all previous statutes on the subject, including the Twelve Tables.
Chapter 42
What did the Flaminian law of 232 accomplish and how was it passed?
The rogation of C. Flaminius, tribune of the plebs in 232, assigned the Picene district and territory recently taken from the Gauls near Ariminum to citizens willing to settle on the frontier. It was vehemently opposed by the nobility and finally passed without the authorization of a senatus consultum. Cicero's statement suggests Flaminius was later elected among the tresviri charged with administering it.
Chapter 42
What did the plebiscite of Q. Claudius in 219 prohibit senators from doing?
The plebiscite of Q. Claudius in 219 prohibited senators and their sons from owning sea-going ships of more than three hundred amphoras capacity. It probably also forbade them to take government contracts, excepting economically insignificant agreements concerning worship. C. Flaminius alone supported it in the senate. The author argues it expressed the country people's determination that senatorial families should no longer share the advantages of wars.
Chapter 42
What did the lex Metilia of 217 and the Oppian plebiscite of 215 regulate?
The lex Metilia (217), probably tribunician and passed under the influence of C. Flaminius and L. Aemilius, prescribed rules for the preparation of cloth; Lange argues its object was to strike at noble luxury through the fullers' guild. The plebiscite of C. Oppius (215) forbade women to wear more than a half ounce of gold, a dress of various colors, or to ride in a carriage in a city or town or within a mile, excepting for public worship.
Chapter 42
Section 434 cards
What did the plebiscite of M. Metilius in 217 accomplish?
It equalized the power of the dictator with that of the master of horse. According to the author, this act, together with the resort to election for filling the office, destroyed the value of the dictatorship as an institution.
Chapter 43
What did the lex annalis of L. Villius in 180 establish?
It fixed the ages at which men might sue for and hold the various patrician magistracies, and established an interval, evidently of two years, between consecutive magistracies. Its stated object was to curb young nobles' greed for office and the people's eagerness to favor them; Cato supported it. The author argues it subordinated the individual to the class and aided consolidation of the senatorial plutocracy.
Chapter 43
According to Polybius, what powers did the people hold in the constitution?
Polybius says the people were constitutionally the sole fountain of honor and punishment. They elected officials, served as the sole court for capital cases (avoidable by voluntary exile before a majority was reached), judged finable actions, decided on laws, and deliberated on war, peace, alliances, truces, and treaties.
Chapter 43
What was the most important limitation on popular sovereignty, though never expressly mentioned by Polybius?
The author argues it was the lack of popular initiative. The people could convene for no business unless summoned by a magistrate, could consider only the subject proposed by the president, could take part in deliberation only with the president's permission, and could merely vote yes or no. These conditions prevented a real democracy.
Chapter 43
Section 441 cards
What did the Porcian laws of appeal limit regarding magistrates?
The three Porcian laws of appeal limited the judicial imperium of magistrates and promagistrates. The last of these acts affected the administration of the provinces and of military affairs, which had originally belonged to the magistrates and the senate. The people interfered in this department only by degrees, the earliest known act being Cato's consular lex de sumptu provinciali of 195.
Chapter 44
Section 454 cards
What did the lex Calpurnia de repetundis of 149 establish?
The lex Calpurnia de repetundis, proposed by tribune L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi in 149, established the first standing court, the quaestio perpetua. It had jurors drawn from the senate and was presided over by a praetor. The author says Piso's motive was a sincere desire to protect Italy and the provinces from official rapacity. Extortion trials were at first conceived as civil suits for recovering illegally taken wealth.
Chapter 45
How did the Gabinian and Cassian ballot laws change voting?
The plebiscite of Q. Gabinius in 139 introduced the ballot in elections to free voters from noble influence, since many poor were falling into economic and political dependence on the rich. The plebiscite of L. Cassius Longinus Ravilla in 137 extended the ballot to all trials before the people except perduellio. The author notes these measures had little immediate effect, as nobles exploited the secret ballot too, but the principle aided the later revolution.
Chapter 45
What did the statutes of Aelius and Fufius do for the nobles?
Probably proposed by tribunes of the plebs around the middle of the century, these statutes gave patrician magistrates the obnuntiatio against tribunes, or confirmed them in a usurped power of that kind. This let the nobles exercise a practical veto on tribunician legislation, and the author calls it perhaps the firmest support of the plutocracy. One article forbade bringing a rogation before the people between announcement and holding of elective comitia.
Chapter 45
What did the lex Acilius Glabrio of 191 give the pontiffs?
A consular law of M'. Acilius Glabrio in 191 gave the pontiffs the function of determining which years should be intercalary and how many days such years should contain. This gave them means to bring the solar and civil years into accord, but they used the power mostly for their party's interests, so calendar confusion increased rather than lessened. The author calls this in keeping with the oligarchic tendency of the age.
Chapter 45
Section 464 cards
What were the main provisions of Tiberius Gracchus's lex agraria?
It limited occupation of public land to 500 iugera, plus 250 for each of up to two sons; occupiers were compensated for improvements and kept their holdings in perpetuity free of dues; surplus land was distributed to the needy, including Latins and Italians, in lots of about 30 iugera as inalienable heritable leaseholds subject to rent; certain lands were exempted; and triumviri elected annually by the tribes handled distribution.
Chapter 46
How did Tiberius Gracchus overcome Octavius's veto of his agrarian bill?
When the nobles induced Octavius, a fellow tribune, to veto the bill, Tiberius had him deposed by a vote of the tribes and then passed the agrarian law without further opposition, though without senate authorization. The author argues the deposition, while a departure from custom, was arguably legal since the people were sovereign and had often extended their power by precedent rather than statute.
Chapter 46
What did Gaius Gracchus's lex de provocatione provide?
Carrying into effect the idea of his brother Tiberius, it forbade the establishment of a special court or the placing of the state under martial law without an act of the people. The author notes that further judicial legislation was postponed in the interest of more pressing matters, and that Gaius's measures mostly belong to 123 and early 122.
Chapter 46
What did the plebiscite of M. Junius Pennus (c. 126) do, and what did Fulvius Flaccus propose in 125?
The Junius plebiscite ordered the expulsion of all aliens from Rome, a measure Cicero condemns as inhuman, and it responded to efforts to grant citizenship to Latins and Italians. Flaccus, consul in 125, proposed offering the Italians citizenship or alternatively the right of appeal, aiming to buy off their opposition to the Sempronian agrarian law, but withdrew it after vehement senate opposition.
Chapter 46
Section 474 cards
What did Gaius Gracchus's frumentarian law provide, and what did opponents claim?
It was Rome's first frumentarian law: a monthly sale to every applying citizen, practically only residents of or near Rome, of a fixed number of modii of wheat at six and a third asses per modius, probably about half the average market price. It won him the populace's goodwill, but opponents complained it depleted the treasury and excited the mob to seditions. The author argues its effect was pernicious, encouraging idlers and demagogism, though he adds that had Gaius lived to carry out colonization, frumentations might have become unnecessary and the law repealed.
Chapter 47
What did Gaius Gracchus's judiciary plebiscite of 122 change about juries?
After unsuccessful experiments with one or two projects, Gaius carried a plebiscite substituting knights for senators in the alba iudicum, from which both standing courts and special commissions were to be filled. It is uncertain whether equites were named or the result reached by exclusion and definition. Plutarch says Gaius was allowed to select the jurors, but the privilege seems restricted to the first list; thereafter the praetor qui inter peregrinos ius dicit attended to the matter under Acilius's lex repetundarum.
Chapter 47
Under the lex Acilia repetundarum, what was the crime and who could be prosecuted?
The crime was taking in any one year, from allies, Latins, provincials, or exterior nations under Roman sway or friendship, by gift, seizure, compulsion, or other illegal means, money or property exceeding a specified sum, probably four thousand sesterces. Unlike earlier laws, it included magistrates, senators, their sons, and holders of promagisterial imperium. Holders of magistracies and imperia could not be tried until their terms expired, on the principle exempting those in state service.
Chapter 47
What disabilities did the Lex Bantina's sanctio impose on an offender?
The offender must not address the senate or vote in a public trial, comitia, or receive or give testimony in court, or wear the praetexta and soleae in public, or be chosen into the senate or remain in it if already a member. A second article fines officials, including tribunes, quaestors, triumvirs, and senators, who knowingly and maliciously violate the law or hinder its operation. A third requires officials to swear before the urban quaestor at the temple of Castor within five days.
Chapter 47
Section 484 cards
What did Gaius Gracchus's law on the taxation of Asia require?
It ordered the censors to let out the taxes of Asia to the highest bidders and limited the senate's right to reduce the agreed sum. The author argues this gave the knights a share in administration and, through the courts, superiority over the senate, creating a 'double head' in the state that fostered civil discord.
Chapter 48
What did Gaius Gracchus's law about assigning provinces change?
It required the senate, before the election, to name which provinces would be consular, and forbade tribunician intercession against this action. The aim was to prevent the senate from thwarting the people's will by assigning a popular consul to an insignificant province. The author argues it fostered routine, a marked defect of oligarchic rule.
Chapter 48
What did Gaius Gracchus's plebiscite of 123 do for soldiers?
It ordered the state to bear the cost of clothing soldiers and forbade enlistment of boys before the close of their seventeenth year. The author argues there is no ground for Diodorus's view that Gaius was inciting soldiers to disobedience; the age limit was prudent and humane, and the pay had become inadequate.
Chapter 48
What was the outcome of Gaius Gracchus's proposal to extend citizenship?
In 122 he proposed granting full citizenship to the Latins and the ius Latii to the remaining allies. The bill was rejected by a popular vote, proving him too liberal for his supporters. Deceived by Drusus's spurious proposals, the populace turned against Gaius and defeated him in the next tribunician election; the equites likely also alienated.
Chapter 48
Section 494 cards
What did the plebiscite of Sex. Peducaeus (113) do in the Vestal virgins case?
It took the case out of the hands of the pontifex maximus, who had already condemned one Vestal and acquitted two on a charge of incest, and transferred it to a quaestio extraordinaria. Botsford presents this as the tribune applying the theory of popular sovereignty and as a sign of popular recovery in the assembly's resumption of special judiciary commissions.
Chapter 49
What did the lex de sacerdotiis of Cn. Domitius (103) change about priestly elections?
It extended election by the comitia sacerdotum, seventeen tribes chosen by lot, to the pontifical and augural colleges, the decemviri sacris faciundis, and the epulones. When a vacancy arose, the college drew up a list of eligible candidates and the comitia chose from it. Botsford notes that despite this law religion remained a political tool of the optimates.
Chapter 49
What did the consuls' law of 98 (Metellus and Didius) forbid?
As a moderate check on tribunician legislation, it forbade combining dissimilar provisions in one bill (lex satura) to draw votes from all parties, and passing bills by surprise. It required promulgation to precede voting by at least a trinum nundinum, an interval including three market days, reviving usages recently neglected.
Chapter 49
What did Saturninus's agrarian law require senators to do, and what happened to Metellus?
According to Appian, the agrarian measure required senators to swear within five days to uphold the law or be expelled from the senate and fined twenty talents, about 500,000 sesterces. Marius swore 'in so far as it was a law'; Metellus alone refused, was forced into exile, and the tribes passed an interdict of fire and water against him on Saturninus's motion.
Chapter 49
Section 504 cards
What did Livius Drusus's combined statute include, and why was it annulled?
It combined agrarian, frumentarian, monetary, and judiciary measures in one statute, passed with violence and contrary to the omens. The senate annulled it because it violated the Caecilian-Didian statute forbidding a lex satura, and because of the violence. Drusus declined to veto the decree, holding that senatorial authority did not avail against the sovereign will of the people.
Chapter 50
How did the lex Plautia change the composition of the courts?
It transferred the filling of the jurors' album from the urban praetor to the tribes, each electing fifteen members. Qualifications were made independent of social class, so senators and a few common plebeians served alongside equites, partially checking equestrian control. Mommsen limits these jurors to the quaestio de maiestate, relying on Cicero's claim that equites kept the courts until Sulla.
Chapter 50
What did the laws of 90–89 grant regarding Italian citizenship?
The lex Julia of consul L. Julius Caesar, 90, gave citizenship to the Latins and to Italians who had not taken arms against Rome and would accept it. A law of L. Calpurnius Piso let a commanding general grant city rights to his soldiers. The Plautian-Papirian law of 89 gave citizenship to members of allied communities domiciled in Italy who signified acceptance to the praetor within sixty days.
Chapter 50
What did Sulpicius Rufus's rogation propose, and how did it end?
As tribune in 88, Sulpicius proposed distributing new citizens and libertini among all tribes, recalling those driven out by violence, barring senators owing over two thousand denarii, and transferring Sulla's imperium and the Mithridatic war to Marius as proconsul. Passed by force, it was annulled by the senate after Sulla marched on Rome; Sulpicius was killed and Marius fled.
Chapter 50
Section 514 cards
What did Sulla's law require before tribunes could bring bills before the tribes?
Sulla enacted that the previous consent of the senate should be necessary to bills brought by tribunes before the tribes, rather than renewing his earlier law absolutely depriving tribunes of legislative initiative. He also limited their right to address the people in contiones, restricted their intercession and prosecutions, and disqualified tribunes from holding other magistracies.
Chapter 51
What career sequence and age minimums did Sulla's lex de magistratibus of 81 prescribe?
It prescribed that no one could be consul before praetor or praetor before quaestor, with two years between consecutive offices. The minimal age for quaestor was fixed at thirty-seven, making the fortieth year the age for praetorship and the forty-third for consul. The aedileship was advantageous but never essential, though if taken the biennial interval applied.
Chapter 51
How did Sulla change the quaestorship's role and the number of quaestors and praetors?
Sulla made the quaestorship the sole avenue to the senate, dispensing with the censors' revision of the list. He increased the quaestors from more than eight to twenty, both to supply administrative need and to create the required number of senators. He also raised the praetors from six to eight to provide presidents for the new quaestiones perpetuae.
Chapter 51
How did Sulla separate civil magistrates from military promagistrates?
Sulla provided that praetors remain in the city during their year of office administering justice, and consuls remain in Italy attending to peace, only afterward governing provinces as propraetors and proconsuls. He thus established by law an absolute distinction between the civil magistrate and the military promagistrate. The lex de provinciis ordinandis also recognized the senate's right to assign consular and praetorian provinces.
Chapter 51
Section 524 cards
What did Sulla's lex iudiciaria of 81 do for the courts?
It restored the quaestiones (jury courts) to the senators, taking them from the knights who had controlled them despite the lex Plautia of 89. It was enacted near the end of 81, before Sulla increased the number of quaestors. The author argues the tendency of the Cornelian legislation in this respect was oligarchic.
Chapter 52
How many quaestiones perpetuae did Sulla's reform create, and what were the four about official misconduct?
His reform increased the number to seven. Four concerned maladministration of office: repetundarum (extortion), ambitus (bribery in elections), peculatus (misappropriation of public funds and sacrilege), and maiestatis (injury to the majesty of the Roman name, of which a private person as well as a magistrate might be guilty).
Chapter 52
What protections did Sulla's laws on quaestiones give the accused?
They granted the accused the privilege of deciding whether the vote should be oral or by ballot, and directed that the order of voting be determined by lot. The first aimed to make jurors individually responsible; the second to prevent influential men from prejudicing the case by giving their opinions first.
Chapter 52
What did Sulla's sumptuary law restrict, and what did the author say was his object?
It was a revised restoration of the lex Licinia of 104, repealed by M. Duronius in 97. It permitted no more than three hundred sesterces for meals on the calends, nones, ides, ludi, and certain other holidays, and only thirty for ordinary meals; it fixed prices of luxuries and limited funeral expenses. The author argues his object was to restore the morals and manners of the good old time.
Chapter 52
Section 534 cards
What did Pompey's rogation of 70 do to the tribunician power?
Shortly after becoming consul in 70, Pompey promulgated a rogation restoring the tribunician power. The senate yielded despite disliking it, and Licinius Crassus, his colleague, added his name. The people gladly accepted it. It repealed those articles of the Cornelian statute left untouched by the Aurelian law of 75 and removed every restriction on the tribunes, destroying the chief support of the Cornelian constitution.
Chapter 53
How did the Aurelian law of 70 compose the jury courts?
L. Aurelius Cotta, praetor in 70, took up the reform while the trial of Verres was in progress. A compromise produced three decuries of jurors in equal numbers from senators, knights, and tribuni aerarii. The urban praetor made up the annual album iudicum with equal numbers from each class. The hope was that combining the two orders with respectable common citizens would be just and impartial.
Chapter 53
What did the Gabinian law of 67 grant Pompey against the pirates?
The law chose a commander from the consulares to put down the pirates, with the whole Mediterranean and a fifty-mile inland coastal strip as province, for three years. The holder got fifteen legati, 200 ships, and the right to enlist soldiers and oarsmen, with credit for 6000 talents. Pompey's name was not in the bill, but no one doubted who it meant. The tribes later added two quaestors, twenty-four legati pro praetore, 500 ships, 120,000 men, and 5000 cavalry.
Chapter 53
Why did Manilius propose the law giving Pompey command against Mithridates?
Manilius had convoked an assembly on the Compitalia, a festive day, toward evening with a few favored men to pass a rogation giving libertini votes in their patrons' tribes. The senate declared it invalid. Dio Cassius ascribes his motive for the famous law conferring extraordinary power on Pompey against Mithridates to the prosecution his behavior exposed him to unless he won powerful support. The law added Asia, Bithynia, and Cilicia, with the right to declare war and make treaties.
Chapter 53
Section 544 cards
What was the purpose of the plebiscite of C. Papius in 65?
The Papian plebiscite aimed to expel peregrini from Rome and punish those who had usurped citizens' rights. Its object was to stop Latin-speaking foreigners, especially Transpadane Gauls, from packing the assemblies to pass measures extending the franchise. It was modelled on the Claudian law of 177, the Junian of 126, and partly the Licinian-Mucian of 95.
Chapter 54
What did Rullus's agrarian bill propose, and why did it fail?
Rullus's bill created ten elected commissioners holding office five years, with irresponsible management of large resources to buy land in Italy and plant colonies at discretion. Candidates had to appear in person, excluding Pompey. The author argues it aimed at an oligarchy to counterbalance Pompey, with Caesar and Crassus probably behind it. Cicero opposed it in two contiones, and a colleague's threatened intercession made Rullus withdraw it.
Chapter 54
What did Caesar's agrarian law of 59 provide?
Caesar's law distributed lands to needy citizens and Pompey's veterans, exempting Campanian, Stellatine, and Volaterrae territory. It funded purchases from Pompey's booty and new revenues, at values from the last census, with lots inalienable twenty years. A board of twenty handled distribution, excluding the law's author. Senators had to swear support, and candidates had to promise not to modify it.
Chapter 54
What did Caesar's lex de pecuniis repetundis regulate?
Comprising at least 101 articles, it dealt exhaustively with extortion, covering offence, procedure, and punishment, protecting citizens, provincials, and allies from misrule. It limited supplies due from provincials, forbade governors to wage war, conduct diplomacy, or cross their province boundary without Rome's order, and required leaving accounts in two cities and the aerarium. The convicted were fined, forced to restore property, expelled from the senate, and banished.
Chapter 54
Section 554 cards
What did Clodius's free grain law accomplish politically, according to the chapter?
Clodius's frumentarian plebiscite provided absolutely free monthly grain distribution to citizens resident in Rome. The optimates objected that abolishing the Sempronian price would cost the treasury nearly a fifth of its income. Accepted by the tribes, the law proved a most effective means of maintaining a numerous mob of proletarians ever present and willing to vote for the measures of their political patrons, the leaders of the democracy.
Chapter 55
How did Clodius's law on obnuntiation change legislative assemblies?
Clodius repealed those articles of the Aelian and Fufian statutes which applied obnuntiations to law-making assemblies, thereby depriving the nobility of their most effective means of controlling legislation. A related article declared all dies fasti available for legislation. The chapter says this measure went far toward abolishing a usage which had made religion a mockery and public life a farce.
Chapter 55
What did the Clodian law on killing citizens without trial do, and with what result for Cicero?
It prescribed interdict from fire and water for anyone who had put to death a Roman citizen without trial, strengthening the Sempronian law of appeal. The optimates argued such persons were enemies outside the law; the populares held that principle destructive of liberty. Cicero, who had executed Catiline's associates for the senate, feared condemnation and went into exile; a plebiscite then declared the interdict legally in operation. He was recalled the next year.
Chapter 55
How did Pompey's lex de provinciis of 52 affect Caesar's command?
Embodying a senatus consultum of the previous year, it ordered that five years should intervene between the expiration of a magistracy and the beginning of the corresponding promagistracy. Its general purpose was to dampen the ardor of the ambitious who used offices as stepping-stones to provincial commands. Its immediate effect, however, was to precipitate the conflict between Caesar and Pompey which brought the republic to ruin.
Chapter 55
Section 564 cards
What three provisions did Caesar's debt law of December 49 make?
The law provided that interest already paid be deducted from the principal; that a debtor's property be accepted in payment of the balance at ante-bellum prices rather than current low values; and that no one hoard more than fifteen thousand denarii in cash. The third article renewed an old law. Caesar aimed to relieve debtors while quieting fear of a general cancellation of debts.
Chapter 56
How did Caesar change jury qualifications in 46, and what did the author think of it?
Caesar first disqualified the tribuni aerarii from jury service, then ordered through the comitia that the courts be composed exclusively of senators and knights. The author argues that the man carried to supreme power by the common people now spurned even the most respectable of them from sharing in administration.
Chapter 56
What did the lex Iulia municipalis regulate, and what significance does the author assign it?
Probably a general municipal statute of autumn 46, the extant fragment regulates applications of Roman-resident citizens for free grain, aedilician supervision of streets, buildings and games, qualifications for magistracies and decurionate in municipia, introduction of the Roman census there, and application of individual Roman statutes in municipia enjoying Roman law. The author argues its inclusion of Rome with the empire's cities marks the first step in reducing Rome to the level of the municipia.
Chapter 56
What did the plebiscite of L. Antonius in December 45 grant Caesar?
It granted Caesar the privilege of nominating and presenting to the comitia a half of the candidates below the consulship. The author presents this as the people surrendering to him a large part of their electoral right. It illustrates the degradation of ordinary magistracies under Caesar's supremacy, later shown by the deposition of two tribunes in 44.
Chapter 56
Section 574 cards
What elements did the praescriptio at the head of a Roman law contain?
The praescriptio named the rogator and his office, the body of citizens addressed (populus or plebs), the place and date of the assembly, the century, tribe, or curia that voted first (principium), and the citizen granted the honor of casting that first vote. If the senate had sanctioned the law, the phrase "de s(enatus) s(ententia)" was inserted; a tribune's measure was described as a lex plebeive scitum to show equivalence to a lex.
Chapter 57
How was an adopted Roman law made binding, recorded, and preserved?
The law became binding from the moment the author announced its adoption by the comitia, except when time had to be given senators and magistrates to swear to it. It was then engraved on a bronze tablet; the original was kept by the quaestors in the aerarium, and other copies were posted in public places where all could read it.
Chapter 57
How did voting proceed in the comitia tributa after the ballot was introduced?
After the principium was called and its suffrage announced, the remaining tribes voted simultaneously. The state provided small tablets inscribed with abbreviations for "ut rogas" (affirmative) and "antiquo" (negative), or blank tablets for elections. These were deposited in cistae at the exits, under rogatores now called custodes, who counted (diribitio) and reported (renuntiatio) results to the president.
Chapter 57
What was the general republican tendency regarding comitial days?
The author argues that the general tendency during the republic was to restrict the power of the people by lessening the number of days on which they could meet for passing resolutions. He also suggests that in early times nundinae may have been usable for voting assemblies, until the Hortensian statute of 287 declared those marked F and C to be fasti, reserving them for judicial business and barring voting assemblies.
Chapter 57
Section 583 cards
What did the Valerian-Horatian statute of 449 provide?
It provided that resolutions approved by the senate and carried by the tribunician assembly of tribes should have the force of law, just as the senatorial sanction (patrum auctoritas) was from the beginning essential to the validity of curiate and centuriate resolutions and elections.
Chapter 58
What did the Hortensian statute of 287 accomplish?
The author says the Hortensian statute of 287 rendered the approval of the senate and of the patrician portion of it unessential to the validity of the plebiscite. After its enactment the comitia tributa enjoyed almost exclusive possession of the legislative function, with the larger share falling to the tribunician assembly.
Chapter 58
According to the author, what two conditions prevented the popular tendency of 358-287 from creating a real democracy?
The author argues two things blocked it: first, the cleverness of the nobles in gaining control of the plebeian tribunate and using religion as a check on comitial freedom; second, the rapid expansion of Roman power, which drew public attention from internal politics and made the assembly an inadequate representative and incompetent for its functions.
Chapter 58
Section 594 cards
What is the relationship between the periodical Beiträge zur alten Geschichte and Klio?
The entry states that beginning with volume v, the periodical Beiträge zur alten Geschichte is termed Klio, with Beitr. z. alt. Gesch. as a sub-title. This explains why citations may use either name for the same publication.
Chapter 59
How does Botsford abbreviate the Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum and which edition does he cite?
The list gives CIL. = Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, ed. Mommsen and others, Berlin. It adds that the first edition is cited, unless otherwise indicated. So readers should assume references are to the first edition by default.
Chapter 59
What does the entry say about Ferrero's Greatness and Decline of Rome?
The entry lists Ferrero, G., Greatness and Decline of Rome, translated into English by Zimmern and others, 5 vols., New York, 1907-1909. Botsford appends the judgment 'Suggestive but untrustworthy,' so the author argues the work is stimulating but unreliable.
Chapter 59
Which works does the bibliography mark as of little or no value?
Several entries carry dismissive notes: Casagrandi's Le minores gentes is called 'Unscientific'; Goguet's Droit Romain des centuries is 'Of little value'; Hallays's Les comices à Rome is 'Of little worth'; and Garofalo's work on tribunes and aediles is 'Not altogether accurate.'
Chapter 59
Section 604 cards
What does Botsford's bibliography list under Herzog's 1876 Philologus article?
Herzog's 1876 Philologus article is titled 'Die Charakter der Tributcomitien im fünften und sechsten Jahrhundert der Stadt und die Reform der Centuriatcomitien,' published in Philologus volume xxiv, pages 312-29. The same author also wrote on lex sacrata and sacrosanctum in Jahrbücher für classische Philologie xxii (1876), 139-50.
Chapter 60
Which work by Huschke concerns the lex Sempronia iudiciaria?
Huschke's article 'Die lex Sempronia iudiciaria und ihr Verhältniss zur lex Acilia repetundarum' appeared in Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte v (1866), 46-84. It examines the relationship between the Sempronian judicial law and the Acilian law on extortion. Huschke also authored a study of the constitution of King Servius Tullius as a foundation for Roman constitutional history.
Chapter 60
What is Ihne's English-titled translation of his constitutional researches, and by whom?
Ihne's 'Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der römischen Verfassungsgeschichte' (Frankfurt am Main, 1847) was translated into English by Haywood as 'Researches into the History of the Roman Constitution' (London, 1853). Ihne also wrote a five-volume 'History of Rome' (London, 1871-1882), plus articles on the asylum of Romulus and the origins of the tribunate.
Chapter 60
What does the entry for De Marchi's work say about its quality?
The bibliography lists De Marchi's 'Il culto privato di Roma antica,' 2 vols., Milan, 1896 and 1903, with the comment 'Uncritical, but to some extent useful.' This is the compiler's own evaluative judgment on the work's reliability, distinguishing it from entries given without comment. The note signals that readers should use the study with caution.
Chapter 60
Section 614 cards
What does the chapter's bibliography list for Nissen's work on the Roman constitution?
The chapter lists Nissen, A., Beiträge zum römischen Staatsrecht, published in Strassburg in 1885. It appears among alphabetically arranged bibliographic entries covering Roman constitutional and historical scholarship, alongside works by Nissen, H. and Nitzsch, K. W.
Chapter 61
Which work by Nitzsch deals with the relationship of army and state in the Roman Republic?
Nitzsch, K. W., Das Verhältniss von Heer und Staat in der römischen Republik, published in Hist. Zeitschr. vii (1862), pages 133-58. The same author also wrote Die Gracchen und ihre nächsten Vorgänger (Berlin, 1847) and a Geschichte der römischen Republik edited by G. Thouret.
Chapter 61
What is Pauly-Wissowa as described in this chapter?
Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl., is Pauly's Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, in a new edition by G. Wissowa, volumes i-vi.1, Stuttgart, 1894-1907. The chapter lists it among standard reference works and defines several journal abbreviations such as Philol. and Rhein. Mus.
Chapter 61
What does the entry for Oxyrhynchus Papiri direct the reader to?
The entry reads 'Oxyrhynchus Papiri. See Grenfell and Hunt; also Kornemann.' It is a cross-reference rather than a full citation, pointing readers to those scholars' publications. The chapter also lists Sanders, H. A., 'The Oxyrhynchus Epitome of Livy,' Trans. of the Am. Philol. Assoc. xxxvi (1905), 5-31.
Chapter 61
Section 624 cards
What did Niebuhr propose about Rome's three tribes, and who accepted it?
Niebuhr proposed that the three tribes were of different nationalities. His view, with or without the theory of national syncretism, was accepted by many scholars, including Schwegler, Lange, Peter, Madvig, Herzog (with some reserve), Schiller, Ihering, Genz, Bernhöft, Puchta, Soltau, Kubitschek, Mommsen, Willems, Schrader, and Nissen.
Chapter 62
What does the chapter say about the etymology of tribus?
Varro connects tribus with tres, and some scholars relate its element bu- to the root meaning "to grow," making tribus mean "three-branch." Schlossman connects tribus with tres but interprets it as an indefinite part. Madvig and Nissen deny the connection with tres, and Christ prefers a Celtic root meaning "house."
Chapter 62
What evidence does the chapter cite for three tribes in other cities?
Mantua had three tribes, and the Etruscan poet Volnius declared the primitive tribal names Etruscan. The triplet champions of Alba suggest a threefold division, Tatius's tomb at Lavinium hints at a tribe of Tities, Ramnes appear at Ardea, and Luceres at Ardea through its eponymous hero Lucerus.
Chapter 62
What alternative explanations does the chapter offer for doubled Roman institutions?
Against the theory of once-independent tribes, the chapter notes that the double nature of many Roman institutions may better be explained by the union of Sabines with Romans after the three tribes were instituted, which would also explain sixfold institutions. Alternatively, the increased numbers of vestals, augurs, pontiffs, and senators may reflect an ancient theory of successive admission of the second and third tribes.
Chapter 62
Section 634 cards
According to Festus, what did the word curia originally mean?
Festus (ep. 64) defines curiales as 'flamines curiarum sacerdotes,' and the chapter notes that curia applied to the house not only of the curiales but also of the senate and of the Salii, as well as to various other buildings. This suggests, the author argues, that the meaning 'house' is primary for Latin, if not ultimately original.
Chapter 63
How does Botsford derive the word curia, and which derivation does he reject?
The author favors derivation from *co-viria, 'a dwelling together,' 'an assembly,' following Pott, or from sku-, 'to cover,' 'to protect,' as Corssen holds. He rejects the ancient connection with cura, curare assumed by most ancient writers, saying these sources misled Genz into fruitless speculation on the curia's functions.
Chapter 63
What evidence supports the view that a curia was a group sharing a common drying oven?
Dionysius (iv. 12. 2) states it, and the author says this is confirmed by the nature of the Fornacalia, the chief festival of the curiae, celebrated in connection with the drying of far in ovens (Pliny, Festus). Evidently, the author argues, the members of a curia were those who had a common drying oven.
Chapter 63
How does Botsford respond to Soltau's theory about the curiae and tribes?
Soltau held the peculiar idea that the curiae, invented to counteract independent tendencies of the tribes, were not divisions of the tribes, with members drawn from all three. The author says the sources contradict this view and that Soltau himself admits he cannot prove it.
Chapter 63
Section 644 cards
According to the chapter, how did the patriciate relate to senate membership?
The ancients do not distinctly state that each newly made senator founded a new patrician family, but they represent the enlargement of the senate and of the patriciate as going hand in hand, thus making the patriciate depend upon membership in the senate. The author cites Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus as support for this connection.
Chapter 64
What does Gaius say distinguishes plebs from populus?
Gaius states that the term populus signifies all citizens together, including patricians, while plebs signifies the remaining citizens without the patricians. The author notes that Pomponius evidently held the same view, and cites Capito, Festus, Isidore, and Mommsen as further support.
Chapter 64
How does the chapter explain the derivation and meaning of patricius?
The author derives patricius from the root pa, meaning to protect or preserve, and treats it as an adjective signifying paternal, ancestral, or belonging to parents or progenitors. He notes the same root underlies pater familias and patronus, and cites Pott, Corssen, Schrader, and Lécrivain for the etymology.
Chapter 64
What does the chapter say about identifying patricii with ingenui?
The chapter notes that patricii was sometimes identified with ingenui in the sense of freeborn, but Dionysius reports that this identification was accepted not by the most trustworthy historians but by certain malicious slanderers, who said patricians were so called because they alone could cite their fathers. The author argues ingenuus originally meant born within, hence native, and later was democratized to include all freeborn.
Chapter 64
Section 653 cards
What does Botsford argue about the term gentiles in Roman sources?
The author argues that gentiles are simply members of a gens, and no other members are known to the sources. He rejects Mommsen's supposition that there were dependent members not termed gentiles, reasoning that such a relation would have received a name, been defined by jurists, or been mentioned by an ancient writer.
Chapter 65
How does Botsford refute Kübler's claim that clients were called quasi gentiles?
The author calls Kübler's attempt, based on Cicero's Timaeus, simply absurd. He argues the passage does not hint at clientage; the quasi gentiles of the immortal gods were related to the gods by birth, as the word gignatis shows. Men and gods share a divine element from the Creator, allowing a gentile-like relation.
Chapter 65
According to the Twelve Tables, who inherited when no agnate existed?
Gaius iii. 17 states that if there was no agnatus, the same law of the Twelve Tables called the gentiles to the inheritance. Cicero's Verrine passage shows an inheritance coming to the Minucian gens, a plebeian gens, by this law. The gentile right of tutelage appears in the Laudatio Turiae.
Chapter 65
Section 664 cards
According to the chapter, how did the primitive German community regard exclusiveness?
The chapter argues that before settling within the empire, the Germans could not have held an exclusive idea of community, since individuals were loosely attached to their tribe: many tribes were united in a chief's comitatus, halves of tribes fought on opposite sides, chiefs were chosen from other tribes, and intermarriage among tribes was common.
Chapter 66
How does the author explain the origin of the gens, and what does this imply for gentile ownership?
The author argues the gens developed from the family during the decline of the kingship and the rise of aristocracy, not that it was as old as the state. Therefore Mommsen's theory of primitive gentile ownership, which depends on the gens being as old as the state, falls to the ground.
Chapter 66
How does the author describe the state's division of land among tribes and curiae?
The author argues the state did not grant districts to tribes which then parcelled them out, because tribes and curiae did not themselves possess common lands. Rather, the state divided a district among families already included, or to be included, in a given curia or tribe, as with the later tribes and the Claudian tribe.
Chapter 66
What evidence does the chapter cite against placing Ostia in the Palatina tribe?
Mommsen notes epigraphic evidence assigning Ostia unmistakably to the Voturia tribus, and that the same sort of evidence placing Ostia in the Palatina would also assign Puteoli, Sutrium, Canusium, and Fundi to that city tribe, which is impossible. The error stems from neglecting that men excluded from country tribes were assigned to city tribes regardless of domicile.
Chapter 66
Section 674 cards
How does Botsford treat Livy's claim that thirty-one tribes existed in 495 BC?
Botsford argues the phrase "Romae tribus una et xxx factae" means the number thirty-one was reached, not that thirty-one tribes were created that year, since "factae" is copulative. He notes it conflicts with Livy vi. 5. 8, which dates twenty-five tribes to 387, and that the epitomator corrected the figure to twenty-one, as most editors now read.
Chapter 67
What does Dionysius of Halicarnassus report about the tribes voting in the trial of Coriolanus?
Dionysius (vii. 64. 6) states that twenty-one tribes cast votes, and Marcius received nine for acquittal; two more favorable tribes would have produced an equality and acquittal under the law. Botsford insists this is not an error, as many assume, but an understatement, and rejects Meyer's reading of the equality clause.
Chapter 67
How does Botsford respond to Meyer's argument that rural tribes were named after gentes and thus later?
Botsford calls the argument unconvincing: the naming difference may reflect different country and city conditions, and probably no urban ward had one patrician gens dominant enough to name it. He adds that the patrician gentile name implies no patrician domination, any more than a eupatrid Attic deme name implies eupatrid control.
Chapter 67
How does Appian describe the enrollment of new citizens under the Julian law of 90 BC?
Appian (B.C. i. 49. 214) says the Romans did not enroll these new citizens in the existing thirty-five tribes, lest being more numerous they prevail in the voting, but distributed them into other tribes where they voted last. Botsford notes the disputed word δεκατεύοντες is otherwise unattested but possible, and that the passage concerns Latins and loyal Italians.
Chapter 67
Section 684 cards
When did Roman soldiers begin receiving pay for military service?
The chapter states that before the introduction of pay for military service in 406, soldiers bore their own expenses, citing Livy iv. 59. 11 and other sources. Earlier instances of public expenditure on equipment or pay are treated as either exceptional or probable historical anticipations of later usage.
Chapter 68
What did the tribuni aerarii do, and were they connected to the tribes?
According to Cato and Varro, the tribuni aerarii paid the soldiers and may have collected money into the treasury; Cato suggests they were financially responsible. By about 100 they formed a rank next below the equites, and under the Aurelian law of 70 they made up a decury of jurors. The chapter concludes they were officers of the aerarium, with no discoverable connection to the tribes.
Chapter 68
What does the chapter say about the etymology of tributum and tribus?
The chapter argues that Varro brought unutterable confusion into the subject by deriving tributum from tribus. Neither word derives from the other: tribuere means 'to divide' or 'to apportion,' and tributum means 'that which is apportioned,' with tribus only indirectly connected. The author cites Schlossmann for this correction.
Chapter 68
What does the chapter say about the date of the Servian system's ratings?
The ratings are in the sextantarian as, legally adopted in 269 or 268, valued at one tenth of a denarius, so 1000 asses = 100 denarii = 1 mina. The system could not be later than 241, when the reform of the centuriate assembly was far advanced if not completed. The author also rejects Soltau's view that all details were known only through later sources.
Chapter 68
Section 694 cards
What did classici mean according to Gellius, and who was infra classem?
Gellius says classici were not all men in the five classes but only men of the first class, those rated above 125,000 asses. Infra classem meant men of the second and all other classes, rated at a smaller sum. He notes this briefly because in Cato's speech supporting the Voconian law people ask what classicus and infra classem mean.
Chapter 69
How did Mommsen and his critics differ over the meaning of classis?
Mommsen first accepted classis as 'summoning' (from calare) but rejected it in the Staatsrecht, arguing that meaning suited the later political classes but not the fleet and army, so it could not belong to the earlier use, which denoted the line versus those fighting outside it. Against him it was urged that 'summoning' first applied to the heavy-infantry line, and once 'line' was established it could extend to the fleet.
Chapter 69
What evidence does the chapter give that the scutum and later divisions were relatively late?
The chapter finds collateral evidence that the second and third divisions were instituted relatively late in the fact that the scutum, their distinctive armor, was introduced no earlier than the age of Camillus, the period of the war with Veii and the Gallic conflagration. It was Samnite, and so probably adopted in the fourth century when Rome first came into contact with that people.
Chapter 69
Why does the chapter reject fifteen centuries for the fifth rating?
Scholars usually assume fifteen centuries for the fifth rating on Livy and Dionysius, but the chapter says this is wrong because fifteen could not be divided evenly between the two legions. It adds that in all probability the fifteenth century was not military but was added in the make-up of the comitia centuriata.
Chapter 69
Section 704 cards
What does the chapter say about the origin of the Servian organization?
The author argues that the original Servian organization was an army, not an assembly. He credits Genz and Soltau with clarifying this, but says both made the fundamental mistake of supposing that for a time during the early republic the army officiated as an assembly. The confusion of comitia with army, begun by ancient writers, was intensified by moderns.
Chapter 70
Why does the author reject Smith's theory that the five classes began in 179 BC?
The author argues Smith's thesis is unproved. He objects that if the classes were introduced so late, they would not have been ascribed to Servius Tullius, and they would have been adapted to second-century economic conditions, whereas by 179 they were largely outgrown by depreciation of the standard of value, rising living costs, and enormous estates. He notes Livy xl. 51. 9 makes no reference to classes.
Chapter 70
How does the author distinguish military centuries from political centuries?
The author argues they could not have been composed of the same men. Military centuries and legions were formed anew at each year's levy, whereas political centuries were made up by the censors and doubtless modified annually by the consuls. He raises this as an objection to Mommsen's idea that senior centuries arose from men leaving first-levy centuries by reason of age.
Chapter 70
What does the chapter say about the value of the denarius and libral as?
The author compares values by weight and by purchasing power. A denarius of pre-217 coinage was worth about 8½ cents by weight, or about 20 cents by coined value; the sesterce about five cents. In 430 an ox was legally set at 100 libral asses and a sheep at ten, giving the libral as about 45 cents and the denarius a purchasing power of 90 cents.
Chapter 70
Section 714 cards
How did Polybius's 10,000-drachma rating relate to the Roman census classes?
The author argues Polybius intended to express in drachmas the value of 100,000 asses, since military pay and censors still reckoned ten asses to the denarius after the 217 adoption of the ounce as. Taken as a whole, the passage shows reference is to the highest class: most soldiers had breastplates, but only those rated above 10,000 drachmas wore cuirasses.
Chapter 71
What did the equestrian census and the equites' pay arrangement involve?
Livy first refers definitely to an equestrian census around 403. The support of one knight was considered equal to that of three legionaries, evidence that triple pay covered the purchase and keep of the horse. Varro suggests the public horse's cost meant a payment of a thousand asses a year to the eques, an interpretation the author prefers to Mommsen's.
Chapter 71
When were the equites first recruited from the plebeians, and how reliable is Dionysius's date?
Dionysius of Halicarnassus assigns the first recruiting of equites from the plebeians to 494, but the author argues he dates the event about a century too early, citing Mommsen in support. The sources do not suggest the number eighteen hundred remained unalterable; Cicero's remark concerns the character of the order, not its number.
Chapter 71
What did Cicero and later sources say about private auspices?
Cicero notes that almost nothing of importance was once done without auspices, even privately, though by his time the nuptial auspices retained only the name. The author argues the common view that plebeians lacked private auspices originally and gained them later lacks support, since private auspices were already declining when the supposed equalization occurred.
Chapter 71
Section 724 cards
Who properly held the auspices, according to Cicero and Messala?
The chapter states that the auspices are always said to belong not to the augurs but to the magistrates, citing Cicero's Laws and Messala in Gellius. The augurs merely assisted: the magistrate summoned a helper with the formula asking him to be "in auspicio," and the reply was "Audivi." Auspicari is strictly a function of the magistrate, though the word is sometimes applied to augural observation.
Chapter 72
What did the consul's edict forbid minor magistrates on comitial days?
According to Gellius, the consuls' edict naming the day for the centuriate comitia contained the old fixed formula forbidding any minor magistrate to "watch the sky" (de caelo servasse) on that appointed comitial day. This barred lower officials from taking auspices that could obstruct the assembly's business.
Chapter 72
How did a defect in the auspicia impetrativa differ from "vitio creatum esse"?
The chapter distinguishes the formulas: a defect in the auspicia impetrativa was expressed by "vitio tabernaculum captum esse," while "vitio creatum esse" or similar denoted a failure to take the auspices or to heed unfavorable omens. Such augural decrees were only an opinion on which the senate acted, and laws could be annulled through them.
Chapter 72
What happened when Tiberius Gracchus forgot to renew the auspices?
The elder Tiberius Gracchus vitiated the election of his successors in the consulship by forgetting to renew the auspices when, after entering the city to preside over the senate, he recrossed the pomerium to hold the election in the Campus. Cicero is cited for the episode.
Chapter 72
Section 733 cards
According to Cicero, what powers did augurs have compared with magistrates?
Cicero states that augurs have only the nuntiatio, while consuls and other magistrates also have the spectio. The author argues this contradicts Madvig's view that augurs held both. Augurs had spectio only for their own functions and, as assistants to magistrates, simply the nuntiatio.
Chapter 73
What did Bibulus do after his obnuntiatio against Caesar's agrarian law failed?
Bibulus determined to remain at home and continually watch the sky for the rest of the year. This procedure invalidated all acts passed during that time by the assembly. The author cites Cicero's Dom. 15. 39 f. and related passages as evidence for this.
Chapter 73
What did the lex Clodia of 58 abolish regarding the Aelian and Fufian laws?
Cicero says the tribune carried a law that auspices need not be obeyed, that obnuntiatio against a council or assembly was forbidden, that intercession was not allowed, and that the lex Aelia and lex Fufia should not be valid. The author cites several Ciceronian passages and Dio Cassius.
Chapter 73
Section 743 cards
What did the author conclude about the distinction between concilium and comitia?
The author argues the distinction rests on concilium's deliberative sense, not on any republican-versus-imperial usage. He rejects the groundless split Gudeman retains, and explains why the patricio-plebeian tribal assembly was more apt to be called concilium than the comitia centuriata—a phenomenon Mommsen knew but could not explain.
Chapter 74
How does the chapter derive the meaning of concilium?
Festus derives it from concalando, 'calling together,' an etymology Curtius, Vaniček and Walde accept but Corssen and Gudeman reject. The author finds it equally reasonable to assume the development: (1) a calling together, (2) a meeting for consultation, (3) a natural union of any kind. The deliberative sense appears in Plautus and Cicero.
Chapter 74
What did the author conclude about the comitial functions classification?
The classification into elective, legislative and judicial follows Cicero, De divinatione ii. 35. 74. The author notes that in this volume 'legislative' refers not merely to law-making in the narrower sense but also to passing resolutions on all affairs, domestic and foreign, including necessarily the lex de bello indicendo.
Chapter 74
Section 754 cards
According to Festus, who could summon a contio?
Festus defines contio as a gathering convoked only by a magistrate or a public priest through a herald. The sacerdos includes the rex sacrorum as well as the supreme pontiff, who needed to hold judicial contiones. Strictly, the rex sacrorum's contiones were calata comitia curiata.
Chapter 75
What did Caesar do when the senate obstructed his agrarian bill?
Caesar first brought the bill before the senate, calling senators by name and offering to amend or drop any unsatisfactory clause. When they refused to debate and tried to delay, he offered the bill to the assembly without their consent. For the rest of his consulship he brought no more bills to the senate, referring them directly to the people.
Chapter 75
How did a contio open, and who spoke at it?
A magistrate opened a contio with a solemn prayer, customary before addressing the people, at elective as well as deliberative assemblies, by plebeian as well as patrician magistrates. Senators might sit on the platform but speaking by them was exceptional; they were no more than eminent private persons. Magistrates and invited guests could address the gathering.
Chapter 75
What did Metellus Nepos do to Cicero, and why does it matter?
Q. Metellus Nepos forbade Cicero to address the people in contio when Cicero retired from the consulship, a prohibition Cicero declares was never before heard of. The case illustrates that a magistrate presiding over a contio could control who spoke, an authority later used against Cicero's allies and by tribunes inviting speakers.
Chapter 75
Section 764 cards
What did the rule that women were intestabiles mean, and how is it proved?
The chapter states the rule that women were intestabiles—incapable of giving testimony—is proved by such exceptions as the alleged lex Horatia granting the Vestal Gaia Taracia the right to testify. Botsford calls that law a myth, though laws of the kind were doubtless occasionally passed during the republic, and their language might be quoted by the annalists.
Chapter 76
According to Gellius, why did Labeo's refusal to obey the tribunes fail?
Gellius argues that Labeo, when a private citizen, refused to come when summoned by the tribunes, trusting vainly in his rights. Gellius reasons that one who can lawfully be seized can also be put in chains, so refusal was pointless. This supports the view that a tribune could practically compel even a consul to appear, since he had power to arrest him.
Chapter 76
What were the comitia calata, and what purposes did Labeo say they served?
Labeo, quoted by Gellius, defines calata comitia as assemblies held on behalf of the pontifical college for inaugurating the king or the flamens. He says some were curiate and some centuriate. Since comitia connotes organization, the people stood in their voting groups in all calata comitia. Mommsen identifies the centuriate calata comitia as serving only the inauguration of the flamen.
Chapter 76
How was the calendar announced on the Kalends, and who performed it?
Varro and Macrobius describe the minor pontiff observing the new moon's first appearance and reporting it to the rex sacrificulus. After sacrifice by the king and minor pontiff, the pontiff summoned the people to the Curia Calabra and announced how many days remained from the Kalends to the Nones. Mommsen held the announcement was not to an assembly, but the chapter rejects this.
Chapter 76
Section 773 cards
According to Gaius, when were the calata comitia held for making wills?
Gaius states that calatis comitiis a testament was made, and that these comitia were appointed for making testaments twice a year. Gellius likewise calls this assembly a contio, which includes the calata comitia, and notes that wills were customarily made at the same comitia called calata.
Chapter 77
How did Clodius's adoption proceed, and what did Cicero argue about it?
Herennius, a tribune, brought Clodius over to the plebs, and a bill was promulgated to have the whole populus vote on Clodius's case in the tribal assembly. Cicero argued the adoption was a sham, claiming Clodius was emancipated at once so as not to be the adopter's son and had abandoned his ancestral sacra.
Chapter 77
What did Mommsen later change his mind about regarding the curiae in adrogation?
Mommsen first supposed, in Römische Forschungen, that the curiae simply witnessed the transaction without giving their vote. The text notes that he afterward changed his mind in Römische Staatsrecht, where he treated the curiae as voting.
Chapter 77
Section 784 cards
What evidence shows early Roman treaties lapsed on a king's death?
Botsford cites Dionysius of Halicarnassus: the Fidenates were freed from treaty obligations after Romulus died, the Latins after Tullus, and various neighbors after the last Tarquin was expelled. This proves the king, not the community, bound the state personally in early treaties.
Chapter 78
How did the senate's preconsideration of business resemble other early assemblies?
The author argues the Roman senate's power to preconsider matters paralleled other peoples: Celtic magistrates disclosed only what they judged expedient, German chiefs preconsidered every subject before the assembly, and Homeric councils met before the assembly. Nobles' prominence in Slavic assemblies points the same way.
Chapter 78
How did early assemblies reach decisions without majority rule?
Majority rule was unknown to primitive times. Councils talked until unanimous agreement; Homeric Greeks who failed to agree simply went their separate ways, while Slavs forced unanimity by coercing the minority. The author argues the assembly was not originally sovereign, contrary to Schrader and Mommsen.
Chapter 78
What powers did the Roman people hold under Romulus according to Dionysius?
Dionysius (ii. 14. 3) says Romulus entrusted the popular mass with three things: electing magistrates, ratifying laws, and deciding on war when the king proposed it. The author argues this shows the assembly was not sovereign from the start, since the king initiated war questions.
Chapter 78
Section 793 cards
What does the chapter say about the meaning of the word lex?
The chapter reports proposed etymologies: lex may relate to legare or ligare, meaning "to bind," giving "binding ordinance." Mommsen, quoted via J. Schmidt, gives the root leg the fundamental meaning "to place in order," connecting it with the English "law." The chapter also notes ius may connect with an Avestan word for "pure," developing through oath, legal procedure, and finally human law.
Chapter 79
How does the chapter describe the formula of the curiate law?
The chapter says the formula for the curiate law is unknown, but from Servilius Rullus's statement that the decemviri should hold the decemvirate "whom the plebs has designated," probably copied from earlier laws, it is practically certain the formula ran somewhat like that for an election. The chapter rejects Lange's theory that the law defined and limited the imperium.
Chapter 79
What does the chapter say about the curiate law and the imperium?
The chapter finds it unlikely that the curiate law defined and limited the imperium, for two reasons: in early times, when the act had real meaning, precise definitions were unknown, and there is no evidence for it. It notes Lange's theory rests on a single statement of Tacitus, which proves only that quaestors were mentioned in the curiate law.
Chapter 79
Section 804 cards
What did the lex curiata do for a magistrate's imperium, according to Cicero?
The author argues, from Cicero's Leg. Agr. and other passages, that the imperium or potestas was conferred by the centuries or tribes and merely confirmed by the curiae. The curiate law was a sanctioning act, not the source of military power, despite statements that a consul without it may not touch military affairs.
Chapter 80
Why was Flaminius's imperium in 217 not iustum?
Flaminius possessed and was actually exercising imperium over his troops, but it was not iustum because he had neglected the auspical formalities appropriate to entering the consulship. The author rejects Nissen's view that he commanded only on the sufferance of his soldiers.
Chapter 80
What does iustus mean in the phrase magistratus optuma lege?
It is the same as magistratus iustus, and here iustus does not mean legal as opposed to illegal but legally or technically perfect and correct. Cicero's iusta comitia for the centuriata implies less weight for other assemblies, not that their acts lacked legality.
Chapter 80
What did the compact between Appius, his colleague, and the consular candidates assume about the lex curiata?
The agreement of 54 required the candidates, if elected, to produce three augurs testifying that the consuls had carried a lex curiata, or forfeit a sum. Since the evidence came only after the election, it assumes the lex curiata was not essential to holding the elective comitia but was highly advantageous to the promagistrate.
Chapter 80
Section 814 cards
Why did the centuriate assembly have to meet outside the pomerium?
According to Laelius Felix, the centuriata could not lawfully be held inside the pomerium because the army had to be commanded outside the city, and there was no right of command within the city. Dionysius describes the people assembling in the Campus Martius before the city, drawn up under leaders and standards as in war.
Chapter 81
What did Fabius Pictor say about the flamen Dialis and the army?
Fabius Pictor states that it was a religious prohibition for the flamen Dialis to see a classis procincta, that is, an armed army, outside the pomerium. For that reason the flamen Dialis was rarely created consul, since wars were entrusted to consuls. There was no objection to his seeing the comitia centuriata itself, only the armed centuries.
Chapter 81
How did Cicero's count of centuries in the first class differ from Livy and Dionysius?
Cicero says the eighteen centuries of knights, the centuries of the first class, and one century of carpenters totaled eighty-nine, which would give only seventy centuries to the first class. Livy and Dionysius differ from him on this number. The author suggests Cicero had in mind a formative stage of the new organization in which the first class comprised seventy centuries.
Chapter 81
What did Mommsen suppose about the consuls of 214 and the curiate law?
Mommsen supposed the two consuls of 214 simply omitted the curiate sanction on entering office because they already held an imperium unlimited in duration, and that jurists accepted this as constitutional. He asserted their motive was absence from Rome at the opening of the official year. The author objects that both were present, so they merely took advantage of a measure already enacted.
Chapter 81
Section 824 cards
What did the Twelve Tables require of an assiduus versus a proletarius regarding a vindex?
The Twelve Tables, as quoted by Gellius, provided that an assiduus must have an assiduus as vindex, while for a proletarius—now a citizen—anyone who wished could serve as vindex. This distinction reflects the different standing of propertied and unpropertied citizens in early Roman law.
Chapter 82
What was the 'niquis scivit' century and who could vote in it?
Festus describes a century established by Servius Tullius in which a citizen who had not voted in his own century could still cast a vote, so that no citizen be deprived of the suffrage. No one was enrolled in it, no centurio was set over it, and no centurialis could belong to it, because no one is certain of that century.
Chapter 82
What does Livy say about the total number of centuries after the tribes reached thirty-five?
Livy remarks that one need not be surprised that the present arrangement, after the tribes were increased to thirty-five and their number doubled in the centuries of juniors and seniors, does not agree with the total instituted by Servius Tullius. The doubling of thirty-five tribes produced a total that diverged from the Servian scheme.
Chapter 82
How does Dionysius describe the later condition of the centuriate assembly?
Dionysius says the arrangement endured many generations, carefully preserved by the Romans, but in his own time changed toward a more democratic character, driven by powerful forces. The centuries were not abolished, but the decision of their votes lost its former precision—or, on another reading, the calling of the centuries no longer kept its ancient order. He says he noticed this himself at elections.
Chapter 82
Section 832 cards
What evidence does the chapter cite that the political classes rested on the census?
The author cites Cicero (Leg. iii. 3. 7; 19. 44), Gellius (vi. 13; xv. 27. 5), and Asconius (in Pis. 16), plus the agrarian law of 111, which implies a property qualification for the class. These citations, the author argues, dispose of Plüss's hypothesis that the classes of this period were groups of tribes resting partly on the census but mainly on differences of rank.
Chapter 83
How does Polybius's account of capital trials show votes were counted by tribes?
Polybius (vi. 14. 7) says that in a capital trial, even if one tribe whose suffrage was needed had not yet voted, Roman custom let the condemned depart openly into voluntary exile. The author argues this procedure must have been in the comitia centuriata, so the votes of the centuries must have been taken or announced by tribes.
Chapter 83
Section 844 cards
How did Livy's account of 171 B.C. distinguish equestrian century votes?
Livy xliii. 16. 14 records that when eight of the twelve equestrian centuries condemned a censor, many other centuries of the first class also voted. The passage proves the announcement distinguished the votes of the twelve equestrian centuries both from the sex suffragia and from those of the first class.
Chapter 84
What did Cicero's Philippic passage reveal about the order of voting announcements?
Cicero (Phil. ii. 33. 82) states that after the report of the first class was given, the suffragia were announced, then the second class was called. Since he does not mention a separate calling of the suffragia, their separation from the first class was limited to the announcement only.
Chapter 84
Why does the author reject the claim that Servius Tullius gave the assembly power to elect kings?
The author argues the idea (found in Dionysius and Lange) is disproved because the organization attributed to Servius was purely military; the comitia centuriata developed slowly from it. The assembly therefore did not originally possess an elective function for kings.
Chapter 84
What did the Twelve Tables establish about the last popular vote?
Livy vii. 17. 12 states that in the Twelve Tables there was a law that whatever the people last ordered should be valid and binding, and that the order of the people consisted in their votes. After the decemviral legislation an attempt was made to extend this principle to elections.
Chapter 84
Section 852 cards
What did the centuriate law passed by the censors concern, according to Cicero?
Cicero states in De Legibus Agraria that "Centuriata lex censoribus ferebatur" — a centuriate law was brought before the censors. The chapter explains that before the censorship existed, the original motive of the sanctioning act was to give the curiae a share in the elective function; this later gave way to the purpose Cicero describes.
Chapter 85
How were duumviri for judging treason (perduellio) appointed, and how did Rabirius's trial differ?
Livy describes duumviri created by law to judge perduellio. In the trial of C. Rabirius, a law compelled the praetor to appoint the duumviri rather than their being elected. Dio Cassius criticized this procedure, arguing the duumviri should have been elected according to ancestral usage.
Chapter 85
Section 864 cards
According to Livy, what did the lex Porcia prohibit regarding Roman citizens?
Livy states that the lex Porcia sanctioned a grave penalty against anyone who had flogged or killed a Roman citizen. Sallust and Cicero likewise treat the Porcian laws as protecting citizens from beating and execution. Cicero adds that the three Porcian laws, passed by three Porcii, brought nothing new beyond this sanction. Scholars debate whether the law also permitted exile to those condemned by a vote of the people.
Chapter 86
What did Gaius Gracchus's Sempronian law provide about capital trials of citizens?
Cicero reports that Gaius Gracchus carried a law that no judgment should be rendered on the life of a Roman citizen without the people's command. A scholium states it was not permitted to inquire into the life of a Roman citizen without the order of the people. The author argues it is improbable that this law transferred such cases from the centuries to the tribes, since the comitia tributa already condemned exiles.
Chapter 86
What does the chapter say about the trial of C. Matienus before the tribunes?
Livy's epitome records that C. Matienus was accused before the tribunes of having deserted the army in Spain, was condemned, long flogged under the yoke, and sold for a sestertius. The new epitome mentions deserters flogged and sold on that occasion. The chapter notes it is not known that the tribunes tried desertion cases or inflicted this kind of punishment.
Chapter 86
Which pre-Gracchan special courts does the chapter say owed their existence to a popular vote?
The chapter lists several: the lex de pecunia regis Antiochi of the Petilii, tribunes in 185, to try L. Scipio Asiagenus for misappropriating public money; a plebiscite of 172 directing the senate to establish a court for M. Popillius; the lex Caecilia of 154 for L. Lentulus; and a plebiscite of P. Mucius Scaevola in 141 for L. Hostilius Tubulus.
Chapter 86
Section 874 cards
What did the oath of the plebs make of anyone who harmed a tribune?
The oath declared the tribunes sacrosanct, so that whoever harmed them was treated as homo sacer and could be killed with impunity. Livy reports that the Valerian-Horatian law of 449 confirmed an oath the plebs had taken much earlier, and the sources connect the oath with Ceres.
Chapter 87
What did the early tribunate's right of auxilium mean, and what did it not include?
Livy states the power was granted as auxilii, not poenae, ius: the tribunes existed to protect plebeians, not to punish. Their coercive power later expanded, but the original justification was aid and protection, which is why the plebeians were seen as most in need of it.
Chapter 87
How did Cicero describe the popular courts' procedural safeguards for defendants?
In De Domo, Cicero says the ancestors set up moderate popular judgments: no one is accused on an unnamed day, a magistrate must accuse three times with a day between before imposing a fine or judging, and the fourth accusation is announced a trinum nundinum ahead. Fines were also made lenient to move the people to mercy.
Chapter 87
What did the so-called Icilian plebiscite provide about speaking against a tribune?
Dionysius records that no one was to speak against or interrupt a tribune speaking before the people; violators had to give sureties for whatever penalty the tribunes imposed, and those refusing sureties were liable to death with their property sacred. The author notes its author and date are uncertain, but its existence need not be doubted.
Chapter 87
Section 884 cards
What did the lex of 449, passed in the centuriate assembly, enact about plebiscites?
According to Livy iii. 55. 3, because it was disputed whether the patres were bound by plebiscites, a law was carried in the centuriate comitia that whatever the plebs ordered by tribes should bind the populus. Livy calls this law the sharpest weapon given to tribunician rogations.
Chapter 88
Why does the author reject Cicero's claim that the comitia centuriata alone judged capital cases from early times?
The author argues Cicero's personal bias cannot be neglected: to discredit the decree of exile passed against himself by the tribal comitia, it suited Cicero to deny that assembly ever had such competence. The author holds the annalists' view, confirmed by a law of the Twelve Tables, is obviously preferable.
Chapter 88
Why does the author call the tribunes' pre-decemviral veto of governmental acts an anachronism?
The author argues that Livy's own report of a patrician attempt to win as many tribunes as possible points to obstruction rather than the veto as the tribunes' weapon. The increase in the number of tribunes from two to ten indicates the same condition, so the historians' assigned veto is anachronistic.
Chapter 88
How did patricians interfere in tribal assemblies, according to the sources cited?
Livy vi. 35. 7 reports that when the tribes were called to vote, the patres, crowded with patrician supporters, prevented the rogations from being read and the customary proceedings. On other occasions patres old and young entered the Forum, took places in the tribes, and urged tribesmen to vote against tribunician proposals.
Chapter 88
Section 894 cards
What does Livy report about a tribune's protest being disregarded in 356?
Livy generally assigns tribunes the right of protest, but at vii. 17. 12 (year 356) he reports that such a protest was disregarded by the magistrate. Botsford suggests tribunes often attempted this power in the period but usually without success, though their growing right to address the people gave their protests added force.
Chapter 89
Which seditions does Botsford list as the principal recorded ones?
Botsford lists five: the revolt against the decemvirate in 449; a plebeian secession to the Janiculum in the struggle for the Canuleian law; anarchy in 376, which Matzat says lasted about four months; anarchy in the Licinian-Sextian struggle, which Matzat says continued three years, 376-373; and the secession of 287 leading to Hortensian legislation.
Chapter 89
How does Botsford treat the tradition that coöpted tribunes were patrician?
Livy iii. 61. 10 preserves a formula proving coöptation of tribunes was once legal. Botsford says the claim that coöpted tribunes were patrician is now generally disbelieved, citing Herzog, because it conflicts with the conventional view of a smoothly working constitution; he argues the irregular is possible and less likely to be invented.
Chapter 89
What does Botsford say about the three alleged early plebiscites?
Botsford states there are no means of testing the historical truth of the three alleged plebiscites. He notes the first Icilian was of transient character and the first Duillian unnecessary, though not especially suspicious; the second Duillian reflects constitutional principles known to have been early established. Herzog doubts them.
Chapter 89
Section 904 cards
How did consuls refused a triumph by the senate sometimes respond, according to Livy?
Livy reports that Postumius (consul 294), refused a triumph by the senate, avoided bringing the case before the people because he foresaw tribunician resistance, but declared he would triumph by right of his consular imperium. Q. Minucius (consul 197), similarly refused, asserted he would triumph on the Alban Mount, citing his consular imperium and the example of many illustrious men.
Chapter 90
What does Botsford say about the theory that the decemviral enactment merely confirmed an ancient custom?
Botsford notes the commonly accepted theory that this decemviral enactment merely confirmed a custom existing from the beginning of Rome. He argues it is supported neither by the sources nor by a comparison of early usage in other states, so he rejects the theory rather than treating it as established.
Chapter 90
How does Botsford treat Livy's reports of early tribal acts, such as those of 440 and 424?
Botsford calls these alleged acts of the tribes suspicious because of their isolation: in this period offices were instituted by the centuries, not the tribes. He concludes each is either exceptional or an anticipation of later usage, rather than accepting Livy's attribution at face value.
Chapter 90
What did the lex Publilia de sponsu grant, and what is known of its date?
According to Gaius, the lex Publilia de sponsu granted the surety (sponsor) an action against the principal debtor if the latter failed to reimburse him within six months. Botsford states its date is unknown. He cites Gaius iii. 127 and iv. 22, cf. 171, as the sources for the provision.
Chapter 90
Section 914 cards
What did the lex Hortensia enact regarding plebiscites?
According to Gaius, the lex Hortensia provided that plebiscites should bind the whole people; previously patricians claimed they were not bound because plebiscites were made without their authority. Laelius and Pomponius likewise state that by this law the plebs' enactments bound all quirites, so plebiscites were equated with laws, differing only in the manner of their creation.
Chapter 91
What did the lex Hortensia change about market days (nundinae)?
Granius Licinianus, quoted by Macrobius, says the lex Hortensia made nundinae fastae, so that country folk coming to the city for market could settle lawsuits; on a nefastus day the praetor could not speak the law. Macrobius also notes Julius Caesar held, from an augural book, that no assembly could be summoned on nundinae, so no comitia could be held then.
Chapter 91
How did tribunes' access to the senate change by 304?
Before acquiring the right, tribunes sat on their bench at the door of the curia to watch proceedings; though lacking an unrestricted legal right of intercession, they tried to force their veto on the senate. The wording of the 304 law on dedicating a temple or altar indicates tribunes had not yet gained the right to convoke the senate and formally bring measures before it.
Chapter 91
What did the senate do about Postumius's insurance fraud?
The state insured cargoes shipped for the army against enemy and storm; Postumius exploited this by sending out old, unseaworthy ships with cheap cargoes, wrecking them, and reporting losses many times the real value. The senate, fearing to offend the powerful publicani, failed to act when the praetor informed it; the tribunes then brought the accusation.
Chapter 91
Section 924 cards
What did the tribune M. Vergilius do to Sulla in 87, and how did Sulla respond?
In 87 the tribune M. Vergilius set a day for the trial of L. Cornelius Sulla himself. Sulla took no notice of the prosecution and departed for the East, according to Cicero, Plutarch, and Fröhlich as cited by the author.
Chapter 92
How did Appius Claudius Pulcher respond to tribunician prosecution in 87?
Summoned to trial by a tribune of the plebs in 87, Appius Claudius Pulcher retired into exile, whereupon his propretorian imperium was abrogated. The author cites Cicero's De Domo, Münzer, and Greenidge for the episode.
Chapter 92
What threat faced consul Cn. Papirius Carbo in 84, and on what condition?
In 84 Cn. Papirius Carbo, consul, was threatened with a prosecution, or more strictly with an abrogation of his office, if he should fail to return to Rome to hold the election of a colleague. The author cites Appian, Bellum Civile.
Chapter 92
What did P. Scipio Aemilianus do as censor in 142, and what followed?
In 142, as censor, P. Scipio Aemilianus deprived Ti. Claudius Asellus of his public horse. Asellus later, as tribune of the plebs, accused Scipio of malversation in his censorship, a finable case charging a lustrum malum infelixque. The author says the prosecution probably failed.
Chapter 92
Section 934 cards
What does Botsford mean by the "Flaminian" period of the assemblies?
The author explains that "Flaminian" is not limited to the lifetime of Flaminius but designates the period during which the impetus he gave to the activity of the assemblies lasted—approximately to the end of the war with Hannibal.
Chapter 93
What did the pretorian law of P. Licinius Varus in 208 do?
Passed in consequence of a pestilence, it placed the games in honor of Apollo in the class called stativi—those celebrated annually on stated days. Livy is cited for this, with Wissowa and Fowler on Roman religion and festivals.
Chapter 93
What did the lex Aebutia tend to do, and how do scholars date it?
The lex Aebutia tended to substitute the formulary process of later time for the legis actio. Lange assigns these laws to the period of the war with Hannibal, while Voigt places them in earlier time; Gaius and Gellius are cited.
Chapter 93
What did the lex Pinaria and the lex Silia provide?
The lex Pinaria ordered the appointment of a judge on the thirtieth day after an action was instituted. The lex Silia created the legis actio per condictionem for recovering a certain sum of money, later extended by the lex Calpurnia to apply to any certain object.
Chapter 93
Section 943 cards
What did the plebiscite of 203 grant to C. Servilius?
The plebiscite of 203 exempted C. Servilius from the law that prohibited electing a man to the plebeian tribunate or aedileship while his father, who had held a curule office, was still alive. This is one of two recorded dispensations from laws by act of the people in the latter part of the century.
Chapter 94
What did the plebiscite of 200 allow L. Valerius Flaccus to do?
The plebiscite of 200 permitted L. Valerius Flaccus to take the oath of office for the aedileship as a proxy for his brother, who as flamen Dialis was forbidden to swear. This is the second of two dispensations from laws by act of the people recorded for the latter part of the century.
Chapter 94
What did the plebiscite of 201 order the senate to do?
The plebiscite of 201, proposed by M’. Acilius and Q. Minucius, ordered the senate to negotiate peace with Carthage. The author notes that tribal ratification may be assumed for every treaty and for that reason is generally not mentioned in the volume.
Chapter 94
Section 954 cards
What did the censors do with freedmen according to Livy's epitome?
Livy's epitomator states that the censors "Libertini in quattuor tribus redacti sunt, cum antea dispersi per omnes fuissent," confining freedmen to four tribes. Botsford notes the passage refers either to the censorship of Flaminius or, far less probably, to the one immediately preceding it.
Chapter 95
What did Augustus's law of 18 B.C. permit regarding freedwomen?
A law of Augustus, 18 B.C., permitted all persons except senators to marry freedwomen (Dio Cass. liv. 16. 2; lvi. 7. 2). The chapter notes that conubium with freedwomen had not been impossible, but had been considered disgraceful both by society and by the law.
Chapter 95
What did Polybius think of the Roman constitution, and when did he write?
The main part of Polybius's history was composed before the third Carthaginian war, though certain parts were inserted after the revolutionary period began. The Gracchan trouble opened his eyes to some defects, but the aristocratic recovery after Tiberius's (and perhaps Gaius's) tribunate confirmed his belief in the fundamental soundness and recuperative power of the state.
Chapter 95
What did the agrarian provisions attributed to Tiberius Gracchus allow per son?
Appian states an additional two hundred and fifty iugera were allowed for each son, while Livy's epitome sets the maximum at a thousand iugera. Botsford says combining the two sources gives the probable result, and notes Appian does not state that these lots became private property.
Chapter 95
Section 964 cards
According to Livy's epitome, what did Tiberius Gracchus's agrarian law allow the triumvirs to do?
Livy's epitome (lviii) records that Tiberius promulgated a second agrarian law by which he could widen his own scope of land, so that the same triumvirs would judge what was public land and what was private. The passage is cited as evidence for the commission's adjudicatory power over disputed land status.
Chapter 96
What did the law provide if there were not enough candidates for tribune, according to Appian?
Appian (B.C. i. 21. 90) reports a law that if a tribune were lacking among the candidates, the people should choose from all present. Botsford argues that if tribunus stood in the law it meant tribune, not candidate, and that the Greek word for announcements must render renuntiationes, the announcements of votes.
Chapter 96
How does Botsford treat Livy's claim that Gaius Gracchus added six hundred knights to the senate?
Botsford rejects the epitomator's account that Gaius carried a measure adding six hundred knights to the senate with jurors drawn from that enlarged body. Such an act, he argues, could not be called a lex iudiciaria since it concerned only the senate's composition, and everything opposes the assumption that the bill passed or was put into effect.
Chapter 96
What does Botsford say about the date and identity of the lex Acilia repetundarum?
Botsford dates the lex Acilia to between 123 and 121: its reference to the triumvirs of the Sempronian agrarian law places it in 133-119, its exclusion of senators from juries requires it to follow Gaius's judiciary law, and its implication that the lex Rubria was in force narrows it further. He rejects identifying it with the Sempronian law.
Chapter 96
Section 974 cards
What did Cicero's Pro Cluentio suggest about equites and juror bribery?
The author notes that the whole tenor of Cicero's Pro Cluentio is that the knights were not bound by the provision against bribery. The author argues Cicero had a strong motive to highlight the article punishing magistrates and senators while suppressing any clause on equites, made easier because the Cornelian law then in force mentioned only senatorial jurors. The author prefers Appian's interpretation to Cicero's view.
Chapter 97
What did Gaius Gracchus's rogation on comitia centuriata voting propose?
A rogation of Gaius, proposed about the same time as the lex de civitate danda, concerned the order of voting in the comitia centuriata. The source (Sall.) Rep. Ord. ii. 8 says he proposed that centuries be called by lot from the five confused classes, so that money is equalized in dignity. His object was to eliminate the influence of wealth; the author notes he could not have proposed that centuries vote one by one.
Chapter 97
How did the Livian colonial bill and its exemption from rent work?
Plutarch alone speaks of the exemption from rent and seems to consider the measure retroactive to Sempronian settlements as well as Livian ones. The author says this could hardly have been the Livian act's intention, but exempting Livian colonists would naturally lead to extending equal privileges to Sempronian beneficiaries. Appian assumes the Livian colonial bill became law; the author suggests the senate used Livius as a tool and never seriously intended to execute it.
Chapter 97
What did the lex Acilia Rubria of 122 seem to concern?
The lex Acilia Rubria, passed most probably in 122, seems to have had to do with the participation of aliens in the worship of Jupiter Capitolinus, according to the S.C. de Astypalaeensibus. The author says it is to be connected with the rogation for granting citizenship to the allies and probably aimed to liberalize the worship in the Sempronian spirit.
Chapter 97
Section 984 cards
What did the lex of an unknown author in this year establish?
The chapter states that a lex of an unknown author provided in this year for the establishment of the colony of Narbo Martius in Narbonensis, possibly as compensation for the repeal of the Sempronian statute and that of Rubrius. The sources cited are Velleius, Eutropius, and several Ciceronian speeches, along with Kornemann in Pauly-Wissowa.
Chapter 98
How does the chapter explain the word sortito in the agrarian law?
The chapter argues that the word sortito in passages such as 'IIIvir sortito ceivi Romano dedit adsignavit' proves a reference to the founding of colonies, since viritim assignations were not made by lot. The chapter attributes this interpretation to Mommsen in CIL. i. p. 87.
Chapter 98
What does the chapter say about occupations legalized by the law of 111?
The chapter notes that although occupation was forbidden by the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus, occupations did take place, and this article of the law of 111 legalizes them in so far as they do not exceed the specified limit. The chapter cites the Lex Agr. 13 f. for this provision.
Chapter 98
How does the chapter characterize Sp. Thorius's agrarian law?
The chapter quotes Cicero's Brutus: 'Sp. Thorius ... who by a mischievous and useless law freed the public land of vectigal.' The chapter cites this in connection with the Lex Agr. 19 f. and Appian, and notes that the chapter does not endorse the judgment as its own but reports Cicero's characterization.
Chapter 98
Section 994 cards
What did the Varian law establish, and when were its prosecutions active?
The Varian law set up a quaestio, a special court, to try those accused of instigating the sedition by which the statute was carried; Varius himself was later tried under it. Appian places its passage before the Social War, and Cicero says the prosecutions continued through the war, the last mentioned being that of Cn. Pompeius Strabo in 88.
Chapter 99
How did the Lex Iulia on citizenship treat allies and Latins?
Cicero reports that the Julian law gave citizenship to allies and Latins on condition that those who had not become subject to a people's fundus (fundi populi facti) would not hold citizenship. Heraclea and Naples declined the citizenship. The statute seems to have treated the Po as Italy's northern boundary.
Chapter 99
What did M. Livius Drusus do about the equestrian courts?
The sources credit Drusus with a judiciary measure, but scholars dispute its content: some accept that it dealt primarily with the composition of the senate, while Herzog objects that a judiciary measure could not have done so. The author presents this as an unresolved question of interpretation rather than settled fact.
Chapter 99
What happened to Sulla's command in 88 according to the sources?
Velleius is authority that Sulla's imperium was abrogated. Plutarch says Pompeius, not Sulla, was deprived of the consulship and Sulla lost only the provincial command, while Appian speaks only of transferring the command. Appian states the fourth article was added after Sulla left Rome and he knew nothing of it until summoned.
Chapter 99
Section 1004 cards
According to Appian, what did Sulpicius propose about voting on laws and elections?
Appian reports that Sulpicius proposed that no measure be brought before the people without prior senatorial approval, and that voting (χειροτονίαι) be conducted not by tribes but by centuries, as King Tullius had ordained. Botsford notes that χειροτονίαι in Appian can mean voting on laws as well as elections, so the change likely covered both.
Chapter 100
How do scholars disagree about Sulpicius's character and motives?
Scholars are at variance. Herzog and Ferrero see no earnest purpose of reform; Ihne hesitatingly calls him a demagogue; Fröhlich treats him as a statesman devoted to his country's best interests; Mommsen regards him as Drusus's successor, a senatorial reformer driven by circumstance to revolutionary methods. Botsford lists these views without settling the question.
Chapter 100
What does Botsford say about Livy's claim that Sulla deprived the tribunes of legislative power?
Botsford argues Livy's statement that Sulla later (82) stripped the tribunes of all legislative power is not true of his dictatorial law-giving but belongs properly to the year under consideration. He also notes that under Sulla's arrangements tribunes actually proposed laws de senatus sententia, as an inscription of 71 shows.
Chapter 100
What evidence does Botsford give against the view that no tribunician contiones were held under Sulla?
Though Cicero's Pro Cluentio might suggest no tribunician contio was held under the Cornelian government, Botsford says this is not true. L. Sicinius summoned one in 76, Quinctius held contiones in 74, and in 71 the tribune Palicanus held a contio outside the city so Pompey could attend.
Chapter 100
Section 1014 cards
What did Sulla's law do regarding the number of quaestors and why?
Tacitus (Ann. xi. 22) states that under Sulla's law twenty quaestors were created "supplendo senatui" — to fill up the senate, to which Sulla had transferred the courts. An inscription preserves the eighth chapter of this law, regulating the qualifications, appointment, and pay of the quaestors' apparitores, and its praescriptio shows the law was adopted in the tribal assembly.
Chapter 101
According to the chapter, in which assembly were most of Sulla's enactments adopted?
The chapter argues that most of Sulla's enactments were tribal. The inference rests on the praescriptio of the preserved chapter of his quaestorian law, which shows adoption in the tribal assembly, combined with the fact that the centuriate assembly is mentioned in one case as if exceptional.
Chapter 101
What does the chapter say about Pompey's age and the quaestorship?
In his thirty-sixth year Pompey was not yet qualified for the quaestorship (Cic. Imp. Pomp. 21. 62). Cicero, consul in his forty-third year, says he held the office at the earliest legal age (Leg. Agr. ii. 2. 3). A two-year interval between offices would place the quaestorship in the thirty-seventh year; but soon after Sulla, probably through further legislation, the office was often filled in the thirty-first year.
Chapter 101
What does the chapter conclude about a lex Cornelia de adulteriis and a quaestio for it?
Lange held there must have been a lex Cornelia de adulteriis et pudicitia, doubting that Sulla's ordinance περὶ γάμων καὶ σωφροσύνης belonged to his lex de iniuriis. The chapter, however, says Voigt demonstrated that all republican regulations of this offence, including the Cornelian, were sumptuary; accordingly no quaestio was needed to try the offence.
Chapter 101
Section 1024 cards
What did Cotta propose to the senate regarding his own laws?
Cicero states that Cotta proposed to the senate the repeal of his own laws. Asconius comments that he can find no law of Cotta's except the one concerning retired tribunes. Cicero, however, attributes to Cotta a lex de iudiciis privatis, which his brother caused to be repealed the following year; it is not otherwise known.
Chapter 102
What law did the consul of 70 and his colleague carry about Pompey's Spanish grants?
The same consul, with his colleague L. Gellius Poplicola, proposed and carried a law confirming the grants of citizenship already made by Pompey in Spain. Their joint proposal that provincials should not be tried on a capital charge in their absence took the form merely of a senatus consultum, not a law.
Chapter 102
What did Dio Cassius report about the passage of Piso's measure?
According to Dio Cassius, the measure was opposed by the people, who preferred the stricter measure of Cornelius, but Piso with a crowd of followers forced it through the assembly. The author notes the restriction was only partial, and argues the law's author seems to have had excellent heart and statesmanlike views, though the optimates classed him as seditious.
Chapter 102
What did the Atian law accomplish, and what did it leave unchanged?
The lex Atia had no effect on the supreme pontificate, which had remained elective and which was conferred on Caesar soon after the enactment of the Atian law. The same Atius, with colleague T. Ampius Balbus, also proposed a plebiscite granting Pompey triumphal ornaments at the Circensian games and the toga praetexta and laurel or golden crown at the theatres.
Chapter 102
Section 1034 cards
What did Aufidius Lurco's proposed law on electoral corruption stipulate?
In 61 the tribune M. Aufidius Lurco proposed that promises of money to the tribes should not be binding, but that a candidate who actually paid should be liable for life to a payment—apparently annual—of three thousand sesterces to the tribe. The measure failed to become law, as Cicero's letters to Atticus record.
Chapter 103
What did the bill of the consuls Piso and Messala propose for trying Clodius?
In 61 the consuls M. Pupius Piso and M. Valerius Messala proposed a special commission to try Clodius for intruding in a religious festival exclusively for women. The bill provided that jurors should not be drawn by lot but appointed by the praetor. It was withdrawn in favor of the plebiscite de religione, more favorable to the accused, presented by Q. Fufius Calenus and accepted by the tribes.
Chapter 103
What did Vatinius's law on Comum provide, and what happened to the citizenship?
P. Vatinius, tribune of the plebs, carried a law sending five thousand new settlers to Comum, a Latin colony in northern Italy. Some of the new residents he honored with the citizenship. The franchise was afterward withdrawn by a decree of the senate, according to Suetonius and Plutarch.
Chapter 103
How do sources disagree on the number settled under Caesar's Campanian agrarian law?
Cicero was of the opinion that the Campanian district could provide not more than five thousand with lots of ten iugera, whereas Suetonius and Velleius state that twenty thousand were settled in it. Some Campanian land remained undivided in 51. Lange maintains there were two agrarian laws; Marquardt and Drumann-Gröbe hold the opposite view.
Chapter 103
Section 1044 cards
What did Clodius's grain law provide, and who was put in charge of distribution?
The Clodian provision replaced the Sempronian price with free grain for citizens. Probably by an article of this law rather than a new enactment, Sex. Clodius, a dependent of the tribune, was given charge of the distribution. Earlier frumentarian laws, including Sulla's repeal and the lex frumentaria of the consuls of 73, had addressed the grain price.
Chapter 104
What did the plebiscite of 56 do regarding Cyprus and Cato?
A plebiscite converted the kingdom of Cyprus into a province, confiscated the property of the reigning king, and commissioned Cato to bring the king's treasury to Rome. It is listed among the remaining Clodian laws, cited in Livy, Cicero, Dio Cassius, and Appian.
Chapter 104
What happened to C. Porcius Cato's and L. Caninius's rogations in 56?
In 56 a rogation of C. Porcius Cato, tribune of the plebs, for abrogating the proconsular imperium of P. Cornelius Lentulus failed to become law. So did the rogation of his colleague L. Caninius for commissioning Pompey with pretorian power to restore Ptolemy, the exiled king of Egypt, to his throne.
Chapter 104
What debt-relief rogations preceded Caesar's legislation, and by whom?
Agitation appeared in a rogation of M. Caelius Rufus, praetor in 48, for payment of debts in six years without interest, and later in a rogation for extensive, perhaps complete, abolition of debts. P. Cornelius Dolabella, tribune in 47, also rogated complete abolition of debts. Both officials separately rogated remission of rents.
Chapter 104
Section 1054 cards
What did Caesar's colonial law establish, and what were his most famous colonies?
A Julian colonial law is mentioned in the Lex Col. Genet. 97. Veterans were probably settled in Italy under the agrarian law of 59. Caesar's most famous colonies were Carthage and Corinth. The colonia Genetiva Iulia Urbanorum in Spain was founded in 44 after Caesar's death, by a consular law of Antonius supplemented by a plebiscite.
Chapter 105
Why was the colonia Genetiva Iulia called Urbanorum, and what was the lex data?
It was called Urbanorum because it was made up of proletarians from Rome. The inscription known as the lex Coloniae Genetivae Iuliae is part of the lex data, or charter, granted the colony by its founder.
Chapter 105
What did the lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina regulate, and when was Cisalpina a province?
The so-called lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina seems to be a lex data, probably of 49. It regulated the administration of justice in Cisalpina, which remained a province till 42. The lex Rubria cited earlier is a different, earlier plebiscite, so its author is undetermined.
Chapter 105
How did the lex Iulia de Siculis arise, and what did Cicero say about it?
In 44 the lex Iulia de Siculis, published by Antonius after Caesar's death, gave full citizenship to the Sicilians, who had received the Latinitas from Caesar. Antonius asserted the dictator had carried it through the comitia, whereas Cicero states positively that no mention of such a proposition was made in the dictator's lifetime.
Chapter 105
Section 1064 cards
What did the lex Furia testamentaria do to a legacy above the legal limit?
The lex Furia testamentaria declares that the beneficiary of a legacy above the legal limit must pay fourfold, but it does not rescind the legacy itself. Macrobius cites it as an example of a lex minusquam perfecta, which prescribes a penalty yet allows the violating act to stand, in contrast to a lex perfecta, which also nullifies the contravening act. These distinctions apply only to the civil law.
Chapter 106
How did the Romans draw lots for voting, and who supervised it?
The process was called sitellam deferre: a vessel was filled with water, the lots were thrown in, and the drawing was effected by pouring out the water, which caused the pieces to fall one by one. The process was supervised by the custodes. Asconius and Cicero's Leg. Agr. are cited for the supervision.
Chapter 106
What did the formula 'si quid ius non est rogarier' provide?
The formula 'si quid ius non est rogarier, eius ea lege nihilum rogatur' provided that if anything was proposed contrary to law, nothing is proposed by that law. Cicero cites it in Caec. and Dom., and the Lex Tudertina attests it. A more detailed version appears in Cicero, Att. iii. 23. 3, and a variant concerning sacred and holy things is given by Probus.
Chapter 106
Where were laws posted so they could be read, and what replaced wooden tables?
Laws were posted so that they could be read 'unde de plano recte legi possit' — for example, in the Forum, per Dionysius. In earlier times wooden tables were used for laws as well as for rogations. Later bronze tablets were used, though a bronze tablet was sometimes employed for a mere rogation. Plebiscites and senatus consulta of international importance could be found in the temple of Faith on the Capitoline.
Chapter 106
Section 1073 cards
How did the number of votings differ between the comitia centuriata and the tribal assembly?
In the comitia centuriata, besides the prerogative, at least four and possibly seven successive votings were required before a majority could be reached. In the tribal assembly there was only one in addition to the principium. Once the comitia curiata was represented by thirty lictors, votes could be taken in a few minutes.
Chapter 107
What did the Clodian law of 58 permit regarding comitial legislation?
A Clodian law of 58 permitted comitial legislation on all dies fasti. Normally comitial days were a restricted category, and judicial business could be transacted on comitial days when the assembly did not actually meet or after adjournment if time remained. The law thus widened the days available for legislative assemblies.
Chapter 107
What did the censors convoke the comitia centuriata for?
The censors convoked the comitia centuriata for the census and the lustrum only. The chapter notes this limitation on the censors' power to summon the assembly, distinguishing their role from magistrates who could hold these comitia for elections.
Chapter 107
Section 1084 cards
What did the comitia calata handle besides wills and adoptions?
The comitia calata were auspicated assemblies with religious objects. Wills were made in them, as were adrogatio and testamentary adoptions. They also handled transitio ad plebem, the transfer of a patrician to plebeian status, and the grant of patriciate. They are also termed contio in one source, and their place of meeting and voting are discussed separately.
Chapter 108
How does the chapter distinguish comitia from concilium?
The chapter notes that Laelius defined comitia and that Livy, sacerdotal usage, Sallust, and Cicero use the terms in varying ways. Literary and juristic usages differ. The true distinctions are then set out, with comitia's uses classified and its meaning and development traced, and its relation to concilium and contio explained.
Chapter 108
What did the centuriate assembly do with capital punishment in the early republic?
Under the kings, capital punishment existed, and in the early republic the centuries voted capital punishment, as did the curiae and tribes in certain cases. The lex Porcia later abolished it, and exile was used to avoid it. Appeal to the centuriate assembly is also discussed, along with tribunician cases brought before it.
Chapter 108
What was the effect of the reform on the centuriate assembly's voting?
The reform of the centuriate organization was gradual, with essentials, date, and differing views from Niebuhr, Huschke, Pantagathus, Mommsen, Lange, and Klebs. After the reform there were five classes and tribes, with voting changes and supernumeraries. The assembly's functions included electing magistrates, legislation, and judicial cases.
Chapter 108
Section 1094 cards
What did the comitia curiata do in the early Republic regarding magistrates' imperium?
The comitia curiata passed the lex de imperio, conferring imperium on magistrates, and it was attended by augurs. Over time this function became a formality. The assembly also dealt with war and peace, legislation, jurisdiction, and elections, but lacked initiative and was subject to patrum auctoritas.
Chapter 109
How does Botsford distinguish concilium from comitia?
The author argues the true distinction lies in the assembly's composition and function, not merely in Livy's or Cicero's loose usage. He classifies the uses of concilium and traces its development, defining its relation to comitia and contio. Laelius and Mommsen offered definitions, but Botsford holds the real distinction is his own.
Chapter 109
What powers did the comitia tributa gain over time, and what could it not do?
It was incompetent to pass privilegia, yet it gained at the expense of the centuries, legalized voluntary exile, conferred imperium, and ratified the Cornelian laws. It had no legislation before the Decemvirate; conditioned legislative power was granted later, and after Hortensius its jurisdiction expanded.
Chapter 109
What was the role of the contio in Roman assemblies?
The contio was a public meeting, not a voting assembly, related to comitia and concilium. It was presided over by magistrates, used for speaking and witnessing, and served as a preliminary to comitia. Women attended it, and it could change into a comitia. Botsford calls it the earliest form of assembly.
Chapter 109
Section 1103 cards
What did the lex curiata de imperio do, and how did its role change over time?
The lex curiata de imperio confirmed imperium, and its formula and sanctioning power are discussed by Messala. It was subject to veto, and some functions were performed without it. It eventually became a formality, was revived by the optimates, and was strengthened by Sulla. The chapter also notes the lack of a curiate law in 49 B.C.
Chapter 110
How did the composition of juries (iudices) change from the senate to the late Republic?
Jurors were originally drawn from the senate. Under the leges Sempronia and Acilia they came from the knights. Qualifications were later set by the lex Cornelia, the Aurelia, the Licinia and Pompeia, and the Antonia. Jurors were also punished for bribery, showing the changing regulation of the courts.
Chapter 110
What powers and roles did the king hold in the regal period?
The king held the auspices, presided over the contio and the comitia calata and curiata, and had the right to address the people. He acted as legislator, was irresponsible, held jurisdiction, was elected, and declared war. These powers show the king's central role in early assemblies.
Chapter 110
Section 1114 cards
What did the lex Hortensia (d. 287) accomplish regarding plebiscites?
The lex Hortensia, dated to 287, made plebiscites binding on the whole people, giving them the force of law. The chapter also notes its effect on the comitia centuriata and its provisions on tribunician jurisdiction and the veto. The author treats it as epoch-making in social history.
Chapter 111
What did the lex Ogulnia (t. 300) do concerning priests?
The lex Ogulnia of 300 dealt with the sacerdotes, opening priestly colleges to plebeians. The chapter lists it among laws on sacerdotes alongside the Domitia on election of priests, which Sulla later repealed and which was subsequently renewed.
Chapter 111
What was the purpose of the Leges Porciae de provocatione?
The Leges Porciae de provocatione, dated 198-184, concerned the right of appeal (provocatio) of Roman citizens against magistrates. The chapter groups them with other laws on appeal, such as the Duillia of 449, and treats them as part of the development of citizen protections.
Chapter 111
What did the lex Gabinia of 67 grant Pompey?
The lex Gabinia of 67 granted imperium to Pompey, an extraordinary command. The chapter also lists the lex Manilia of 66, which likewise granted imperium to Pompey, and the lex Cornelia of 80 on Pompey's return. The author presents these as part of Pompey's accumulation of extraordinary powers.
Chapter 111
Section 1124 cards
What does the so-called Publilia law of 471 BCE concern, and whom does it not exclude?
The so-called Publilia law (471 BCE) is discussed at pages 196, 233, and 270-2. It does not exclude patricians, as noted at 262, n. 2, and 271. It is confused with the L. Publilia Philonis. A separate Publilia (dated 339 BCE) covers patrum auctoritas, plebiscita, and consuls, and does exclude patricians.
Chapter 112
What did the Publilia law of 339 BCE regulate, and what was its relation to the Valerian-Horatian laws?
The Publilia of 339 BCE (pages 299-302) dealt with patrum auctoritas, plebiscita, and consuls. It excludes patricians (262, n. 2, 276 f.). Its relation to the Valerian-Horatian laws is treated at page 300.
Chapter 112
What did the Valeria Horatia laws of c. 449 BCE cover, and by what was one of them violated?
The Valeria Horatia laws (c. 449 BCE) are treated at 234, 274-80, and 474. They include provisions de provocatione (233, 241) and are classed as a lex sacrata (265, n. 1). They were violated by the rogatio Servilia (259), and bear on the oath of the plebs, tribunician jurisdiction, and the sanctity of plebeian officials.
Chapter 112
What did the Sempronia agraria of 133 BCE do regarding a colleague's potestas?
The Sempronia agraria of 133 BCE is treated at 363-7 and 371. It abrogated the potestas of a colleague, as noted at 366, 367 f., and 391. The related Sempronia de provocatione of 123 BCE appears at 355 f. and 371, with further Sempronian laws on frumentaria, taxation of Asia, consular provinces, military service, and colonies.
Chapter 112
Section 1134 cards
How did the Hortensian law affect the validity of plebi scita?
According to the chapter, plebi scita were originally binding on the plebs only, then given conditioned validity (274-9), and the Publilian law addressed them at 300. The Hortensian law made them unconditionally valid (313, 463).
Chapter 113
What did the Publilian law of 339 B.C. do regarding patrum auctoritas?
The chapter lists the Publilian law on patrum auctoritas at 300, in connection with Publilius Philo, consul and dictator in 339. It is treated alongside the Hortensian and Maenian laws as part of the sequence of changes to that auctoritas.
Chapter 113
What was the role of the plebeian magistrates in presiding over assemblies?
Plebeian magistrates occupy templa but do not auspicate assemblies; they preside over the contio (140 f.) and the comitia (465, 469). The chapter also notes the question whether their assemblies were auspicated (122 f.).
Chapter 113
What was the quaestio perpetua and how did Sulla change it?
The quaestio perpetua affected centuriate jurisdiction and included courts such as repetundarum and inter sicarios. Sulla increased the number of these courts (257 f., 324), and they were composed of senators (374, 419).
Chapter 113
Section 1144 cards
According to the chapter, what did the Senate do to comitial acts?
The chapter lists that the Senate annuls comitial acts, citing numerous passages (106 f., 109, 113, 396, 399 f., 405, 433, 457, n. 7, 459). This is presented as one of the Senate's recurring powers in its relation to the assemblies, alongside granting imperium and declaring war.
Chapter 114
What did the Hortensian law establish regarding the tribunician veto?
The chapter states that the tribunician veto was established by the Hortensian law (270, 315), and that the Senate later lost legal control of the tribunician assembly (313 f., 316). The veto's original lack is also noted (269, 279).
Chapter 114
What did the Valerian-Horatian law confirm about sacrosanctitas?
The chapter states sacrosanctitas protected the plebeian assembly (266) and was confirmed by the lex Valeria Horatia (274). Its origin, religious and legal basis, and relation to tribunician jurisdiction are also noted (265 f., 273 f.).
Chapter 114
What did the Twelve Tables guarantee regarding appeal?
The chapter states the Twelve Tables guarantee the right of appeal (240), provide for legislation (233 f., 307, 368, 464, 474), and grant jurisdiction to tribes (474). They also forbid conubium (294) and contain criminal laws (357).
Chapter 114
Section 1154 cards
What restrictions does the index note on women's rights in Roman society?
The chapter's index entries state that women were debarred from the assemblies, that their luxury was restrained, and that their right of inheritance was restricted. These points are given as index references with page numbers rather than developed discussion, so the chapter records the restrictions without explaining their operation.
Chapter 115
According to the index, what was taxed, and where are the references found?
The index entry reads 'Widows and orphans, tax on,' with references to pages 62 and 93. The chapter supplies only the index heading and page citations, not the rate, purpose, or historical circumstances of the tax.
Chapter 115
What does the index entry for Zaleucus consist of?
The index lists 'Zaleucus, 177,' giving only the name and a single page reference. The chapter provides no further information about who Zaleucus was or what the page discusses; the entry is a bare index citation.
Chapter 115
What do the publisher's advertisements at the end of the chapter list?
The closing pages are advertisements for Macmillan handbooks on archaeology and antiquities, including works by Fowler, Frothingham, the Gardners, Greenidge, Hill, Lanciani, Lowrie, and Marquand, with prices. They also advertise books on Roman society by Fowler and Dill, and reference works such as Seyffert's dictionary.
Chapter 115
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