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It is much easier, however, to indicate the meaning and origin of the jurisdiction confided to the Comitia Calata, than to trace its gradual development or progressive decay. The Testament to which the pedigree of all modern Wills may be traced is not, however, the Testament executed in the Calata Comitia, but another Testament designed to compete with it and destined to supersede it.
We have it stated on abundant authority that Testaments, during the primitive period of the Roman State, were executed in the Comitia Calata, that is, in the Comitia Curiata, or Parliament of the Patrician Burghers of Rome, when assembled for Private Business.
The proper key to the story concerning the execution of Wills in the Comitia Calata must no doubt be sought in the oldest Roman Law of intestate succession.
It is well known to scholars that, centuries after the Patrician Assembly had ceased to be the legislature of the Roman State, it still continued to hold formal sittings for the convenience of private business. Consequently, at a period long subsequent to the publication of the Decemviral Law, there is reason to believe that the Comitia Calata still assembled for the validation of Testaments.
This publicity may have been one of the incidents of the Testament executed in the Comitia Calata which brought it into popular disfavour. In the early years of the Empire the Comitia still held its meetings, but they seem to have lapsed into the merest form, and few Wills, or none, were probably presented at the periodical sitting.
1 Lest the antiquities of this branch of law should be entirely forgotten, it should be known that originally two kinds of testaments were in use, one of which our ancestors employed in times of peace and quiet, and which was called the will made in the comitia calata, while the other was resorted to when they were setting out to battle, and was called procinctum.
It is the ancient Plebeian Will the alternative of the Testament just described which in its remote effects has deeply modified the civilisation of the modern world. It acquired at Rome all the popularity which the Testament submitted to the Calata Comitia appears to have lost.
Marius had applied for men for his levies to Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, who replied that he had none to send, because the Roman publicani had carried off most of his subjects and sold them as slaves. He suppressed the first rebels by treachery. Athenion, deferring to his authority, became his general, and Triocala, supposed to be near the modern Calata Bellotta, was their head-quarters.
The assembled people of Palermo, with one voice, accepted the terms, and by their desire, on the 3d of April, they were sworn to on the Gospels by the captains and counsellors of the city, with the deputies of Corleone, and officially registered among the public acts; Palermo binding herself, moreover, to assist her ally in the destruction of the strong fortress of Calata Mauro.
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