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It was the same man, who in this respect pre-eminently deserved the name of Publicola, who carried in favor of the people the first law received in the Comitia Centuriata, that no magistrate should sentence to death or scourging a Roman citizen who appealed from his authority to the people.
The non-burgesses indeed gained by it burgess-rights, and the new burgess-body acquired in the -comitia centuriata- comprehensive prerogatives; but the right of rejection on the part of the patrician senate, which in firm and serried ranks confronted the -comitia- as if it were an Upper House, legally hampered their freedom of movement precisely in the most important matters, and although not in a position to thwart the serious will of the collective body, could yet practically delay and cripple it.
The magistrates were all elected by the Senate or the people, and sometimes proposed by the one and confirmed by the other. No case, involving the life of a Roman citizen, could be decided except by the Comitia Centuriata. The election of a magistrate, or the passing of a law, though made on the ground of a senatus consultum, yet required the sanction of the curiae.
Finally, the senate seems to have decided that its restoration to Cicero was part of the general restitutio in integrum voted by the comitia centuriata; and a sum of money was assigned to him for the rebuilding of the house. Clodius refused to recognize the validity of this decree of the senate, and attempted by violence to interrupt the workmen engaged on the house.
But as the State became more and more democratic, the Comitia Tributa was more used than the Comitia Centuriata, in which legislation was gradually confined to special matters assigned to them by law or custom.
The age of Grecian culture, of wealth, of banquets, of palaces, of games, of effeminate manners, had set in with the conquest of Greece and Asia. The divisions of society widened, and the seeds of luxury and pride were to produce violence and decay. The Comitia Centuriata was remodeled. The equites no longer voted first.
It is probable that Drusus's announcement caused an entire suspension of the legal machinery connected with the franchise bill, and that its author never ventured to bring it to the vote. It is possible that to this stage of Gracchus's career belongs a proposal which he promulgated for a change in the order of voting at the Comitia Centuriata.
On the 8th of August, while still at Brundisium, I learnt by a letter from Quintus that the law had been passed at the comitia centuriata with a surprising enthusiasm on the part of all ages and ranks, and with an incredible influx of voters from Italy.
What Herennius proposed was that it should take place by a regular lex, passed by the comitia tributa. The object apparently was to avoid the necessity of the presence of a pontifex and augur, which was required at the comitia curiata. The concurrent law by the consul would come before the comitia centuriata.
From the time that the non-freehold burgesses had been enrolled in the tribes, they too came thus into the centuries, and, while they were restricted in the -comitia tributa- to the four urban divisions, they had in the -comitia centuriata- formally the same right with the freehold burgesses, although probably the censorial arbitrary prerogative intervened in the composition of the centuries, and granted to the burgesses enrolled in the rural tribes the preponderance also in the centuriate assembly.
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