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Updated: June 24, 2025
And he caused a law to be passed that the existing order of voting in the Comitia Centuriata, according to which the five property classes voted first, should be done away with, and that all the centuries should vote in the order to be determined by lot.
But Servius Tullius instituted the Comitia Centuriata, and hence divided the populus into six property classes, and one hundred and ninety-three centuriae.
For greater security as regards the latter, moreover, the order of voting still subsisting in the -comitia centuriata-, according to which the five property-classes in each tribe gave their votes one after another, was done away; instead of this, all the centuries were in future to vote promiscuously in an order of succession to be fixed on each occasion by lot.
But in the struggle of the two orders those things which were opened to the plebeians grew in importance and entirely overshadowed those which were so scrupulously hedged about, and the elements which strove to resist progress were crushed beneath it; and just as the old assembly, the Comitia Curiata, which the patricians had kept for themselves, was later of no account compared with the Comitia Centuriata, which belonged to both orders, so the college of pontiffs lost significance while the keepers of the oracles gained steadily in power and influence.
Spurius Cassius proposed to the Comitia Centuriata that the public domain—land obtained by conquest—should be measured, and a part reserved for the use of the State, and another portion distributed among the needy citizens—a just proposition, since no property held by individuals was meddled with.
So little taste, however, for order and beauty, did those display who had the direction of the works, that the city, when rebuilt, was even less regular than in the time of Romulus. This account appears so absurd as to be scarcely credible; in fact, Manlius was first tried by the "comitia centuriata," and acquitted.
The Comitia Centuriata elected the magistrates and made laws, and formed the highest court of appeal, but all its decisions had to be sanctioned by the curiae, although in course of time the curia was a formality. The centuries met in the Campus Martius, and were presided over by the consuls, who read the names of the candidates.
The new consuls were not, or did not consider themselves, so bound, and Lentulus having brought the subject forward, the senate early passed a resolution that Cicero's recall was to take precedence of all other business. In accordance with the resolution of the senate, a law was proposed by the consul Lentulus in the comitia centuriata, and probably one by Milo to the tributa.
The censors wore rich robes of scarlet, and had almost kingly dignity. The term of office of the censors at first was a lustrum or five years, but ten years later it was limited to eighteen months. A score of years passed, however, before any plebeian was actually chosen to the office of military tribune even, owing to the great influence of the patricians in the comitia centuriata.
The poor and the freedmen began to be of some importance in the commonwealth from the time when they served it; and chiefly from this cause arose one of the most important constitutional changes of this epoch the remodelling of the -comitia centuriata-, which most probably took place in the same year in which the war concerning Sicily terminated Reform of the Centuries
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