This vital power was still retained by the Comitia when criminal justice was concerned with those elemental facts which are the condition of the existence of a state.
He made no effort to give the Roman Comitiaan organisation which would have placed it on something like the independent level of a Greek Ecclesia.
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.
It is possible that the usual date for the elections had already been passed and that It was only the postponement of the Comitia that gave Marius a chance of success.
Flaccus entered an appeal against the fine, and the judgment of the Comitia was invited.
The three commissioners created by the bill were to be elected annually by the Comitia of the Tribes.
The Comitia now heard the whole story of the conduct of the Roman arms against the barbarians of the North.
When the consular comitia were near, and all were at the highest point of expectation, Caius appeared conducting Caius Fannius into the Campus Martius, and canvassing with his friends for Fannius.
And accordingly he says that when comitiaare spoken of, we never find urns or sitellae spoken of in the plural number.
The Tribunes were elected at the Comitia Tributa, but they derived their powers by uninterrupted succession from the consecrated act (Lex Sacrata) done on the Holy Mount and confirmed after the overthrow of the Decemviral power.
The meeting of these military orders was called the comitia centuriata, or the "assembly of hundreds.
The Popular Assembly (comitia curiata) comprised all the citizens of Rome, that is, all the members of the patrician families, old enough to bear arms.
This body, which of course was made up of patricians and plebeians, gradually absorbed the powers of the earlier patrician assembly (comitia curiata).
The method of selecting magistrates and of holding comitia (chapter 20).
For he had no colleague; though this, as some think, was not intentional, but the regular appointee died and no one else in so short a period of time as was available could be brought forward in the comitia to fill his place.
On his new division of the people according to property were raised the highly important institutions of the census andcomitia centuriata.
Extension of the prerogatives of the comitia tributa, more especially in the election of the tribunes, brought about by Volero, 472.
Hence arise the comitia tributa; that is to say, either mere assemblies of the commons, or assemblies so organized that the commons had the preponderance.
The privileges of the colonies were more restricted, for they were absolutely excluded from the Roman comitia and magistracies.
This account appears so absurd as to be scarcely credible; in fact, Manlius was first tried by the "comitia centuriata," and acquitted.
The people voted in the comitia centuriata by centuries; that is, the vote of each century was taken separately and counted only as one.
His second trial was before the "comitia curiata," where his enemies, the patricians, alone had the right of voting.
The "comitia curiata," assembled in the comi'tium, the general assemblies of the people were held in the forum.
It was on this account that the plebeians would not consent to place the comitia tributa under the sanction of the auspices.
The next great change took place after the expulsion of the kings; annual magistrates, called consuls, were elected in the comitia centuriata, but none but patricians could hold this office.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the exclusive right of legislation; for it appears that the comitia centuriata were sometimes summoned to give their sanction to laws which had been previously enacted by the curiæ.
In these comitia the kings were elected and invested with royal authority.
All these elections were conducted with a certain degree of order, troubled only once in the comitia for the aedileship.
Cato's reproaches had none the less produced their effect; and, to put an end to suspicions, Pompey permitted the consular comitia to be held.
Metellus tried to hold the comitia by surprise,[601] and proceeded by night to the Campus Martius through bye streets; but he was well watched.
It was by favour of this interregnum that the comitia were held.
The tribune Curio claims the right of the comitia which had been set aside.
Caesar offered himself to the consular comitia of the year 705.
The interrex who presided over the comitia proclaimed, without opposition, Crassus and Pompey consuls.
The comitia opened in the month of Sextilis of the year 701; the consuls named were Cn.
When the Comitia came on, Cicero admits that he occupied the voting place in the Campus Martius with a guard of men who could be depended on.
The year of Milo's tribunate being over, Clodius was chosen aedile without further trouble; and, instead of being the victim of a prosecution, he at once impeached Milo for the interruption of the Comitia on the 18th of November.
The citizens assembled in the Comitia were the sovereign authority in the State, and they exercised their power immediately and not by representatives.
There were fights again in the Forum, the young nobles with their gangs once more breaking up the Comitiaand driving the people from the voting-places.
The arrangements of the Comitia were readjusted to restore to wealth a decisive preponderance in the election of the magistrates.
The Senate might continue to debate, the Comitia might elect the annual magistrates.
He had taken one revolutionary step already; he was driven on to another, and he offered himself illegally to the Comitia for re-election.
The "Comitia Tributa" were used as courts of appeal, when a person protested against a fine imposed by a magistrate.
Fifthly, the votes were to be taken, not in the Comitia Tributa, but in the Comitia of Centuries.
The functions of the Comitia Centuriata were, as we have, seen, also legislative.
Sulla did not abolish the Comitia Tributa; but the measures just mentioned, as they left the practical power of legislation with the Senate, left the formal power with the Comitia Centuriata.
His object in consolidating them was to take from the Comitia the settlement of criminal cases, and to obviate the necessity for appointing special commissions.
Thirdly, the balance in the Comitia themselves was so adjusted that the voting would be mostly in the Senate's interests.
Sidenote: History of theComitia Tributa and Centuriata.
But he may be confusing things, and only mean that Sulla took the voting power from the Comitia Tributa and vested it in the Comitia Centuriata.
Comitia centuriata were assemblies of the various centuries into which the six classes of the people were divided.
No one could pass from a Patrician family to a Plebeian, or from a Plebeian to a Patrician, unless by that form of adoption which could only be made at the comitia curiata.
None but the whole Roman people in the comitia centuriata could pass sentence on the life of a Roman citizen.
Comitia centuriata were the most important of all the assemblies of the people.
Ten tables of laws were proposed by them, and ratified by the people at the comitia centuriata.
In the early years of the Empire the Comitiastill 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.
This being so, the inference seems inevitable, that the cognizance of Wills by the Comitia was connected with the rights of the Gentiles, and was intended to secure them in their privilege of ultimate inheritance.
The effect of the political maxim, Plebs Gentem non habet, "a Plebeian cannot be a member of a House," was entirely to exclude the Plebeians from the Comitia Curiata.
Not so, however, theComitia Curiata or Comitia Tributa.
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.
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 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.
Now the Patrician Assembly called the Comitia Curiata was a Legislature in which Gentes or Houses were exclusively represented.
Above all, he was surrounded by a populace which took its revenge for the loss of its free Comitia by a surprising licence of lampoon and epigram and mordant gossip and clamorous appeal in the circus and theatre.
Domitia transferred the election of new members of the colleges of augurs and pontiffs from the colleges themselves to a Comitia of seventeen tribes chosen by lot.
Development of the tribunate and the comitia tributa.
During the early years of the Republic, the popular Assembly, which had the power of electing the consuls and passing or rejecting such measures as the latter brought before it, was probably the oldcomitia curiata.
The more important of these powers were the right to sit in the Senate, to address, and even to convene that body, and the right to prosecute any magistrate before the comitia tributa.
From this time on, too, the comitia tributa, now embracing all the tribes, the rural as well as the urban, was a regular institution of the state.
Beyond question, however, they were included in the curiae and had the right to vote in the comitia curiata.
And when Bibulus and Cato essayed to obstruct legislation in the Comitia he crushed all opposition by the aid of Pompey's veterans.
From a very early date the Roman people were divided into thirty groups called curiae, and these curiae served as the units in the organization of the oldest popular assembly--the comitia curiata.
In this assembly we have the origin of the comitia tributa or Assembly of the Tribes.
The concurrent law by the consul would come before the comitia centuriata.
Footnote 633: The object of the existing consuls in making such a bargain was to get to their provinces without difficulty, with imperium, which had to be bestowed by a formal meeting of the old comitia curiata.
What Herennius proposed was that it should take place by a regular lex, passed by the comitia tributa.
Footnote 456: Milo impeached by Clodius before the comitia tributa for his employment of gladiators.
The object apparently was to avoid the necessity of the presence of a pontifex and augur, which was required at the comitia curiata.
Cicero is wrong: more probably the honour was conferred on Duilius by a vote of the Comitia Tributa.
Comitia Tributa), were invested with the right of ‘intercession,’ by which they could stop all legislation that they judged to be harmful to the plebeians.
The consuls were elected by the Comitia Centuriata, the new assembly organized by Servius Tullius.
Their children and grandchildren lost their votes in the Comitia and were excluded from all public offices.
Julius Caesar first entertained the idea of setting up marble enclosures for the comitia centuriata, and surrounding them with a magnificent portico.
Marco, to the east of the site of the ancient Circus Flaminius, stood the Septa, an ancient building erected for the purpose of holding the Roman comitia or elections.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "comitia" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
