The assembly of the people {comitia curiata)
According to Roman tradition, the curiate assembly {comitia curiata), Rome's oldest popular assembly, was established by Romulus himself shortly after the founding of the city.[164] The assembly was made up of the thirty curiae or wards in which the whole citizen body {populus Romanus) was divided.
Its functions were probably of a largely religious nature and included the inauguration of the king and the election of priests. The assembly also met to consider important matters concerning the community as a whole, such as the declaration of war or the conclusion of peace and the admission of a new gens into the existing ones. Although the curiate assembly, strictly speaking, did not have any legislative power, one of its most important functions was the formal sanctioning of the laws proposed by the king in exercise of his imperium.[165] Moreover, as was noted before, following the election of a new king it granted him his imperium, or supreme command, by a special law, the lex curiata de imperio. Although the political role of the assembly during the regal era seems to have been, in general, a passive one, the idea that political authority rested ultimately with the Roman people as a whole proved to be of great importance in the development of Roman political theory.With respect to private law the comitia curiata performed two important functions: they ratified the admission of a person into an existing gens (adrogatio or adoptio per populum), and witnessed public testaments (testamentum calatis comitiis). When an individual passed by adoption from one clan to another the sanctioning of the curiate assembly (auctoritas populi) was deemed necessary for, once the adoption was complete, the person adopted was no longer obliged to observe the religious rituals (gentilicia sacra) of the clan to which he originally belonged but only those of the clan into which he was adopted.
The sanctioning took the form of a legislative act and the relevant procedure was supervised by the pontifex maximus. Moreover, the comitia were often invited to witness and confirm the making of wills. A will made before the people amounted to a formal declaration of the way in which the testator wanted his property to be disposed of after his death.[166] [167] When it was discharging this latter function the assembly was presided over by the pontifex maximus, and was referred to as comitia calata. Finally, as was mentioned before, the curiate assembly acted as a final court of appeal with respect to sentences involving death or the loss of liberty or citizenship (provocatio adpopulum).The curiate assembly was summoned by the king through a herald (calator).M In the later part of the regal era an official known as lictor curiatus gave notice of a forthcoming meeting of the assembly to the members of the curiae (there were thirty lictors, one for each curia). During the period of the interregnum the assembly was convened by the interrex with the approval of the senate. The curio maximus or a pontiff could also convoke the assembly for the purpose of carrying out certain religious functions. The meeting of the assembly was preceded by the taking of the auspices and no meeting could take place if the auspices were deemed unfavourable. Voting in the curiate assembly was conducted in two stages. First, voting took place within each curia separately - a citizen could cast his vote only within the curia to which he belonged. The majority of the members of a curia determined the vote of that curia. Then the votes of all the curiae were cast and the majority of the curiae determined the vote of the assembly. But no debate took place during the proceedings. The assembly's vote simply took the form of a 'yes' or 'no' and the proposal put before them could only be accepted unconditionally and without any modifications.[168] [169]
More on the topic The assembly of the people {comitia curiata):
- The comitia curiata
- The 'Servian reforms' and the decline of the curiate assembly
- The Assemblies of the People
- The criminal jurisdiction of the comitia: iudicia populi
- The comitia tributa
- The comitia centuriata
- Why do people do acts that are agreeable or useful to other people and why do evaluators approve of such acts, and even approve of acts agreeable or useful to the actor herself?
- Types of people present
- Seeds and people
- Disciplining the people
- People desire wealth.
- The answer to the question “who farms?” for most people is simple: farmers.
- Adjudication of public crimes by the people may have been efficacious in the context of a small city-state composed of conservative farmers and middle-class citizens.
- The first person that after having built a fence around a piece of land, declared: This is mine, and found people simple-minded enough to believe him, was the real founder of society.
- While farmers have a cabinet-level agency devoted to their interests, there are also millions of other people affected by farm policy who generally have little to no say in it and receive few benefits.
- Williamson C.. The laws of the Roman people: public law in the expansion and decline of the Roman Republic. University of Michigan,2005. — 535 p., 2005