The Centuriate Assembly in Ancient Rome
The categories established at regular intervals in the census were the basis of all assemblies. The Centuriate assembly (comitia centuriata), which only an official with imperium could summon, was organized like the army with the presiding official acting as a commander and the voters as soldiers. For this reason, it met only outside the sacred limits or pomerium of the city, since commanders could not issue binding orders to their soldiers within Rome. Voting was oral, and each citizen, when summoned to vote, signified his acceptance or rejection of any candidate or proposal by word of mouth. This voting was organized and tallied by centuries, which voted in turn. Each century possessed one vote, which was itself determined by the votes of a majority of the century’s members who were present. Victory in a straight majority of centuries determined the outcome. In general, the Centuriate assembly elected new consuls, praetors, and censors, and voted on matters of war and peace.
Procedures in this assembly favored any presiding official, and also the wealthiest citizens. In elections, the former was entitled to accept or reject the names of would be candidates, although it is unclear how freely this right was exercised in similar passage in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities (4.16.1–18.3), this is the most complete surviving account of the classes that made up the census. There remain problems with both accounts in particular, elements of speculative reconstruction are detectible and the link between a census class and its members’ military equipment was almost certainly not as rigid as portrayed here. In any event, Livy’s census certainly fits third century conditions better than those of the sixth, where both he and Dionysius place their descriptions.Note that juniores were male citizens between seventeen and forty five years of age, while seniores were older.Later, during the second century, the distribution of centuriae may have been changed in a way that reduced the influence of the first class.
Servius Tullius then began by far the greatest work of peace. Just as Numa was the author of religious laws, so Servius shone among posterity as the founder of all dis-tinctions within the city and of the orders that mark out the grades of fortune and dignity. For he began the census, a most useful measure for so great a future empire, since it distributed the burdens of war and peace, not individually as before, but according to level of wealth. From the census, for use in war or peace, he then defined classes and centuries and the following gradations.
From those who had a census of 100,000 asses [a monetary unit] or more, he formed eighty centuriae, forty each of seniores and juniores; all were called the first class. The seniores were to be ready to guard the city, the juniores to wage war abroad. For armor, they were to provide helmet, round shield, greaves, and breastplate, all of bronze, as protection for their bodies; as weapons, they were to have a spear and a sword. Two centuriae of carpenters and smiths, who served without weapons, were added to these; they had the duty of making siege machines in war. The second class was instituted from those who had a census of between 75,000 and 100,000 asses; from these, both seniores and juniores, twenty centuriae were enrolled. They were to use a long rectangular shield instead of a round one; except for the breastplate, their remaining arms were the same as for the first class. Servius Tullius wished the census of the third class to be 50,000 asses. Here, he made the same number of centuriae as in the second class, with the same distinctions of age. There was no difference in their equipment, except that the greaves were omitted. In the fourth class, the census was 25,000 asses. The same number of centuriae were formed, but their equipment was different, because they had to provide only a spear and a javelin. The fifth class was larger, and thirty centuriae were formed for it; these men carried slings and stones for missiles. With them were hornblowers and trumpeters divided into two centuriae. The census of this fifth class was 11,000 asses. Those whose census was less than this, the remainder of the population, formed a single centuria and were exempt from military service.
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