Comitia curiata

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The comitia curiata ( comitia from comire = to come together ; curia presumably from co-viria = men's association ; curia assembly) are the oldest manifestation of a popular assembly in Roman antiquity. In the form known today, they are likely from the 5th century BC. Their roots possibly go back to the time of the establishment of the Roman community , thus to the time of the Roman city foundation. From the individual parishes, 30 patrician curiae emerged. Ten of them each formed a tribus (total community), comparable to the archaic phratries of ancient Greece . Each of the three tribus had cavalry squadrons and a centurion of infantry.

In the heyday of the republican constitution , three different forms of organization of popular assemblies were known. In addition to the Comitia curiata, these were also the bodies of the Comitia centuriata and Comitia tributa (which were probably created later) . They were shaped by the fact that organized associations appeared in them that made decisions and held elections on important political fatefulness such as war and peace. It remains to be seen whether this also applied to the first manifestation of the Curial Assembly for the royal period, but it is more likely that its functions were limited to the inauguration of the king and otherwise only in certain matters of inheritance law ( adrogationes ) and ritual acts for the establishment of heirs ( testamentum calatis comitiis ) was involved. During the Central Republican period, which was historically more tangible, the comitia curiata should only have been considering sacral law tasks, which they carried out under the chairmanship of the Pontifex Maximus . Since the late republic the constitution of the Curia has practically no longer existed, the meetings were de facto held by 30 lictors in the absence of the citizen . Occasionally, however, their decisions could still be relevant, for example, the committee determined that Octavian's testamentary adoption by Caesar was legitimate, and this probably made his political career possible for the later emperor Augustus .

Popular assemblies in context

With reference to the XII panels in XII tab. 9.2 ( comitiatus maximus ) were the centuriate comitia ( comitia centuriata ) already since the overlap from the 6th to the 5th century BC. Known. They originally had the character of a citizens' meeting in a thoroughly political sense after they had emerged from the military protective power of the heavily armed hoplite army . The military character of this type of people's assembly was lost in the Severan period at the latest in order to pass over to regulatory tasks. The youngest citizens' assembly was the Comitia Tributa , probably from the end of the 5th century BC. It was civil in nature from the start.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Gai. 1.99.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Wolfgang Kunkel / Martin Schermaier : Römische Rechtsgeschichte , 14th edition. UTB, Cologne / Vienna 2005, § 1 ( The early city-state as the starting point for the development of Roman law ), pp. 1–31 (10–12).
  3. ↑ It is not assumed that plebeians were completely excluded, since the curia order formed the basis of the oldest army constitutions in Rome.
  4. ↑ For this: Dig. 1.7.15.2; 17.3 Ulpian 26 Sab
  5. ^ Herbert Hausmaninger , Walter Selb : Roman private law. Böhlau, Vienna 1981 (9th edition 2001), ISBN 3-205-07171-9 , p. 8 f.
  6. ^ Jan Dirk Harke : Roman law. From the classical period to the modern codifications . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57405-4 ( floor plans of the law ), § 18 no. 19 (p. 297).