Roman assemblies

The Roman Republic (Latin: Res Publica Romanorum) vested formal governmental powers in four separate people's assemblies — the Comitia Curiata, the Comitia Centuriata, the Comitia Tributa, and the Concilium Plebis. The Latin Comitia is sometimes rendered in English as Comices.

Tribal Assembly

The Comitia Tributa included both patricians and plebeians distributed among the thirty-five tribes into which all Roman citizens were placed for administrative and electoral purposes. The vast majority of the urban population of Rome was distributed among the four urban tribes, which meant that their votes were individually insignificant. Like the Centuriate Assembly, voting was indirect, with one vote apportioned to each tribe. The voting was therefore heavily slanted in favor of the thirty-one rural tribes. The Tribal Assembly met in the well of the Comitia in the Forum Romanum, and elected the aediles (curulis only), the quaestors, and the tribunes of the soldiers (tribuni militum). It conducted most trials until the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla established the standing courts (quaestiones).

Related Topics:
Forum Romanum - Aedile - Quaestor - Tribune - Lucius Cornelius Sulla

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