The Republic (from latin res publica, « the public thing ») is funded in Rome in 509 BC. It thus gets rid of king Tarquin the ‘Superbus’ during a revolution exploited by the aristocrats. This context explains, for a big part, certain political constants in the ancient Rome, as the fear, quasi phobic, of tyranny and personal power: « The despotism of the last king has given much more attractivity to liberty », writes Livius in his History (II-1).

Born in a nobilian reaction, the roman Republic is thus originally controlled by an oligarchy, the populus , which is, at this time, just the gathering of the patricians, not the whole population as today.

The Republic ends in 27 BC, when the Senate gives general Octavius Augustus the leading of the State. Then begins the Principate and the Empire.

In a system where citizens are the only free men, noble (patricians) or not (plebeians) - i.e. woman, children, foreigners and slaves are not ‘cives’ - Roman civil institutions will be built, from the Republic on, on a separation and a balance between three powers: the assemblies of the People, which represent the democratic element, the Senate, the aristocratic element, and the executive composed by magistrates, the ‘royal’ element.

The assemblies of the People

Male citizens, old enough to wear weapons (17 y. old), gather in two great types of comitia:

The comitia curiata

This is the genuine form of gathering of the People, composed of ten ‘curiae’ by tribes, that is to say thirty curiae.

The assembly would elect the king and give him the imperium on the proposition of the Senate, would register the laws, take part of the judicial power, particularly in appeal, and, called ‘comitia calata’ and chaired by the Pontifex maximus, would have religious powers.

The comitia curiata remained during the second part of the Republic but just, from 339 BC on, in order to give the imperium to the appropriate magistrates, specially the consuls.

Comitia centuriata and tributa

The comitia centuriata

This assembly gathers outside the city, on the field of Mars. It has been created 200 years after the fundation of Rome, on a censitary base: the richs control it. Five classes form these comitia, from the richest to the least. The richer have the majority of the votes, so that when they have cast their votes, the other classes’s one has no importance left, and is even often not organized. The comitia centuriata elect the upper magistrates, vote certain kind of laws and the war declarations. They judge in appeal the magistrates’ decisions (‘provocatio’).

The comitia tributa

At the beginning, these are the assemblies of the Plebs (the non-owners), which has made secession in 494 BC. As they become more important as well as the powers of the Tribunes of the plebs, patricians begun coming in this assembly to vote during the 3rd century BC. At last, time passing by, this assembly represented the whole citizenry. These comitia tributa vote most of laws, elect the aediles and the quaestors. In their « concilium plebis » form, limited to plebeians, they also elect the tribunes and aediles of the plebs.

Sextus Apollonius Scipio