Comitia Curiata

This was the assembly of the people. The comitia curiata used to convene even during the time of the kings. These assemblies were always presided over by a magistrate: a king at first, and later by a consul, a praetor or a dictator.

The citizens were summoned to vote by lictores (officers carrying the fasces, i.e. the rods and ax that were the official symbols of government authority in Rome) (Gell. XV.27). The people gathered for the elections at the comitium (later saepta) in the Campus Martius.

The Roman people were divided into several curiae. Each citizen had one vote and the majority of the individual votes determined the vote of the curia. Each curia had one vote regardless of the number of people belonging in it.

The comitia curiata were represented by 30 lictors, who gave the vote of their curia in the presence of 3 augurs. The majority of the thirty votes determined the outcome of the voting (Livy I.43). The curiae voted all in the same day and at the same time, but the order that the votes were announced was decided by lot.

The functions of the comitia curiata were limited to approving or refusing any proposal presented to them by the presiding magistrate. Customarilly, the assembly was consulted in cases of aggressive war or other important matters, such as extending citizenship rights to other people.

By the end of the kingship, the functions of the comitia curiata were transferred to the comitia centuriata. The comitia curiata could no longer elect magistrates, pass laws or declare war. They did continue to meet, however, for other purposes, mainly pro forma. Their function became passive, and so they could only witness adoptions or the making of wills, and gather to hear from the pontiffs on the calends of each month (i.e., the first day of the month) on which days the nones and the ides would fall (Gell. XV.17).