The apportionment of the centuries was nakedly
timocratic, with the rich and the old massively over-represented. There were two different ways that the centuries were apportioned. However, both organisations retained some key features. The highest rank in the system were those of the equestrians. They received eighteen centuries of 193 total centuries (9.33 per cent). However, these were reserved only for those who were
equites equo publico (cavalry on public horse), which made up only 1,800 men (around 0.20 per cent of the population). This persisted through to the late republic, where the electorate numbered around 910,000. Among the equites were also six centuries called the
sex suffragia. They received names, divided into and , according to the three
Romulean tribes (Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres). While modern scholarship has long suggested that these six centuries were reserved for
patricians, there is "no firm evidence" of this. Others have also conjectured that the 300 senators were allotted to these prestigious centuries. Both organisations also retained the five class system, which ranked citizens into these five classes by their property as declared in the census. Beyond the classes were five supernumerary centuries: they were two centuries of artisans (smiths and carpenters) who voted with the first class, two centuries of musicians (trumpeters and horn-players) who voted with the fifth, and a single century for the proletarii who voted last. The proletarii, from which English gets the word "proletariat", were in Rome those without sufficient property to qualify for the fifth class and were seen as valuable to the state only in the children they would produce. The structure of the assembly was recognised at the time as unequal. Cicero, for example, defends its inequality in
De re publica, saying that "the
suffragia [vote] should be in control not of the multitude but of the rich" and that the structure of the
comitia was purposeful so that the principle that "the greatest number should not have the greatest influence", be observed. This was justified with the belief that the rich better understood the welfare of the state. The effect of this structure also meant that many times, the poorer citizens were never called to vote, since majorities would already have been reached; poorer citizens were only called when the elite was divided, an occurrence without substantial certainty.
Servian organisation In the late third century or early second century BC, the division of centuries was as in the following table. There is no available information as to how this organisation developed through the period from its legendary institution by Servius to the version relayed in the sources. Moreover, it has been argued that the denomination of the proper qualifications in
asses, a bronze coin, indicates that the qualifications were written down or at least translated into that
denomination at a very late date. In this organisation, it is likely that selection as one of the equestrians was dependent not on a higher level of wealth – it was the same as for the first class – but on a social standing and reputation. All senators were, according to Cicero, and therefore placed within the eighteen centuries reserved for them, meaning that there were only some remaining 1,500 spots, largely reserved for sons and relations of senators or influential and wealthy citizens. However, a higher property qualification – by the late republic this as 400,000
sesterces – for the equestrians had likely been established by the
Second Punic War. Under this framework, the equites voted first. Following them were the first class. The two of them together made a majority of the 193 centuries. Because voting ended when a majority was reached, if the richest Romans agreed, the poorer classes were never called to vote. Sources differ as to where the engineers and musicians voted. Livy has the engineers and musicians vote with the first and fifth classes, respectively. Dionysius instead has the engineers and musicians vote with the second and fourth classes respectively.
Reforms and the centuria praerogativa There was a reform of the
comitia centuriatas apportionment in the mid-second century. It must have happened after 241 and most likely prior to 221. If, as has been argued on reconstruction of an inscription, it was brought by
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, it would have coincided with his censorship in 230. The reform aligned the assignment of citizens in centuries with their tribal assignments. It also saw reapportionment, reducing the number of centuries in the first class from 80 to 70 (seventy being double the thirty-five tribes) with one century each assigned to
seniores and
juniores (above and below the age of 45). It also introduced the
centuria praerogativa. Many details of the reform are not entirely clear. It is not known whether the centuries below the first class were also aligned to tribal affiliations. The details about the change in voting order are not entirely clear, but it is likely that the equites now voted after or at the same time as the first class. The
sex suffragia also were moved from voting with the cavalry to voting after the first class. Moreover, after 129 BC, legislation was passed depriving senators of their public horses. This moved them out of the
equites equo publico and likely into the first class. Cicero implies that the engineers remained voting with the first class, as had been the case prior to the reform. The rationale for the reform has been variously explained. Some have suggested that it was intended to more equitably distribute the centuries among the people. Others have denied its impacts, arguing for example that the reapportionment was insufficient to change Roman electoral results in any significant way given that elections were by this point already contested into the second class of centuries. The least democratic explanation, however, would be an
increase in voting power for the rich or the rural by taking its control of the tribes – where rural magnates enjoyed a substantial advantage – and mapping it directly onto the centuries as well.
Reapportionment If the classes below the first class were also aligned to tribal affiliations, they would have produced seventy centuries in each class as well. This contradicts Ciceronean evidence that the total number of centuries after the reform remained 193. Scholars disagree as to how this was resolved. One solution is to deny that the second through fifth classes received tribal separations at all. The removed ten centuries from the first class was would then be redistributed to the other classes but it is not known how this occurred. Lucy Grieve, in a 1985 article in
Historia, suggests that the lower classes had equal representation with twenty-five centuries each. Mommsen attempted to force the evidence to accord by positing that the second through fifth classes were also divided tribally, creating the situation with seventy centuries for each class. Then, each class had its number of centuries reduced by lottery or rule such that two or three
centuriae were combined into one, leading to the tribal centuries reassembling as a fewer number of artificial centuries. The
tabula Hebana, discovered in 1947, gives a possible way that the centuries may have been redivided, namely by lot combining randomly selected tribal centuries into artificial voting centuries that would then be counted together.
Centuria praerogativa The introduction of the
centuria praerogativa and its bandwagoning effect also had the effect of sidelining the lower census classes. Because the prerogative century's vote was taken and then announced, it served as something akin to a
religious omen for the Romans, who took such matters of chance within a religiously sanctified context (all votes began with purification, augury, and prayer) as revealing the wishes of the gods. Announcement of the prerogative century's vote thus served to guide later voters into the same path, minimising division within the upper census classes and, due to the structure of the assembly, prevent the poorer census classes from voting at all. Even within the portions of the population which definitely voted, the effect of the prerogative century's selection by lot made it more difficult for candidates to target their campaigns. These barriers made it more likely that the winner would be selected semi-randomly. This was beneficial to the aristocracy which had a class interest in reducing competition between its members.
Sullan reforms and Italian enrolment During
Lucius Cornelius Sulla's first consulship in 88 BC, Appian reports there was a reversion of centuriate apportionment to the Servian system along with a restoration of the senate's probouleutic right to review all proposals before they went before any assembly. This may have occurred along with an abolition of the tribal assembly's legislative powers – making the centuries the only body capable of legislating – but such a restriction is rejected by the
Cambridge Ancient History. The effect of reversion to Servian organisation would have been to allocate the richest of the new Italian citizens enfranchised by the
Social War to the first class without involving them in the then on-going dispute about how fairly the citizens should be distributed among the tribes. Whatever reforms Sulla conducted in 88 BC must have been discarded after
Lucius Cornelius Cinna and
Gaius Marius emerged victorious from the short
Bellum Octavianum the following year. By the time Sulla returned and won his civil war, establishing his dictatorship, legislation was again being moved in the other assemblies. While the Social War saw the enrolment of the Italians, they were not immediately able to vote in the
comitia centuriata because they had not been assigned to a century. Attempts during and immediately after the Social War were unable to resolve this issue: the census of 89 was found religiously invalid and that of 86 was both disputed and failed to enrol much of the peninsula. This may have been put off purposefully so that the new citizens' suffrage rights would be delayed as long as possible, but regardless the census in 70 BC registered 900,000 citizens, almost double the 453,000 enrolled in 86. == Decline ==