Magistrates and Assemblies

This study attemts to trace the development of comitial legislation during the Republic. The emphasis will be put on the institutional mechanisms, rather than the contents of the legislation. The correct appreciation of the formal interaction between the legislative assemblies and the presiding magistrates is crucial for our understanding of political life in republican Rome, given the central role of legislation in Roman politics. The identity of the legislating body, along with the capacity in which the law-makers put their bills to the vote - in each case - the specific nature of the statute, are the keys to the problems that will be considered here. The main objective is to show that many widely held views on republican legislation are problematic, or even incompatible with the testimony of the evidence.