Relativist Ethics

state politically and hence incarnate the maiestas of Rome.

The Comitia Calata was held under the presidency of the pontifex maximus. The meeting probably took place in the Capitoline Hill in front of the Curia Calabra. The Comitia Calata and the Comitia Curiata were the only assemblies recognised before the time of Servius Tullius. The assembly consisted entirely of patricians, organized into curiae, and performed the following functions: * Announcements of the pontiffs concerning time keeping and nature of certain dates, * Inauguration of Flamines and the Rex Sacrorum, and * Witnessing testaments of patricians in order to avoid any disputes following the death of the person in question.

The Comitia Curiata (Curiate Assembly) was the oldest Roman assembly after the Comitia Calata.

It consisted entirely of patricians organized in 30 curiae, which were voting units that each cast one collective vote. This assembly originally was the only assembly which transacted business, electing all magistrates, granting their imperium, and enacting laws.

The Comitia Centuriata (Centuriate Assembly) included both patricians and plebeians organized into five economic classes (knights and senators being the First Class) and distributed among internal divisions called centuriae. Membership in the Centuriate Assembly required certain economic status, and power was heavily vested in the First and Second Classes. The Centuriate Assembly met annually to elect the next year's consuls and praetors, and quinquennially (every 5 years) to elect the censors. It also sat to try cases of high treason (perduellio), although this latter function fell into disuse after Lucius Appuleius Saturninus introduced a more workable format (maiestas). A citizen's vote did not count in the Centuriate Assembly. Rather, the individual's vote was counted within his century and determined the outcome of the century's vote. Because only the first eighteen (and richest) centuries were kept to the nominal size of 100 members, members of those centuries exerted a disproportionate influence over the outcome of votes. The Centuriate Assembly, originally a military assembly of knights, had to meet outside the pomerium of Rome on the Campus Martius since no army was permitted inside the pomerium.

The Comitia Tributa (Tribal Assembly) 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. A subset of the Tribal Assembly, called the Plebeian Council, legislated for the plebeians and lower classes and elected the plebeian tribunes and aediles. Their plebiscites only had the force of law for the entire Republic after 287 BC. The traditional story, whose primary source is the first few books of Livy, is that the patricians were the aristocrats of Rome, taking over when the kings were expelled and the Republic formed in 509 BC, while the plebeians were the "lower class". Initially, only patricians could hold magistracies (such as the consulate), positions in the religious colleges, and sit in the Roman Senate. However, the patrician clans abused their position, using the creditor's right of nexum to take plebeian debtors into bondage and selling them as slaves, favoring patricians over plebeians in court cases, and overriding the will of the Centuriate Assembly.

Plebeian responses included the establishment of the tribunes, whose authority to protect plebeians was eventually accepted by the patricians, and the Council of Plebs (concilium plebis) whose decisions were originally binding on plebeians only, but in 287 applied to all citizens. The plebs convinced the patricians by engaging in secessio, the act of leaving the city and refusing to participate until the patricians gave in. In 449 BC the decemvirs codified the law via the Twelve Tables, but then their 11th Table forbade intermarriage between patricians and plebeians,