Century Assembly - The Servian Organization of The Century Assembly (509-107 BC)

The Servian Organization of The Century Assembly (509-107 BC)

The Century Assembly was supposedly founded by the legendary Roman King Servius Tullius, less than a century before the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC. As such, the original design of the Century Assembly was known as the "Servian Organization". Under this organization, the assembly was supposedly designed to mirror the Roman army during the time of the Roman Kingdom. The Roman army was based on units called "Centuries", which were comparable to Companies in a modern army. While Centuries in the Roman army always consisted of about one hundred soldiers, Centuries in the Century Assembly usually did not. This was because the property qualifications for membership in a voting Century did not change over time, as property qualifications for membership in a military Century did. Soldiers in the Roman army were classified on the basis of the amount of property that they owned, and as such, soldiers with more property outranked soldiers with less property. Since the wealthy soldiers were divided into more Centuries in the early Roman army, the wealthy soldiers were also divided into more Centuries in the Century Assembly. Thus, the wealthy soldiers, who were fewer in number and had more to lose, had a greater overall influence.

The 193 Centuries in the assembly under the Servian Organization were each divided into one of three different grades: the officer class (the cavalry or equites), the enlisted class (infantry or pedites) and the miscellaneous class (mostly unarmed adjuncts). The officer class was grouped into eighteen Centuries, six of which (the sex suffragia) were composed exclusively of Patricians (Roman aristocrats). The enlisted class was grouped into 170 Centuries. Most enlisted individuals (those aged seventeen to forty-six) were grouped into eighty-five Centuries of "junior soldiers" (iuniores or "young men"). The relatively limited number of enlisted soldiers who were aged forty-six to sixty were grouped into eighty-five Centuries of "senior soldiers" (seniores or "old men"). The result of this arrangement was that the votes of the older soldiers carried more weight than did the votes of the numerically greater younger soldiers. According to Cicero, the Consul of 63 BC, this design was intentional so that the decisions of the assembly were more in line with the will of the more experienced soldiers who arguably had more to lose. The 170 Centuries of enlisted soldiers were divided into five classes, each with a separate property requirement: The first class consisted of soldiers with heavy armor, the lower classes had successively less armor, and the soldiers of the fifth class had nothing more than slings and stones. Each of the five property classes were divided equally between Centuries of younger soldiers and Centuries of older soldiers. The first class of enlisted soldiers consisted of eighty Centuries, classes two through four consisted of twenty Centuries each, and class five consisted of thirty Centuries. The unarmed soldiers were divided into the final five Centuries: four of these Centuries were composed of artisans and musicians (such as trumpeters and horn blowers), while the fifth Century (the proletarii) consisted of people with little or no property.

During a vote, all of the Centuries of one class had to vote before the Centuries of the next lower class could vote. The seven classes voted by order of seniority: first the officer class, then the first enlisted class, then the second enlisted class, then the third enlisted class, then the fourth enlisted class, then the fifth enlisted class, and then finally the unarmed Centuries. When a measure received a majority of the vote, the voting ended, and as such, many lower ranking Centuries rarely if ever had a chance to actually vote.