Roman tribe in the context of "Bellum Octavianum"

⭐ In the context of *Bellum Octavianum*, a key point of contention between the consuls Octavius and Cinna revolved around the status of…

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⭐ Core Definition: Roman tribe

A tribus, or tribe, was a division of the Roman people for military, censorial, and voting purposes. When constituted in the comitia tributa, the tribes were the voting units of a legislative assembly of the Roman Republic.

According to tradition, the first three tribes were established by Romulus; each was divided into ten curiae, or wards, which were the voting units of the comitia curiata. Although the curiae continued throughout Roman history, the three original tribes that they constituted gradually vanished from history.

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👉 Roman tribe in the context of Bellum Octavianum

The Bellum Octavianum (Latin for "War of Octavius") was a Roman republican civil war fought in 87 BC between the two consuls of that year, Gnaeus Octavius and Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Cinna was victorious by late 87 BC.

Hostilities broke out after Octavius opposed Cinna's attempts to distribute the Italian citizens enfranchised after the Social War into all voting tribes and to recall the outlawed Gaius Marius from exile. Cinna was ejected from the city after a fight in the Forum. He began touring Italy to recruit men, while the Senate in Rome replaced him with Lucius Cornelius Merula, a priest of Jupiter, in the consulship. Cinna took control of the Roman army stationed at Nola and was joined by the exiled Marius. Octavius won the support of the two other Roman generals in the field in Italy, Metellus Pius and Pompeius Strabo; the Samnites, who were formally at war with Rome, joined Cinna. Peter Brunt estimates that Octavius had some 60,000 men at his disposal while Cinna had around twice that.

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Roman tribe in the context of Roman assemblies

The Roman assemblies were meetings of the Roman people duly convened by a magistrate. There were two general kinds of assemblies: a contio where a crowd was convened to hear speeches or statements from speakers without any further arrangements and a comitia where citizens were called and arranged into voting blocks.

When called to enact legislation or make decisions, such as on guilt or war, citizens were in the historical period always divided into voting blocks. Citizens voted directly in these blocks, with a majority of the blocks determining the decision of the assembly; this system was directly democratic with no representatives. There were three kinds of voting blocks – curiae, centuriae, and tribus – giving rise, respectively, to the curiate, centuriate, and tribal assemblies. In the middle and late republics, only the centuriate and tribal assemblies were politically relevant.

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Roman tribe in the context of Tribal assembly

The tribal assembly (Latin: comitia tributa) was one of the popular assemblies of ancient Rome, responsible, along with the plebeian council, for the passage of most Roman laws in the middle and late republics. They were also responsible for the elections of a number of junior magistracies: aediles and quaestors especially.

It organised citizens, by the middle republic, into thirty-five artificial tribes which were assigned by geography. The composition of the tribes packed the urban poor into four tribes out of the thirty-five. The requirement that citizens vote in person also discriminated against the rural poor who were not able to travel to Rome.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Bellum Octavianum ← Roman assemblies ← Citizens' assemblies of the Roman Republic ← Tribal assembly ← Tribal Assembly ← Comitia tributa ← Comitia
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Denarius → Ancient Rome → Comitia tributa → Roman Republic → Romulus → Curiate Assembly →