Plebeian council
The Plebeian Council was originally organized on the basis of the Curia but in 471 BC adopted an organizational system based on residential districts or tribes.
This assembly was created shortly after the legendary founding of the city in 753 BC, and it formally elected new Roman kings.
In 494 BC, the plebeians held nightly meetings in some districts, with their earliest attempts at organization focusing on matters relating to their class.
[6] In 492 BC, the office of Tribune was acknowledged by the patricians, thereby creating a legitimate assembly of plebeians (Concilium Plebis).
By 471 BC, the plebeians decided that organization by tribe granted them a level of political independence from their patrician patrons[9] that the curiae did not.
[4] In 339 BC, the Lex Publilia made plebiscites (plebeian legislation) law,[12] however this was not widely accepted by patricians until the 287 BC Lex Hortensia, which definitively gave the council the power to create laws to which both plebeians and patricians would be subject.
[13] Additionally, between 291 and 219 BC, the Lex Maenia was passed, which required of the senate to approve any bill put forward by the Plebeian Council.
[13] In 88 BC, Sulla introduced measures which transferred all voting power to the Comitia Centuriata from tribal assemblies, therefore rendering the Council of the Plebs virtually powerless.
[14] Although the Plebeian Council survived the fall of the Roman Republic,[15] it quickly lost its legislative, judicial and electoral powers to the Senate.
By virtue of their status as perpetual tribunes, both Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus always had absolute control over the Plebeian Council.
By the early 4th century BC, the plebeians, who still lacked any real political power,[16] had become exhausted and bitter.
In 339 BC they facilitated the passage of a law (the lex Publilia), which brought the Conflict of the Orders closer to a conclusion.
The lex Publilia required the auctoritas patrum to be passed before a law could be voted on by one of the assemblies, rather than afterward.
The most significant component of this law was its termination of the requirement that auctoritas patrum be obtained before any bill could be considered by the Plebeian Council.
[20] This ended the Conflict of the Orders, and brought the plebeians to a level of full political equality with the patricians.
[22] Over time, the Concilium Plebis became the most effective medium of legislation in the Republic, until the introduction of Sulla’s measures in 88 BC.
Stavely introduced the possibility that Livy may not have recorded the emergence of the Comitia Tributa due to a lack of importance in terminological differences.
[27] Although the theories put forth by Botsford and Felix are different, passages from Cicero and Livy can be found to support both.
[27] A comitia appears to designate an organized voting assembly, and a concilium often indicates a meeting of a certain group which is exclusive in some sense.
[27] There were three distinct forms of legislative actions undertaken by the Roman Republic: Rogationes, Plebiscita and Leges.
Rogationes were incomplete legislation with no legal force, as they had been subject to tribunician veto or rejected by the senate.
plebiscitum) were proposals brought forward by the Tribunes of the Plebs that were approved by majority vote of the tribes of the Concilium Plebis.
After the Lex Hortensia was introduced in 287 BC, plebiscita became law for the entire Roman population, including patricians.
