Key Arguments

• Rousseau insists that 'the various methods were not reducible to forms indifferent in themselves, but the results of each were relative to the objects which caused it to be preferred,' affirming that institutional forms embody purposeful political biases rather than being neutral.
• He draws a clear evaluative distinction: 'we may gather from what has been said above that the Comitia Tributa were the most favourable to popular government, and the Comitia Centuriata to aristocracy.'
• He characterizes the Comitia Curiata as dominated by the Roman urban populace and disposed to abuse: 'The Comitia Curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using a method which too clearly revealed their projects.'
• Despite his earlier criticisms of the aristocratic tilt of the centuriate system, he asserts their unique representative status: 'It is indisputable that the whole majesty of the Roman people lay solely in the Comitia Centuriata, which alone included all;'
• He justifies this by noting the exclusions: 'for the Comitia Curiata excluded the rural tribes, and the Comitia Tributa the senate and the patricians,' so that only the centuriate assembly truly encompassed the entire Roman people.
• The argument illustrates Rousseau’s broader theme that who is included or excluded from an assembly, and how, decisively shapes its political character and the locus of sovereignty.

Source Quotes

Had all the patricians attended the comitia by virtue of the right they had as citizens, they would not, as mere private individuals, have had any considerable influence on a vote reckoned by counting heads, where the meanest proletarian was as good as the princeps senatus. It may be seen, therefore, that besides the order which was achieved by these various ways of distributing so great a people and taking its votes, the various methods were not reducible to forms indifferent in themselves, but the results of each were relative to the objects which caused it to be preferred. Without going here into further details, we may gather from what has been said above that the Comitia Tributa were the most favourable to popular government, and the Comitia Centuriata to aristocracy.

It may be seen, therefore, that besides the order which was achieved by these various ways of distributing so great a people and taking its votes, the various methods were not reducible to forms indifferent in themselves, but the results of each were relative to the objects which caused it to be preferred. Without going here into further details, we may gather from what has been said above that the Comitia Tributa were the most favourable to popular government, and the Comitia Centuriata to aristocracy. The Comitia Curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using a method which too clearly revealed their projects.

Without going here into further details, we may gather from what has been said above that the Comitia Tributa were the most favourable to popular government, and the Comitia Centuriata to aristocracy. The Comitia Curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using a method which too clearly revealed their projects. It is indisputable that the whole majesty of the Roman people lay solely in the Comitia Centuriata, which alone included all; for the Comitia Curiata excluded the rural tribes, and the Comitia Tributa the senate and the patricians.

The Comitia Curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using a method which too clearly revealed their projects. It is indisputable that the whole majesty of the Roman people lay solely in the Comitia Centuriata, which alone included all; for the Comitia Curiata excluded the rural tribes, and the Comitia Tributa the senate and the patricians. As for the method of taking the vote, it was among the ancient Romans as simple as their morals, although not so simple as at Sparta.

Key Concepts

• the various methods were not reducible to forms indifferent in themselves, but the results of each were relative to the objects which caused it to be preferred.
• the Comitia Tributa were the most favourable to popular government, and the Comitia Centuriata to aristocracy.
• The Comitia Curiata, in which the populace of Rome formed the majority, being fitted only to further tyranny and evil designs, naturally fell into disrepute, and even seditious persons abstained from using a method which too clearly revealed their projects.
• It is indisputable that the whole majesty of the Roman people lay solely in the Comitia Centuriata, which alone included all;
• for the Comitia Curiata excluded the rural tribes, and the Comitia Tributa the senate and the patricians.

Context

Still in Book IV, Chapter IV, Rousseau synthesizes his analysis of Rome’s three assemblies to show how each structurally favoured a different political tendency and to locate the true seat of Roman popular majesty in the inclusiveness of the Comitia Centuriata.