also existed already under the monarchy two different ways in which the Roman people was organized as an assembly, the Comitia
Curiata, the people organized in kin groups, and the Comitia Centuriata, the people organized in army units. The growth of the
plebeian organization involved the creation of plebeian officials, of whom the most important were the tribunes of the plebs, and of
another assembly, the Concilium Plebis or Comitia Tributa, the people organized by tribus, areas of domicile.
As the plebs achieved its aim of equality of political and religious rights with the patricians its organization was simply grafted on
to that of the Roman state. The tribunes became for all practical purposes officials of the Roman state, the Concilium Plebis became
with the name Comitia Tributa one of its assemblies. The plebeian organization, in creating its assembly, also preserved one of the
most curious features of existing Roman assemblies, namely voting by groups. No Roman assembly ever reached a decision by a
simple majority of those present and voting; each group, however defined, reached a decision in this way and the decision of the
assembly was the decision of a majority of the groups.
In the case of the Comitia Centuriata, whose functions included the election of the consuls, the groups were organized in such a
way as to facilitate the dominance of the rich. For, at any rate in its developed form in the middle Republic (the fourth and third
centuries B.C.), the Comitia Centuriata contained a number of groups of men who were wealthy enough to serve as cavalrymen, a
number of groups with a slightly lower property qualification, and so on. The richer the group, broadly speaking, the fewer men it
contained; as a result their influence in the assembly was disproportionately large. Under the monarchy and in the early Republic
the system was certainly less complicated, but the underlying principle is likely to have been the same. Of course this principle was
not consciously formulated until much later, but its effect was that the wealthy, who paid more in taxes and on whom a greater
burden fell in the defence of the community, had a greater say in the making of policy. It must be said, however, that the rich
determined the outcome of a vote only if they were united - probably a rare occurrence. Obviously the nature and aims of the
plebeian assembly were reflected in the fact that in it no advantage was conferred on the rich in the way in which the groups were
formed.
Rome under the monarchy had a relatively differentiated administrative structure, and here too there is continuity of development
from the earliest times onwards, as there was in the evolution of the different Roman assemblies. Throughout their history the
Romans showed remarkable willingness to create new offices to take over specific functions from the consuls; thus the praetors
came in due course to take over the specialized function of the administration of justice, the censors that of listing roughly every
five years the members of the citizen body and the amount of their property liable to taxation, and of renewing the prayers of the
Roman people for the favour of the gods. Throughout the Republic, indeed, until the anarchy of its last years, the census was the
process whereby men were assigned their place in the community, as soldiers, taxpayers, and voters.
The Roman community did not consist simply of the citizens who belonged to it, together with their female, young, and slave
dependents. It also included the gods, and Roman religious structures and history form in a number of very striking ways the mirror
image of secular structures and developments.
In the first place, the relative complexity of the administrative structures of the early Republic is paralleled by the diversity of its
priesthoods. There were from the start two major colleges, the pontifices, with the pontifex maximus at their head (and the Vestal
Virgins under his general control), and the augures; the former were concerned in general terms with sacrifices to the gods (the
Vestal Virgins with the sacred hearth of the community), the latter with ascertaining the will of the gods, for instance by observing
the flight of birds. And just as the state created new secular offices to meet new needs, so too in the field of religion new
priesthoods were created from time to time. Moreover the priesthoods of the Republic were often held by men who also held
secular office, with the difference that a priesthood was for life, a consulship for a year at a time. For at Rome religion and politics
were not two worlds, but inseparable parts of the same world. One must not suppose that there was something 'wrong' with Roman
religion because the world of the gods was involved in the world of political dispute.
Second, the plebeian organization, which developed in parallel to that of the Roman state, created also its own apparatus of cult,
centering on the Aventine hill, outside the original boundary of the city of Rome, and involving the cult of Ceres, Liber, and Libera.
Finally, the readiness to innovate in the sphere of religion, which we have observed in the creation of new priesthoods and of a
plebeian religious structure, operated also in a much wider context. Perhaps the most conspicuous feature of the religious history of
the Republic is the steady importation of new deities, from Etruria, from elsewhere in Italy, or from overseas. The practice is not an
indication of dissatisfaction with existing gods, but rather the reverse. Just as her citizens gave Rome her military strength, and
Rome sought for most of her history constantly to increase their number, so also, as the gods helped Rome to win battles, the more