Note 1277 — Chapter X · THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COMITIA CENTURIATA

IV. 21. 3: Οὑτος ὁ κόσμος τοῦ πολιτεύματος ἐπὶ πολλὰς διέμεινε γενεὰς φυλαττόμενος ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίον· ἐν δὲ τοῖς καθ’ ἡμᾶς κεκίνηται χρόνοις καὶ μεταβέβληκεν εἰς τὸ δημοτικώτερον, ἀνάγκαις τισὶ βιασθεὶς ἰσχυραῖς, οὐ τῶν λόχον καταλυθέντων, ἀλλὰ τῆς κρίσεως (or κλήσεως) αὐτῶν οὐκέτι τὴν ἀρχαίαν ἀκρίβειαν φυλαττούσης, ὡς ἐγνων ταῖς ἀρχαιρεσίαις αὐτῶν πολλάκις παρών. (After this arrangement had continued many generations, carefully preserved by the Romans, it has assumed in our time a more democratic character, driven into this new course by certain powerful forces. The centuries were not abolished, but the decision of their votes has lost its former carefulness—or we may read, the calling of the centuries no longer retains its precise order. This fact, he tells us, he himself often noticed when present at elections.)

If κρίσεως, supported by most MSS., is retained, it should refer to the equalization of power among the classes; κλῆσεως would probably mean that the prerogative century was now drawn by lot.