Note 1481 — Chapter XI · THE FUNCTIONS OF THE COMITIA CENTURIATA

Pliny N. H. xxxiv. 4. 13: “Camillo inter crimina obiecerit Sp. Carvilius quaestor, quod aerata ostia haberet in domo.” According to Livy v. 23. 11; 32. 8 f., it was misappropriation of the Veientan spoil. Diodorus, xiv. 117. 6, states that according to one report the accusation was that he had driven white horses in his triumph. The appeal was to the comitia centuriata; Cic. Dom. 32. 86. This case indicates either inconsistency in legal usage, quite possible in early time, or more probably the union of inconsistent traditions. The facts that Pliny mentions a quaestor apparently as prosecutor, not simply as witness (Lange, Röm. Alt. ii. 582), and that Cicero represents the trial as belonging to the centuries suffice to indicate a questorian prosecution before that assembly. Should we venture to bring consistency to so uncertain a story, we could suppose that in his absence, the tribunes, taking up the case, lightened the penalty to a fine.