Note 1414 — Chapter XI · THE FUNCTIONS OF THE COMITIA CENTURIATA

The view maintained by Willems, Sén. Rom. ii. 33 ff., that the patres auctores were all the senators, not merely the patrician members, is disproved by Cic. Dom. 14. 38 (Should the patriciate become extinct, there would no longer be “auctores centuriatorum et curiatorum comitiorum”). In spite of some looseness of statement in the passage cited, there seems to be no good ground for considering either the whole oration spurious or the particular reference to the auctoritas inaccurate. The question, too complex for detailed treatment in this volume, is of practical importance for the period only from about 400 to 339.