Note 2283 — Chapter XVI · COMITIAL LEGISLATION From the Gracchi to Sulla 134-82

B. C. i. 21. 90: Καὶ γάρ τις ἤδη νόμος κεκύρωτο εἰ δήμαρχος ἐνδέοι ταῖς παραγγλείαις, τὸν δῆμον ἐκ πάντων ἐπιλέγεσθαι. White translates, “For in cases where there was not a sufficient number of candidates, the law authorizes the people to choose from the whole number then in office”; and scholars usually suppose that in the first clause reference is to candidates. But if tribunus, the equivalent of δήμαρχος, stood in the law, it must have signified tribune, not candidate; and in that case παραγγελίαις, however Appian may have understood it, must be the equivalent of renuntiationibus, “announcements of votes.”