Note 2979 — Chapter XVIII · THE COMPOSITION AND PRESERVATION OF STATUTES, COMITIAL PROCEDURE, AND COMITIAL DAYS

In the opinion of Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 397, n. 4, 411, n. 7; Abhdl. sächs. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. ii (1857). 426, n. 107, the principium had nothing to do with the order of voting. His argument is based chiefly on the fact that according to the Lex Mal. 55—a constitution evidently based in large part on that of Rome—the curiae voted simultaneously. Reference to the preliminary vote of a single Roman tribe, however, is made by Plut. Aemil. 31; App. B. C. i. 12. 52. Furthermore it is difficult to understand why so great importance should attach to the principium on Mommsen’s supposition that it had merely to do with the order of announcement after the simultaneous vote of all the tribes. His view is accepted by Liebenam, in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encycl. iv. 684, but rejected by Lange, Kl. Schr. ii. 477 f.; Herzog, Röm. Staatsverf. 1184, and ignored by most other writers, including Liebenam, inconsistently; ibid. 706.