Note 800 — Chapter VII · THE CONTIO

Livy x. 13, 21; (Cic.) Herenn. iv. 55. 68. A contio, described by Livy vi. 39-41, was held by the tribunes Licinius and Sextius in the ninth year of their tribunate, after the day of election for the following year had been set. This meeting however was as much for the consideration of the proposed laws as of their own candidacy, and hence could not be thought of as strictly pertaining to the election. Mommsen’s opinion (Röm. Staatsr. iii. 392, n. 1) that stories of the kind prove nothing does not accord with his own general attitude toward the sources for the earlier history of Rome.