Note 857 — Chapter VII · THE CONTIO

In the case referred to in the note above, some of the young patricians stood their ground and refused to give way before the viator; § 11; cf. Dion. Hal. ix. 48. Again on other occasions the patricians when ordered refused to withdraw before the voting (cf. Livy iii. 11. 4), from which we may infer that the right to attend the comitia presided over by tribunes was claimed by the patricians but denied them by the tribunes. The word used in these passages to designate the removal of the unqualified is “submovere.” In Livy xxv. 3. 16 (cf. Cic. Flacc. 7. 15) “tribuni populum summoverunt” has reference to the adjournment of the people to their voting divisions, and probably also to the exclusion of those who had no right to vote; cf. Mommsen, Röm. Staatsr. iii. 390, n. 1.