Note 961 — Chapter VIII · THE CALATA COMITIA

Mommsen’s theory (Röm. Staatsr. iii. 29 and n. 2) that the patriciate was conferred through the coöperation of the king and the comitia appears accordingly to rest on a weak foundation. He gives no evidence, but bases his contention on the argument (1) that the community was sovereign, (2) that—the patriciate being in his opinion equivalent to the citizenship and the comitia curiata being a group of gentes—the downfall of the comitia made the reception of gentes impossible. Ground is taken against the theory of popular sovereignty in the following chapter. Against his second point it can be urged that the original comitia were neither patrician nor “gentile”; hence there is no occasion for speaking of the downfall of such comitia or of its sweeping consequences.