ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the theoretical justification the Romans provided to describe their voting practices in popular assemblies and in particular in the comitia centuriata. Throughout the greater part of the twentieth century, Roman elections have attracted scholarly attention mainly in regard to their technical functioning rather than the role they fulfilled in the political dynamics of the Republic. The comitia were divided in comitia curiata, comitia tributa, and comitia centuriata. All these assemblies were based not on a system of correspondence between one vote and one citizen but on voting units. The deliberative system conceived by Pseudo-Sallust, preserves liberty, concord, and a notion of fairness, whose premises are radically different from those in the texts of Cicero, Livy, and Dionysius. The political system as conceptually articulated by Pseudo-Sallust still maintains at its foundation a combination of geometric and arithmetic equality: everyone is entitled to liberty, those in the position of power will be those with more wealth, respect, and renown.
