History of the Constitution of the Roman Republic
The history of the Constitution of the Roman Republic is a study of the ancient Roman Republic that traces the progression of Roman political development from the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC until the founding of the Roman Empire in 27 BC. The constitutional history of the Roman Republic can be divided into five phases. The first phase began with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Kingdom in 509 BC, and the final phase ended with the revolution which overthrew the Roman Republic, and thus created the Roman Empire, in 27 BC. Throughout the history of the republic, the constitutional evolution was driven by the struggle between the aristocracy and the ordinary citizens.
Centuriate Assembly
The Centuriate Assembly was supposedly founded by the legendary Roman King Servius Tullius, less than a century before the founding of the Roman Republic in 509 BC. As such, the original design of the Centuriate Assembly was known as the "Servian organization". Under this organization, the assembly was supposedly designed to mirror the Roman army during the time of the Roman Kingdom, with a division such that the citizen-soldiers had the responsibility of electing the consuls and praetors, and therefore, their leaders. The Roman army was based on units called "Centuries", which were comparable to Companies in a modern army. While Centuries in the Roman army always consisted of about one hundred soldiers, Centuries in the Centuriate Assembly usually did not. This was because the property qualifications for membership in a voting Century did not change over time, as property qualifications for membership in a military Century did.