their properties, and to each class
was allotted a number of voting groups, divided equally between the men
under 46 years of age (_juniores_) and those who were 46 and over
(_seniores_). The number of voting groups, called centuries, in each class
was possibly in proportion to the total assessment of that class. Thus the
first class had eighty centuries, the second, third, and fourth classes
had twenty each, while the fifth class had thirty. Outside of the classes,
at first six but later eighteen centuries were allotted to those eligible
to serve as cavalry (_equites_) whose property qualification was at least
that of the first class; four centuries were given to musicians and
mechanics who performed special military service; and one century was
assigned to the landless citizens (_proletarii_). Of the total of 193
centuries, the first class had eighty and the equestrians eighteen:
together ninety-eight, or a majority of the voting units. As they had the
privilege of voting before the other classes, they could, if unanimous,
control the Assembly. The term century, it must be noted, which in its
original military sense had been applied to a detachment of 100 men, in
political usage was applied to a voting group of indefinite numbers. The
organization of this Assembly probably was not completed until near the
end of the fourth century, when the basis for enrollment in the five
census classes was changed from landed estate to the total property
assessment reckoned in terms of the copper _as_.

The old Assembly of the Curiae was not abolished, but lost all its
political functions except the right to pass a law conferring the
_imperium_ upon the magistrates elected by the Assembly of the Centuries.
In addition to electing these magistrates the Centuriate Assembly had the
sole right of declaring war, voted upon measures presented to it by the
consuls, and acted as a supreme court of appeal for citizens upon whom a
magistrate had pronounced the death penalty. However, the measures which
the Assembly approved had for a long time to receive subsequent
ratification by the patrician senators (the _patrum auctoritas_) before
they became laws binding on the community. Finally, the importance of this
sanction was nullified by the requirement of the Publilian (339?) and
Maenian Laws that it be given before the voting took place.

*The magistracy: quaestors and aediles.* It has been indicated already
that the expansion of the Roman ma