La nozione di 'centuria' dalle origini alla media repubblica

The Roman 'centuria' has at least three different meanings: division of the people, division of the assembly, division of the army. It is usually held that these three meanings coincided — i.e. that the people were divided into sections that were exactly reproduced in the army and the assembly — at the time of the centuriate reform, but the existence of the so-called centuria ‘niquis scivit’ shows that the centuria of the assembly was simply a polling station, not related to the other two kinds of centuria. The time when the meanings of centuria were coinciding is rather to be found during the first regal period, when the people, the army and the assembly were divided in thirty curiae of one hundred men each — that is in centuriae. This archaic structure was abandoned in the centuriate assembly and in the centuriatio of the citizens, but was retained by the legion, legally based on thirty centuriae still during the republic.