CONCILIUM PLEBIS

concilium plebis (k<<schwa>>n-sil-ee-<<schwa>>m plee-bis). [Latin “assembly of the people”] Roman law. An assembly of the plebs gathered together to enact legislation. — Often shortened to concilium. See PLEBISCITUM. Cf. comitia tributa under COMITIA.

“Legislation was carried on to some extent by the Comitia Tributa and in an increasing degree by the assembly of the plebs alone, concilium plebis, which, in historical times, was also based on the tributal organisation. This assembly, presided over by a tribune of the plebs, was active from early times and there was early legislation on constitutional questions, enacted by that body and approved by the Senate, which was regarded as binding on the whole community. Its enactments, plebiscita, were often called, as binding the whole community, leges ….” W.W. Buckland, A Text-Book of Roman Law from Augustus to Justinian 4 (Peter Stein ed., 3d ed. 1963).

“The pressure of plebeian agitation had led to the creation of tribunes of the plebs (494 B.C.) for the protection of individual citizens from oppression, with the right to hold meetings of an assembly called the Concilium Plebis, which eventually became identical with the Comitia Tributa, except that it comprised only the plebeian members of the Roman people, without the patricians. The resolutions of this assembly (plebiscita) at first bound the plebeians only, but by an obscure development culminating in the passing of the Lex Hortensia of 287 B.C., they came to be binding as laws on the whole people, patricians and plebeians alike.” William A. Hunter, Introduction to Roman Law 16 (F.H. Lawson ed., 9th ed. 1934). [Blacks Law 8th]