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The Concilium Plebis (English: Plebeian Council or People's Assembly) was the principal popular assembly of the ancient Roman Republic. It functioned as a legislative assembly, through which the plebeians (commoners) could pass laws, elect magistrates, and try judicial cases. The Plebeian Council was originally organized on the basis of the Curia. Thus, it was originally a "Plebeian Curiate Assembly". Around the year 471 BCE, it was reorganized on the basis of the Tribes. Thus, it became a "Plebeian Tribal Assembly". The Plebeian Council usually met in the well of the Comitia. Often patrician senators would observe from the steps of the Curia Hostilia, and would sometimes heckle during meetings. The representatives of the Plebians in government are called Tribunes. These Tribunes had the power to veto the laws of the Senate.
Famous quotes containing the words plebeian and/or council:
“The modern picture of The Artist began to form: The poor, but free spirit, plebeian but aspiring only to be classless, to cut himself forever free from the bonds of the greedy bourgeoisie, to be whatever the fat burghers feared most, to cross the line wherever they drew it, to look at the world in a way they couldn’t see, to be high, live low, stay young forever—in short, to be the bohemian.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of England’s Council and her Treasury,
Who lived in both, unstain’d with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content.
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Kill’d with report that old man eloquent;—”
—John Milton (1608–1674)