Servius Tullius

Servius Tullius 

Lived in the sixth century B.C.. According to Roman legend, the sixth king of ancient Rome, from 578 B.C.. to 534–533 B.C.

Roman tradition associated the name of Servius Tullius with reforms that had helped establish the system of government. The most important of these was the centurial reform, which created a new system of territorial tribes to replace the ethnic tribal organization of early Rome and incorporated the plebs into the Roman community. According to the reform, the entire population of Rome, both patrician and plebeian, was divided into five classes, or orders, according to property qualifications; each class was to furnish a fixed number of military units called centuries (hundreds) and was to receive a corresponding number of votes in the comitia centuriata (Centuriate Assembly).

There was a total of 193 centuries, apportioned as follows: the first class, consisting of persons with property worth 100,000 asses or more, furnished 98 centuries; the second class (75,000 asses), 22 centuries; the third class (50,000 asses), 20 centuries; the fourth class (25,000 asses), 22 centuries; and the fifth class (11,000 asses), 30 centuries. The proletarii (those not included in the five classes) furnished one century and thus had one vote in the popular assembly. Servius Tullius is also credited with religious reforms and the building of a city wall.

REFERENCE

Nemirovskii, A. I.”K voprosu o vremeni i znachenii tsenturiatnoi re-formyServiiaTulliia.” Vestnik drevnei istorii, 1959, no.2.