:''See

Rogation days Rogation days are days of prayer and fasting in Western Christianity. They are observed with processions and the Litany of the Saints. The so-called ''major'' rogation is held on 25 April; the ''minor'' rogations are held on Monday to Wednesday ...

for usage pertaining to the Christian calendar of the Western Church.'' In Roman constitutional law, ''rogatio'' is the term (from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''rogo'', "ask, place a question before") for a legislative bill placed before an Assembly of the People in ancient Rome. The ''rogatio'' procedure underscores the fact that the

Roman Senate The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...

could issue decrees, but was not a legislative or

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

arian body. Only

the People The ''Sunday People'' is a British tabloid Sunday newspaper. It was founded as ''The People'' on 16 October 1881. At one point owned by Odhams Press, The ''People'' was acquired along with Odhams by the Mirror Group in 1961, along with the ' ...

could pass legislation. A

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

with the right to summon the assembly could propose a bill (''rogatio legis''); the proposed laws themselves were ''leges rogatae''. A bill's proposer was its ''lator''; a supporter was an ''auctor''. Discussions in the senate would contribute to the drafting of a bill, which would be published (''promulgare rogationem'', that is, '' promulgatio'') three weeks or more before it was formally submitted to the assembly. During this period, citizens could discuss the bill and propose changes, or more rarely ask for its withdrawal, at informal sessions (''contiones''). After the bill had been brought before the assembly for the vote, it could no longer be modified. The legislator who introduced the bill asked ''Velitis iubeatis, Quirites?'' ("Citizens, are you going to approve and order?") and the people responded yea or nay without discussion. If a bill was withdrawn after the ''rogatio'' but before the vote was taken, it was usually because a

tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

threatened to use his veto power against it, or less frequently because it proved unpopular among the ''

plebs In ancient Rome, the plebeians (also called plebs) were the general body of free Roman citizenship, Roman citizens who were not Patrician (ancient Rome), patricians, as determined by the capite censi, census, or in other words "commoners". Both ...

''. If a bill was passed (''rogatio lata est''), it became a law (''

lex Lex or LEX may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Lex'', a daily featured column in the ''Financial Times'' Games * Lex, the mascot of the word-forming puzzle video game ''Bookworm'' * Lex, the protagonist of the word-forming puzzle video ga ...

'') after the presiding magistrate made a formal announcement (''renuntiatio'') of the assembly's decision. In the Early

Republic A republic () is a "state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th c ...

, the Senate had to approve the constitutionality of a law before it was enacted; after the passage of the '' Lex Publilia Philonis'' in 339 BC, which required that at least one of the two '' censores'' be a plebeian, this approval (''patrum

auctoritas ''Auctoritas'' is a Latin word which is the origin of English "authority". While historically its use in English was restricted to discussions of the political history of Rome, the beginning of phenomenological philosophy in the 20th century e ...

'') was required before the bill was put to a vote in the assembly. With controversial popularist measures, however, the Senate was sometimes bypassed. If a bill was proposed for the purpose of declaring war, it had to be brought before the

Centuriate Assembly The Centuriate Assembly (Latin: ''comitia centuriata'') of the Roman Republic was one of the three voting assemblies in the Roman constitution. It was named the Centuriate Assembly as it originally divided Roman citizens into groups of one hundred ...

. A bill that became law was inscribed on copper or marble tablets and kept in the state treasury (''

aerarium Aerarium, from ''aes'' (“bronze, money”) + -''ārium'' (“place for”), was the name given in Ancient Rome to the public treasury, and in a secondary sense to the public finances. ''Aerarium populi Romani'' The main ''aerarium'', that ...

populi romani'') under the supervision of the

quaestor A ( , , ; "investigator") was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who ...

s. In 63 BC,

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

managed to obstruct a ''rogatio Servilia'' by making a speech before the people; this appears to be the only time in the Late Republic when oratory blocked a popular piece of legislation, which in this case had provided for the distribution of land to the poor. Or so Cicero claims; the bill's sponsor, the tribune

Servilius Rullus Publius Servilius Rullus was plebeian tribune of the Roman Republic in 63 BC. He proposed an agrarian law aimed at redistributing land for the landless poor in Rome to farm. We know about this through the speeches delivered by Marcus Tullius Cicero ...

, more likely withdrew it because of the threat of veto from one of his fellow tribunes, and it never reached the ''

comitia The legislative assemblies of the Roman Republic were political institutions in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the contemporary historian Polybius, it was the people (and thus the assemblies) who had the final say regarding the election ...

''.Henrik Mouritsen, ''Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic'' (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 54–5
online.
Further discussion of the ''rogatio Servilia'' by

Erich S. Gruen Erich Stephen Gruen ( , ; born May 7, 1935) is an American classicist and ancient historian. He was the Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught full-time from 1966 until 2008 ...

, "The ''Plebs'' and the Army," in ''The Last Generation of the Roman Republic'' (University of California Press, 1974, reprinted 1995), pp. 386–398, limited previe
online.
/ref>

References

{{Italic title Roman Republic Roman law Legal history Parliamentary procedure Proposed laws

See also

References