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Citizen
During the Roman Republic, comitia were assemblies or committees that allowed citizens to craft and vote on legislation. Rousseau uses the comitia as an example of effective statecraft and argues that, because the comitia gave all citizens a way to participate in politics, “the Roman people was truly sovereign.”
Comitia Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by Comitia or refer to Comitia. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 3, Chapter 12
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The boundaries of the possible in the moral realm are less narrow than we think; it is our own weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that limit them. Base minds do not believe in great men; low slaves jeer in mockery at the word “freedom.”
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Book 4, Chapter 7
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It is useless to separate the morals of a nation from the objects of its esteem; for both spring from the same principle and both necessarily merge together. Among all the peoples of the world, it is not nature but opinion which governs the choice of their pleasures. Reform the opinions of men, and their morals will be purified of themselves. Men always love what is good or what they think is good, but it is in their judgement that they err; hence it is their judgement that has to be regulated. To judge morals is to judge what is honoured; to judge what is honoured, is to look to opinion as law.
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Comitia Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term Comitia appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 4, Chapter 4: The Roman Comitia
Next, Rousseau examines how these divisions mapped onto the Roman comitia, or assemblies. The comitia had representation from every class division and subdivision, and only the...
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There were three different kinds of comitia throughout Roman history. The first gave the people a voice against the Senate, but it...
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...political culture declined, people started buying votes, and to try to prevent this practice, the comitia started voting by secret ballot. Rousseau laments that more reforms of this kind were not...
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