The Tribal Assembly or Assembly of the People (comitia populi tributa) of the Roman Republic was an assembly consisting of all Roman citizens convened by the tribes (tributim). During the Roman Republic, citizens were organized on the basis of 35 tribes: four urban tribes of the citizens in the city of Rome, and 31 rural tribes of citizens outside the city. The tribes gathered in the Tribal Assembly to vote on legislative, judicial and electoral matters. Each tribe voted separately and one after the other. In each tribe, decisions were made by majority vote and its decision counted as one vote regardless of how many electors each tribe held. Once a majority of tribes voted in the same way on a given measure, the voting ended and the matter was decided. The president of the Tribal Assembly was usually either a "consul" or a "praetor". The Tribal Assembly elected the "quaestors", and the "curule aediles". it conducted trials for non-capital punishment cases. However, the Roman Dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla reassigned this to special jury courts in 82 BC.There are disagreements among modern historians regarding the number and nature of the tribal assembly .
The citizens did not elect legislative representatives (such as congressmen or MPs). Instead, they voted themselves on legislative matters in the popular assemblies, the tribal assembly and the plebeian council). Bills were proposed by magistrates and the citizens only exercised their right to vote. The citizens also elected the magistrates in the popular assemblies. They were presided over by a single magistrate. It was the presiding magistrate who made all decisions on matters of procedure and legality. His power over the assembly could be nearly absolute. The only check on his power came in the form of vetoes by other magistrates. Any decision made by a presiding magistrate could be vetoed by the "plebeian tribunes".
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the world experienced radical changes in technology. We went from riding upon horseback to riding inside of steam powered trains and gasoline powered automobiles. Before the invention of the film camera, the only way to create an image was to make a drawing or painting. Cameras radically changed the way we viewed the world because this device can freeze and preserve a moment in time and answer questions that were unanswerable before. Once newspapers and magazines began to include photographs, it changed how people saw the world. Automobiles and trains allowed us to travel great distances and cameras allowed us to document the things that we experienced in our lives. We went from a people who rarely travelled far from our homes to a people who enjoy traveling and taking vacation photos of the places we visit.
