This was now the order of business. The tribunes made their proposals of laws on a market-day. For, the people, _Populus_ as well as _Plebes_, could not legally transact business on every day; the curies and the centuries only on the _dies comitiales_; the tribes only on the _nundina_; by the Lex Hortensia, it was first allowed to assemble also the centuries on the nundines. The special expressions are, _populus jubet_, _plebs sciscit_; but it was never said, _plebs jubet_, or _populiscitum_. The _Plebes_ in former times assembled in the Forum, afterwards in the _Area Capitolina_: the _Populus_ in the Comitium, or in a grove outside the Pomœrium, the _Æsculetum_ or _Lucus Petelinus_. In the _concilium plebis_, they voted _tabellis_; in the concilium of the curies, _viva voce_. In the _concilium populi_, no previous notice needed to be given. Nothing could be taken to the _Plebes_ direct from the senate; the latter could only commission the consuls to confer with the tribunes about any thing: the curies on the other hand could do no business without a _senatus-consultum_, and in their assemblies nothing could be brought forward without a curule magistrate or an _interrex_: in the assemblies of the _Plebes_ these did not even dare to show themselves.[98] If the tribunes wished to propose a law for deliberation to the commons, they set it up in the forum _in albo, in trinundinum_, that is to say, to be decided upon after fifteen days, the first nundines being included with them. A _concio advocata_ could take place at any time: the forum was full every day; the tribune might mount the rostra and harangue the people, and also allow others to speak, especially those who wished to make themselves heard against his proposal (_edocere plebem_). Yet this deliberation is only a preliminary, not a decisive one; as when, for instance, the English Parliament goes into committee, or the French Chambers deliberate in the _bureaux_: different from it is that which takes place on the day of voting. Every resolution, as well of the _Populus_ as of the _Plebes_, was to be carried before sunset; otherwise the day was lost. Auspices were valid for the _Plebes_ only in later times; as for the _Populus_, a flash of lightning, or a similar phenomenon, broke up the assembly (_dies diffisus_). If the tribune had announced the rogation _in albo_ fifteen days before the decisive debate came on, we generally imagine the affair to have been more tumultuous than it was. People assembled early in the morning; the discussion lasted the whole day; one after another stood up to speak for and against; the opponents tried _eximere diem_, that the measure might not be passed before sunset; the sunset was seen from the steps of the Curia Hostilia,[99] and the _suprema tempestas_ proclaimed. The tribune had now to wait again eight days, and to make a fresh announcement _in trinum nundinum_. This form must have been used from the very earliest times