It is true that the centuriate assembly, having developed from the army, showed pronounced military features. It could not be convoked within the pomerium, for the reason that the army had to be kept outside the city;[1199] before the reform it met ordinarily in military array under its officers and with banners displayed;[1200] the usual place of gathering was the Campus Martius; and no one but a magistrate cum imperio could under his own auspices convoke it for the purpose of taking a vote.[1201] For these reasons it was frequently, even in official language, termed exercitus.[1202] The use of this word, however, should not mislead us into supposing that the assembly was an actual army. Though Dionysius[1203] represents the first meeting as armed—a mere supposition, apparently to account for its known military features—the fact is that the citizens carried weapons to none of the assemblies.[1204] Strictly, too, the centuriate gathering was termed exercitus urbanus in contrast with the real army designated as exercitus armatus or classis procincta.[1205] The facts thus far adduced amply warrant us in refusing to consider the voting assembly an army. But some imagine the censorial assembly for the assessment and lustration of the citizens to have been an army.[1206] For this view they rely upon Dionysius,[1207] who states that the people came armed to the first lustrum, and upon an uncertain passage from the Censoriae Tabulae, quoted by Varro,[1208] which possibly speaks of the citizens in the lustral assembly as armati. If this word should be supplied in the passage, it might refer to an inspection of arms of the men of military age;[1209] but that circumstance would by no means imply that all who attended the lustrum were armed or were liable to military duty. It is certain that as the census-taking had primary reference to property for the purpose of apportioning taxes and other burdens of citizenship, those only were summoned who were legally capable of holding property in their own name. The list excluded all the men “in patris aut avi potestate,” however liable they were to military duty,[1210] as well as the women and children.[1211] All such persons were reported by the father or guardian. It included, on the other hand, many who were exempt from military service on account of age, physical condition, or want of the necessary property qualification. Hence the censorial assembly could not have been identical with the army. Furthermore the centuriate assembly was not a basis for the levy.[1212] On the contrary, the soldiers were enrolled directly from the tribes.[1213] These facts warrant the conclusion that the relation between the army and the assembly must have been one of origin only; the organization of the assembly developed from that of the army, but at no time was the political assembly an army or the army otherwise than exceptionally or irregularly a political assembly.