Contio, derived from conventio,[766] originally signified “a coming together,” “a meeting” of any kind. In an early stage of its history it must have been a general term for public assembly, especially comitia. This meaning appears most clearly in a passage of Macrobius,[767] in which, quoting the treatise of Lucius Julius Caesar on the Auspices, he declares (1) that on market days a contio cannot be called, (2) in other words, that on such days business cannot be transacted with the people, (3) that for this reason the Romans cannot hold comitia on market days. Cicero,[768] too, states with reference to a certain market day that “for two days no contio can be held”—for the day of the market and the one following. From the context it is evident that he, like Macrobius, is thinking of comitia, which, as is well known, could not legally meet on market days.[769] Doubtless in the conservative nomenclature of the pontiffs and augurs, quoted by Macrobius and Cicero, contio still included comitia; it must in fact have applied more particularly to the formal, voting assembly; for informal meetings were not forbidden on such days.[770] But in the time of Cicero this use of the word was obsolete excepting in the archaic formulae of the sacerdotal colleges. In the political language of his age contio had come to be restricted to the non-voting assembly—either organized[771] or more commonly unorganized—summoned by a magistrate or a sacerdos,[772] and in this sense it will be used in the present volume. Still farther removed from its origin is the meaning “oration” delivered to the people in such a gathering.[773] Because of the passive character of this form of assembly the magistrate admitted all who wished to attend, without inquiring whether they were citizens and in full possession of their political rights.[774] It might be composed either of soldiers[775] or of civilians, presided over in the field by the commander, in the city by any magistrate who had a right to hold comitia in their own or in another’s name, including the king,[776] interrex, dictator, master of horse, and tribunes of the plebs;[777] also the quaestors[778] and aediles,[779] the pontifex maximus and the rex sacrorum.[780] Necessarily the right belonged as well to all extraordinary magistrates, as the decemviri legibus scribundis, who possessed consular power within the city.[781] But promagistrates and any others who held an exclusively military imperium could summon neither the comitia nor the civil contio.[782] The censors held contiones for the taking of the census,[783] for imposing fines,[784] and for the lustration. In the last-named function the assembly was also called comitia centuriata or exercitus urbanus.[785] The quaestors, the curule aediles, and the plebeian aediles exercised their jurisdiction in contiones and comitia, which for this purpose they called not in their own name but by permission of a higher magistrate.[786]