All assemblies which met under pontifical presidency for religious purposes were called calata,[862] evidently from “calare,” a verb which must originally have been in common use in the sense of “to call,” but which in historical time was restricted to the technical language of the sacerdotes.[863] In the latter connection it designates the peculiar method of summoning used by the pontiffs.[864] Probably, at least in earlier time, their calatores acted as curiate lictors in convoking the calata comitia curiata,[865] over which they presided. In all meetings of the kind in the regal period the people were grouped in curiae; under the republic the centuriata comitia calata were also used for certain purposes.[866] The usual meeting-place of the calata comitia curiata was in front of the curia Calabra on the Capitoline Hill.[867] With reference to their object, they may be classed as non-voting and voting; the former were purely religious, the latter were for the settlement of questions which were in part civil.[868] First to be noted of the non-voting assemblies were those in which the people gathered in comitia under the presidency of the king,[869] in the republic under the rex sacrorum, to hear the proclamation of the fasti. On the calends of each month a pontifex minor, as clerk of the college,[870] announced to them on what day, whether the fifth or seventh, the nones would come.[871] On the nones the king again summoned the people to hear the calendar of the month,[872] read probably by the same pontifex minor. This custom fell into disuse with the publication of the calendar in the Forum, beginning in 304.[873] Equally passive were those comitia calata which under the presidency of the supreme pontiff witnessed the inauguration of the three flamines maiores,[874] probably of the king in the regal period, and certainly of the rex sacrorum under the republic.[875] As warlike Mars had his shrines outside the pomerium,[876] his chief temple being in the Campus Martius,[877] it is a probable conclusion that his flamen was inaugurated there—in the regal period in some form of military assembly, under the republic in the comitia centuriata.[878] The inaugural ceremonies were performed by an augur;[879] in the case of the sacerdotes it was the supreme pontiff who requested this service of him,[880] whereas the king could doubtless command an augur without the coöperation of the pontiff. A closely related function was the appointment of Vestals by lot, under the conduct of the supreme pontiff in a public assembly, probably the calata comitia.[881] The destatio sacrorum and the abjuration of social rank, other acts which these comitia merely witnessed, will be considered in connection with the transitio ad plebem and the adrogatio.[882] The ceremonies attended to by the rex sacrorum on March 24 and again on May 24 may have been in comitia calata, though this is doubtful.[883]