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A transference of political rights from the patrician body to this new assembly was so far from being the motive of the change that it was probably never contemplated. But such a transference was from the nature of things inevitable. Apart from the general fact that a citizen army must gain the preponderance in political power, there were certain public acts which were inevitably performed from the first by the assembly of the centuries, or were very soon found to be more rapidly, easily, and appropriately performed by that assembly than by the comitia of the curiae.

Firstly, it may have been the custom for the oath of allegiance to the king, first expressed in the lex curiata,[306] to have been renewed at every taking of the census. This expression of allegiance, asked for by the magistrate, was now a lex centuriata.[307]

Secondly, most of the popular utterances or leges of early Rome must have referred to military matters, and convenience, if not a sense of consistency, must soon have dictated that they should be pronounced by the army. The choice of officers rested with the king; but if the appointment of the higher delegates required the ratification of the people,[308] this must soon have been given by the centuries. The regal jurisdiction which the people challenge by the provocatio is essentially military jurisdiction;[309] and consequently the exercise of this jurisdiction, when the king allowed the appeal, must soon have been felt to belong to the army. It was to this assembly that the announcement of a proposal to declare war[310] would most appropriately be made; it was above all by this assembly, which represented the taxpayers, that the war-tax (tributum) would most appropriately be assessed.