comitium

See also: Comitium

Latin

Etymology

From comes (“companion, comrade”) +‎ -ium, from com- + the stem of eō.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [kɔˈmɪ.ti.ũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [koˈmit.t͡si.um]

Noun

comitium n (genitive comitiī or comitī); second declension

1. A place in the forum where comitia (election assemblies) were held.
   • 63 BCE, Cicero, Catiline Orations Oratio in Catilinam Prima in Senatu Habita.15:

     Potestne tibi haec lūx, Catilīna, aut huius caelī spīritus esse iūcundus, cum sciās esse hōrum nēminem, quī nesciat tē prīdiē Kalendās Iānuāriās, Lepidō et Tullō cōnsulibus, stetisse in comitiō cum tēlō?

     Can the light of this [life], Catiline, or the breath of this sky be pleasant for you, when you know there is not one of these [senators] who does not know that on the day before the Kalends of January, when Lepidus and Tullus were consuls, you stood in the assembly with a weapon?

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	comitium	comitia
genitive	comitiī comitī1	comitiōrum
dative	comitiō	comitiīs
accusative	comitium	comitia
ablative	comitiō	comitiīs
vocative	comitium	comitia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Related terms

• comitia
• comitiālis
• comitiātus
• comitiō

Descendants

• French: comice
• Friulian: comizi
• Italian: comizio
• Piedmontese: comissi
• Portuguese: comício
• Spanish: comicio

References

• “comitium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “comitium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "comitium", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “comitium”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to meet for elections: comitiis (Abl.) convenire
    
  • to be chosen consul at the elections: comitiis consulem creari
    
• “comitium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “comitium”, in Samuel Ball Platner (1929), Thomas Ashby, editor, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press
• “comitium”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin