DIRIBITO´RES
DIRIBITO´RES are said by most modern writers to have
been the persons who gave to the citizens the
tabella with which they voted in the comitia; but Wunder has most
distinctly proved, in the preface to his
Codex Frfurtensis
(pp. cxxvi.--clviii.), that it was the office of the
diribitores to divide the votes when taken out of the
cistae, so as to determine which had the
majority. He remarks that the etymology of
diribere
would lead us to assign to it the meaning of “separation” or
“division,” as it is compounded of
dis and
habere in the same manner as
dirimere is of
dis and
emere; the
h disappears as in
praebere and
debere, which come
respectively from
prae and
habere, and
de and
habere. In several passages
diribitio suffragiorum immediately precedes the
renuntiatio, and hence the word cannot have any
other signification than that given by Wunder. (
Cic. pro Planc. 20, 49
ad Qu.
Fratr. 3.4.1; Varr.
de Re Bust. 3.2.1, 3.5.18 ;
Lex Malac. § 55, 1. 12.)
When Cicero says (
in Pison. 15, 36), “vos
rogatores, vos diribitores, vos custodes tabellarum,” we may
presume that he mentions these officers in the order in which they
discharged their duties in the
comitia. It was
the office of the
rogatores to collect the
tabellae which each century gave, as they
used, before the ballot was introduced, to ask (
rogare) each century for its votes, and report them to the
magistrate who presided over the comitia. The
diribitores, as has been already remarked, divided the votes
when taken in the
cistae to the
villa publica, and there sorted them; the
custodes, among whom were the agents of the
candidates, checked them off by points marked on a tablet. [Compare CISTA , SITULA.]
[
W.S]
