Expert: Francesco Marchesani - 11/21/2005

Question
I have been reading Colleen McCollough's "Masters of Rome" series and I have thought of one thing she has not mentioned to my knowledge- what was Caesar's "tribus"?

Answer
Hello,
a "tribus" (tribe) was an administrative and electoral division of the Roman citizens: every man, either patrician or plebeian, was placed in one of these tribes (4 urban and 31 rural ones), based on where his main home was located. the tribes' spokemen met in the comitia tributa (tribal assembly) during which they voted by tribe, to elect various political figures: the edile curule, the quaestors and the tribuni militum (tribunes of the soldiers); before Sulla's reformations, the comitia tributa served also as penal courts.
Caesar was born in the Suburra, and belonged to the Suburana tribe.