No instance is found of any opposition or struggle between these comitia, except one slight attempt of this kind mentioned by Appian in the third book of his Civil Wars. Mark Antony, resolving to deprive Decimus Brutus of the government of Cisalpine Gaul, railed in the forum, and called one of the comitia in order to prevent the meeting of the other which had been ordered by the senate; but affairs were then fallen into such confusion, and the Roman constitution was so near its final dissolution, that no inference can be drawn from such an expedient. This contest, besides, was founded more on form than party. It was the senate who ordered the comitia tributa that they might obstruct the meeting of the centuriata, which, by the constitution, or at least forms of the government, could alone dispose of provinces.
Cicero was recalled by the comitia centuriata, though banished by the tributa—that is, by a plebiscitum. But his banishment, we may observe, never was considered as a legal deed, arising from the free choice and inclination of the people. It was always ascribed to the violence alone of Clodius, and to the disorders introduced by him into the government.
III.