a decree of the community as unconstitutional—­a right, however, which in all probability it rarely ventured to exercise—­was withdrawn from it by the Publilian law of 415 and by the Maenian law which was not passed before the middle of the fifth century, in so far that it had to bring forward its constitutional objections, if it had any such, when the list of candidates was exhibited or the project of law was brought in; which practically amounted to a regular announcement of its consent beforehand.  In this character, as a purely formal right, the confirmation of the decrees of the people still continued in the hands of the nobility down to the last age of the republic.

The clans retained, as may naturally be conceived, their religious privileges longer.  Indeed, several of these, which were destitute of political importance, were never interfered with, such as their exclusive eligibility to the offices of the three supreme -flamines-and that of -rex sacrorum- as well as to the membership of the colleges of Salii.  On the other hand the two colleges of Pontifices and of augurs, with which a considerable influence over the courts and the comitia were associated, were too important to remain in the exclusive possession of the patricians.  The Ogulnian law of 454 accordingly threw these also open to plebeians, by increasing the number both of the pontifices and of the augurs from six to nine, and equally distributing the stalls in the two colleges between patricians and plebeians.

Equivalence of Law and Plebiscitum

The two hundred years’ strife was brought at length to:  a close by the law of the dictator Q. Hortensius (465, 468) which was occasioned by a dangerous popular insurrection, and which declared that the decrees of the plebs should stand on an absolute footing of equality—­instead of their earlier conditional equivalence—­with those of the whole community.  So greatly had the state of things been changed that that portion of the burgesses which had once possessed exclusively the right of voting was thenceforth, under the usual form of taking votes binding for the whole burgess-body, no longer so much as asked the question.

The Later Patricianism

The struggle between the Roman clans and commons was thus substantially at an end.  While the nobility still preserved out of its comprehensive privileges the -de facto- possession of one of the consulships and one of the censorships, it was excluded by law from the tribunate, the plebeian aedileship, the second consulship and censorship, and from participation in the votes of the plebs which were legally equivalent to votes of the whole body of burgesses.  As a righteous retribution for its perverse and stubborn resistance, the patriciate had seen its former privileges converted into so many disabilities.  The Roman clan-nobility, however, by no means disappeared because it had become an empty name.  The less the significance and power of the nobility, the more purely and exclusively