In the arrangement of Augustus the senatorial houses retained the hereditary equestrian right; but by its side the censorial bestowal of the equestrian horse is renewed as a prerogative of the emperor and without restriction to a definite time, and thereby the designation of equites for the first class of the census as such falls into abeyance.

13.  II.  III.  Increasing Powers of the Burgesses

14.  II.  VIII.  Officers

15.  II.  III.  Restrictions As to the Accumulation and Reoccupation of Offices

16.  II.  III.  New Opposition

17.  The stability of the Roman nobility may be clearly traced, more especially in the case of the patrician -gentes-, by means of the consular and aedilician Fasti.  As is well known, the consulate was held by one patrician and one plebeian in each year from 388 to 581 (with the exception of the years 399, 400, 401, 403, 405, 409, 411, in which both consuls were patricians).  Moreover, the colleges of curule aediles were composed exclusively of patricians in the odd years of the Varronian reckoning, at least down to the close of the sixth century, and they are known for the sixteen years 541, 545, 547, 549, 551, 553, 555, 557, 561, 565, 567, 575, 585, 589, 591, 593.  These patrician consuls and aediles are, as respects their -gentes-, distributed as follows:—­

Consuls   Consuls   Curule aediles of those
388-500   501-581   16 patrician colleges

Cornelii 15 15 15
Valerii 10 8 4
Claudii 4 8 2
Aemilii 9 6 2
Fabii 6 6 1
Manlii 4 6 1
Postumii 2 6 2
Servilii 3 4 2
Quinctii 2 3 1
Furii 2 3 —
Sulpicii 6 4 2
Veturii — 2 —
Papirii 3 1 —
Nautii 2 — —
Julii 1 — 1
Foslii 1 — —
                  —–­ —–­ —–­
                   70 70 32

Thus the fifteen or sixteen houses of the high nobility, that were powerful in the state at the time of the Licinian laws, maintained their ground without material change in their relative numbers—­which no doubt were partly kept up by adoption—­for the next two centuries, and indeed down to the end of the republic.  To the circle of the plebeian nobility new -gentes- doubtless were from time to time added; but the old plebian houses, such as the Licinii, Fulvii, Atilii, Domitii, Marcii, Junii, predominate very decidedly in the Fasti throughout three centuries.

18.  I. V. The Senate

19.  III.  IX.  Death of Scipio

20.  III.  X. Their Lax and Unsuccessful Management of the War f.