with that of the former, and that the Plebiscitum became as binding on the nation as the Lex.  There were in short two parallel bodies in which the people could make laws—­ranged in the one by tribes, and voting on measures submitted to them by their tribunes; ranged in the other by centuries, and voting on measures submitted to them by the consul.  But as the State became more and more democratic, the Comitia Tributa was more used than the Comitia Centuriata, in which legislation was gradually confined to special matters assigned to them by law or custom.  Besides these functions the Comitia Tributa decided on war or peace, elected the tribunes, aediles, and lesser magistrates, and also usurped judicial power, arraigning magistrates for their conduct in office, &c.  The functions of the Comitia Centuriata were, as we have, seen, also legislative.  They elected to the higher magistracies and exercised jurisdiction in capital cases, a function which grew out of the Roman citizen’s right to appeal.  Each century had one vote; and as by the Servian arrangement the first class, though containing fewest voters, had nevertheless, owing to its highest assessment, most votes, it could by itself outvote the other classes.  At some time or other this classification was altered; and a new system, based partly on centuries and partly on tribes, came into use.  Each tribe was divided into ten centuries, five of seniors and five of juniors.  The first class consisted of one of each of these from each tribe, so that, as there were thirty-five tribes, each class would consist of seventy centuries.  It is said by some that the first class included also thirty-five centuries, or eighteen centuries of equites.  If this be true, the first class would still have retained the preponderance of votes.  In any case it had the best of the voting, for even if it was decided by lot which century of all the centuries should vote first, still the first class voted second, and the moral effect of the wealthier and weightier citizens voting one way or other would naturally influence the votes of the other centuries.  Moreover some say that the lot was confined to the centuries of the first class.  Such then was the original and such the modified constitution of the Comitia Centuriata. [Sidenote:  Sulla’s legislation about the Comitia.] Appian expressly states that Sulla reverted to the original mode of voting.  But he may be confusing things, and only mean that Sulla took the voting power from the Comitia Tributa and vested it in the Comitia Centuriata.  And this probably is what Sulla did.

[Sidenote:  Curtailment of the power of the consuls and praetors.] Fourthly, as Sulla weakened the censorship in order to exalt the Senate’s authority at its expense, so, to prevent any individual again obtaining undue influence, he ordained that no man should be consul till he had been first quaestor and then praetor, and that no man should be re-eligible to a curule office till after an interval of ten years.  This,