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 the patrician spirit developed itself. The haughtiness
of the "Ramnians" survived the last of their class-privileges for
centuries; after they had steadfastly striven "to rescue the consulate
from the plebeian filth" and had at length become reluctantly
convinced of