poration of conquered territory within the Roman state and
its occupation by Roman colonists. The tribes were artificial divisions of
the community, and served as a basis for the raising of the levy and the
_tributum_.

*Plebeian aediles.* Associated with the tribunes as officers of the plebs
were two aediles (_aediles plebi_). It has been conjectured that they were
originally the curators of the temple of Ceres (established 492?), which
was in a special sense a plebeian shrine. As we have seen they later
became magistrates of the whole people.

*The codification of the law.* About the middle of the fifth century the
plebeians secured the codification and publication of the law. Hitherto
the law, which consisted essentially of customs and precedents, and was
largely sacral in character, had been known only to the magistrates and to
the priests, that is to members of the patrician order. At this time, two
commissions of ten men each, working in successive years (444-2?) drew up
these customs into a code, which, with subsequent additions, formed what
was later called the Law of the XII Tables. This code was in no sense a
constitution, but embodied provisions of both civil and criminal law, with
rules for legal procedure and police regulations. Notable is the provision
which guaranteed the right of appeal to the Assembly of the Centuries in
capital cases.

*Development of the tribunate and the comitia tributa.* The years which
saw the publication of the code mark an important stage in the struggle of
the orders. Serious trouble arose between the patricians and the plebs
under the second college of law-givers, and the difference was only
settled by a treaty which restored the tribunate, that had been suspended
when the decemvirs were first elected. Henceforth the number of tribunes
was ten instead of four and their position and powers received legal
recognition from the patricians. From this time on, too, the _comitia
tributa_, now embracing all the tribes, the rural as well as the urban,
was a regular institution of the state. The Assembly of the Tribes was
originally, and perhaps always remained in theory, restricted to the
plebeians. And it is improbable that the patricians ever sought to
participate in it. At any rate, there is no adequate reason for believing
in the existence of two assemblies of this sort, the one composed of both
patricians and plebeians and the other of plebeians only.

The Assembly of the Tribes