The plenitude of the consular power was further restricted in so far
as the administration of the military chest was committed to two
paymasters (-quaestores-) chosen by the community, who were nominated
for the first time in 307. The nomination as well of the two new
paymasters for war as of the two administering the city-chest now
passed over to the community; the consul retained merely the conduct
of the election instead of the election itself. The assembly in which
the paymasters were elected was that of the whole patricio-plebeian
freeholders, and voted by districts; an arrangement which likewise
involved a concession to the plebeian farmers, who had far more
command of these assemblies than of the centuriate -comitia-.

A concession of still greater consequence was that which allowed the
tribunes to share in the discussions of the senate. To admit the
tribunes to the hall where the senate sat, appeared to that body
beneath its dignity; so a bench was placed for them at the door that
they might from that spot follow its proceedings. The tribunician
right of intercession had extended also to the decrees of the senate
as a collective body, after the latter had become not merely a
deliberative but a decretory board, which probably occurred at first
in the case of a -plebiscitum- that was meant to be binding for the
whole community;(12) it was natural that there should thenceforth be
conceded to the tribunes a certain participation in the discussions
of the senate-house. In order also to secure the decrees of the
senate-- with the validity of which indeed that of the most important
-plebiscita- was bound up--from being tampered with or forged, it
was enacted that in future they should be deposited not merely under
charge of the patrician -quaestores urbani- in the temple of Saturn,
but also under that of the plebian aediles in the temple of Ceres.
Thus this struggle, which was begun in order to get rid of the