compel its own admission to the offices of state.

Such a crisis in the position of parties occurred after the fall of
the decemvirate. It had now become perfectly clear that the tribunate
of the plebs could never be set aside; the plebeian aristocracy could
not do better than seize this powerful lever and employ it for the
removal of the political disabilities of their order.

Throwing Open of Marriage and of Magistracies--
Military Tribunes with Consular Powers

Nothing shows so clearly the defencelessness of the clan-nobility
when opposed to the united plebs, as the fact that the fundamental
principle of the exclusive party--the invalidity of marriage between
patricians and plebeians--fell at the first blow scarcely four years
after the decemviral revolution. In the year 309 it was enacted by
the Canuleian plebiscite, that a marriage between a patrician and
a plebeian should be valid as a true Roman marriage, and that the
children begotten of such a marriage should follow the rank of the
father. At the same time it was further carried that, in place of
consuls, military tribunes--of these there were at that time, before
the division of the army into legions, six, and the number of these
magistrates was adjusted accordingly-with consular powers(1) and
consular duration of office should be elected by the centuries.
The proximate cause was of a military nature, as the various wars
required a greater number of generals in chief command than the
consular constitution allowed; but the change came to be of essential
importance for the conflicts of the orders, and it may be that
that military object was rather the pretext than the reason for
this arrangement. According to the ancient law every burgess or