- tion of both of the consular places by Plebeians, a doubt seems
to have existed of its legality, which was removed in 342 by a plebiscitum passed into law which declared "uti liceret consules ambos plebeios creari."[1] We have already noticed their capture of the praetorship in 337 B.C.
There was but one more fort, but that a strong one, which the plebeian principes had to storm. This was the circle of the priestly colleges. The two religious guilds of paramount political importance, apart from the decemvirate (sacris faciundis) to which Plebeians had been already admitted, were those of the pontiffs and augurs. The pontifical college, which in the monarchy had consisted of five members, was now composed of four, the place occupied by the expelled king having never apparently been filled up.[2] The augural college, which should have consisted of six, was also at this time reduced by some accident to four members.[3] In the year 300 B.C. two tribunes, Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, brought forward a bill for raising the number of the augurs to nine, and that of the pontiffs to eight, the added numbers in either case to be taken from the Plebs.[4] The measure was understood to be primarily in the interest of the noble Plebeians, already in possession of curule office and triumphal ornaments, but it did to a large extent assist the rights of the Plebs as a corporation; for the religious veto henceforth, though it might be used by the nobility against the interests of the lower orders, could not be employed by the Patricians to check plebeian measures. The bill, which became law, established the religious equality of the two orders, so far as religion was a political force. It is true that, as we shall see, the Plebs were always excluded from certain non-political priesthoods; but, on the other hand, one of the religious colleges of national importance established in later times—the
- ↑ Liv. vii. 42. The law was proposed by the tribune L. Genucius. It was not, however, until the year 172 B.C. that both consuls were plebeian (Liv. xlii. 9; Fast. Cap. C.I.L. i. 1 p. 25).
- ↑ p. 52.
- ↑ Livy (x. 6) marvels at the fact; he thinks that it must have been accidental ("morte duorum"), since the augural college should have consisted of three or of a multiple of three. Cicero (de Rep. ii. 9, 16) says that Romulus coopted (cooptavit) one from each of the three tribes; they were therefore four; that Numa added two (ib. ii. 14, 26). This makes six, which Livy (l.c.) thinks the normal number at the time of the passing of the Ogulnian law.
- ↑ Liv. x. 6. These numbers remained unaltered until the time of Sulla (81 B.C.), who raised the colleges of pontiffs and augurs to fifteen (Liv. Ep. 89). A sixteenth was added to both colleges by Julius Caesar (Dio Cass. xlii. 51).
