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Rh harassed during this whole time by fierce raids on the part of the Sabines, the Aequi, and the Volsci. The patrician state needed the support of the plebeians, and that could be had only in return for certain political concessions. The stress of these wars also led Rome and the neighboring peoples of the Latins and Hernici to form a league at the beginning of the fifth century which continued in force to 340.

32. The Comitia Tributa. It will be remembered that in the regal period the king was assisted in the collection of evidence by the. The power of appointing these officials, which the king had enjoyed, descended to the consul and was exercised by him up to the year 447, when, as Tacitus tells us (Ann. XI. 22), they were for the first time elected by the people. This change was in itself a direct gain for the plebeians but the method by which the quaestors were elected suggests a far more important indirect advantage to the plebeians. The jurisdiction of the quaestors extended over patricians as well as plebeians, and the only definite reference which we have to the method of electing them (Cic. ad Fam. VII. 30. 1) indicates that they were chosen in a tribal assembly presided over by a magistrate. We must consequently infer that patricians as well as plebeians took part in the election. From 447 on, then, there are two tribal assemblies, — one an assembly of the under the chairmanship of a magistrate, and therefore properly called the, the other an assembly of the plebs presided over by a tribune, to which Latin writers now and then refer as the.

33. The Lex Canuleia. A great social change which led to important political results was effect at about the same time, to be exact in 445, by the passage of the