Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/64

 CHAPTER III.

THE D£C£MVIRS, THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES, AND THE RESTORATION, 462-447 B.C.

I. The Movement in Favor of a Code.

Proposal to Establish a Legal Commission. — The plebeians continued their vain efforts to obtain an equitable and safe administration of justice, but it began to dawn upon them that it was primarily the system of law that was defective and inadequate. The tribunes were not able to changa this, but they could at any rate agitate for a change. In 462 the tribune Gaius Terentilius Arsa proposed the selection of a commission to prepare laws which should bound and define the consular powers. For a number of years a violent contest raged. The plebeians repeatedly elected the same men as tribunes and insisted on getting a code. The patricians with equal obstinacy refused to yield. They tried to satisfy or divert the plebeians by smaller and quite different concessions.

Number of Tribunes Increased. — In 457 the patricians allowed the number of tribunes, which had already been increased perhaps to four, to be raised to ten. The increase must have been a great advantage to the plebeians, in so far as the tribunes exercised the right of intercession against the patrician magistrates. But, whenever they exercised positive powers, for example those of arrest or imprisonment, it was a decided disadvantage, since out of the ten the patricians could often find one who would act as their tool and baffle by his veto the efforts of his colleagues.