Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/99

Rh biennial, and by limiting them, for instance, to ninety days.

The Maenian Law. — During the early part of the third century, possibly in connection with the third secession, the Maenian law was passed, directing the patrician senators to sanction (or reject) elections in advance in the same manner. that the Publilian law prescribed in the case of laws (p. 74). From now on this power of sanction (patrum auctoritas) was simply a formality.

End of the Strife. — The Hortensian laws ended the two hundred years' strife between the patricians and the plebeians. Not only had the orders been equalized, but some of the patrician privileges had been converted into legal disabilities. Only the patricians, however, could fill the office of interrex, and occupy the very important position of first senator (princeps senatus); and custom had established a principle of distribution which for generations gave the patrician order a far larger share of the chief offices and priesthoods than numerically or otherwise it was entitled to.