III. That the interest already paid for borrowed money should be deducted from the principal, and that the remainder should be repaid in three yearly instalments.
These great reforms naturally excited the most violent opposition, and the Patricians induced some of the Plebeians to put their veto upon the measures of their colleagues. But Licinius and Sextius were not to be baffled in this way, and they exercised their veto by preventing the Comitia of the Centuries from electing any magistrates for the next year. Hence no Consuls, Military Tribunes, Censors, or Quæstors could be appointed; and the Tribunes of the Plebs and the Ædiles, who were elected by the Comitia of the Tribes, were the only magistrates in the state. For five years did this state of things continue. C. Licinius and L. Sextius were re-elected annually, and prevented the Comitia of the Centuries from appointing any magistrates. At the end of this time they allowed Military Tribunes to be chosen in consequence of a war with the Latins; but so far were they from yielding any of their demands, that to their former Rogations they now added another: That the care of the Sibylline books, instead of being intrusted to two men (duumviri), both Patricians, should be given to ten men (decemviri), half of whom should be Plebeians.
Five years more did the struggle last; but the firmness of the Tribunes at length prevailed. In B.C. 367 the Licinian Rogations were passed, and L. Sextius was elected the first Plebeian Consul for the next year. But the Patricians made one last effort to evade the law. By the Roman constitution, the Consuls, after being elected by the Comitia Centuriata, received the Imperium, or sovereign power, from the Comitia Curiata. The Patricians thus had it in their power to nullify the election of the Centuries by refusing the Imperium. This they did when L. Sextius was elected Consul; and they made Camillus, the great champion of their order, Dictator, to support them in their new struggle. But the old hero saw that it was too late, and determined to bring about a reconciliation between the two orders. A compromise was effected. The Imperium was conferred upon L. Sextius; but the judicial duties were taken away from the Consuls, and given to a new magistrate called Prætor. Camillus vowed to the goddess Concord a temple for his success.
The long struggle between the Patricians and Plebeians was thus brought to a virtual close. The Patricians still clung obstinately to the exclusive privileges which they still possessed; but when the Plebeians had once obtained a share in the Consulship, it was evident that their participation in the other offices of the state could not be much longer delayed. We may therefore anticipate the course of events by narrating in this place that the first Plebeian Dictator was C. Marcius Rutilus in B.C. 356; that the same man was the first Plebeian Censor five years afterward (B.C. 351); that the Prætorship was thrown open to the Plebeians in B.C. 336; and that the Lex Ogulnia in B.C. 300, which increased the number of the Pontiffs from four to eight, and that of the Augurs from four to nine, also enacted that four of the Pontiffs and five of the Augurs should be taken from the Plebeians.
About thirty years after the Licinian Rogations, another important reform, which abridged still farther the privileges of the Patricians, was effected by the PUBLILIAN LAWS, proposed by the Dictator Q. Publilius Philo in B.C. 339. These were:
I. That the Resolutions of the Plebs should be binding on all the Quirites,[22] thus giving to the Plebiscita passed at the Comitia of the Tribes the same force as the Laws passed at the Comitia of the Centuries.
II. That all laws passed at the Comitia of the Centuries should receive previously the sanction of the Curies; so that the Curies were now deprived of all power over the Centuries.
III. That one of the Censors must be a Plebeian.
The first of these laws seems to be little move than a re-enactment of one of the Valerian and Horatian laws, passed after the expulsion of the Decemvirs;[23] but it is probable that the latter had never been really carried into effect. Even the Publilian Law upon this subject seems to have been evaded; and it was accordingly enacted again by the Dictator Q. Hortensius in B.C. 286. In this year the last Secession of the Plebeians took place, and the LEX HORTENSIA is always mentioned as the law which gave to Plebiscita passed at the Comitia of the Tribes the full power of laws binding upon the whole nation. From this time we hear of no more civil dissensions till the times of the Gracchi, a hundred and fifty years afterward, and the Lex Hortensia may therefore be regarded as the termination of the long struggle between the two orders.