It was, therefore, with more than doubtful chances of success that Fulvius Flaccus, who was consul in the following year, attempted to bring the question to an issue by an actual proposal of citizenship for the allies. The details of his scheme of enfranchisement have been very imperfectly preserved.[481] We are unaware whether, like Caius Gracchus some three years later, he proposed to endow the Latins with higher privileges than the other allies: and, although he contemplated the non-acceptance of Roman citizenship by some of the allied communities, since he offered these cities the right of appeal to the people as a substitute for the status which they declined, we do not know whether his bill granted citizenship at once to all accepting states, or merely opened a way for a request for this right to come from individual cities to the Roman people. But it is probable that the bill in some way asserted the willingness of the people to confer the franchise, and that, if any other steps were involved in the method of conferment, they were little more than formal. The fact that the _provocatio_ was contemplated as a substitute for citizenship is at once a proof that the old spirit of state life, which viewed absorption as extermination, was known still to be strong in some of the Italian communes, and that many of the individual Italians were believed to value the citizenship mainly as a means of protecting their persons against Roman officialdom. That the democratic party was strong at the moment when this proposal was given to the world is shown by the fact that Flaccus filled the consulship; that it had little sympathy with his scheme is proved by the isolation of the proposer and by the manner in which the senate was allowed to intervene. The conferment of the franchise had been proved to be essentially a popular prerogative;[482] the consultation of the senate on such a point might be advisable, but was by no means necessary; for, in spite of the ruling theory that the authority of the senate should be respected in all matters of legislation, the complex Roman constitution recognised shades of difference, determined by the quality of the particular proposal, with respect to the observance of this rule. The position of Flaccus was legally stronger than that of Tiberius Gracchus had been. Had he been well supported by men of influence or by the masses, the senate's judgment might have been set at naught. But the people were cold, Carbo had probably turned away, and Caius Gracchus had gone as quaestor to Sardinia. The senate was emboldened to adopt a firm attitude. They invited the consul to take them into his confidence. After much delay he entered the senate house; but a stubborn silence was his only answer to the admonitions and entreaties of the fathers that he would desist from his purpose.[483] Flaccus knew the futility of arguing with people who had adopted a foregone conclusion; he would not even deign to accept a graceful