Besides drawing up a general code of laws, they were also commissioned to settle the constitution on the basis of equality between the two orders. In this constitution which they worked out, the tribunate was to be done away with, and the supreme authority to be held by men of both classes. The five last names which Livy mentions in the second decemvirate, are plebeian, from families which do not occur in the Fasti before the Licinian laws. Three among them, Dionysius expressly names as such; with regard to the two others, who, it is stated, were chosen by Appius and the chief men from the lesser clans, it is equally evident to any one who knows the Roman houses, and therefore Livy places them at the bottom of the list. The mistake of Dionysius arises from his having confounded the two decemvirates. The first decemvirate represented the _decem primi_ of the senate, chosen by the centuries from a προβούλευμα of the Patres; the second, on the contrary, was a συναρχία after the pattern of the archons of Attica, perhaps even originating in the knowledge of the Athenian laws. The second election was quite different; the most eminent as well as the most humble patricians solicited the votes of the plebeians. Here for the first time we meet with canvassing, and therefore perfect freedom of election. There were six _Tribuni Militares_, three patricians and three plebeians, who were intrusted with the real command in war: of the rest, two are to be considered as invested with the censorial power, combined with that of the _Præfectus Urbi_, and with the presidency of the senate; the two others, with the authority of the quæstors, being also in certain cases charged with military functions. Of course, in each of these two pairs were also one patrician and one plebeian. If, therefore, Dionysius had read that there were three patrician and three plebeian _Tribuni Militares_, he might,--as the old books were surely written in very obscure language,--have easily overlooked the circumstance that the other four were likewise equally divided among the two orders. The three plebeians, acknowledged as such by Dionysius, are Q. Poetelius, C. Duilius, and Sp. Oppius.