But, in spite of this unholy alliance of the ancient foes, the distinction between the orders never was abolished. In Cicero’s time the separate rights of the Patricians could still be enumerated and defended by the orator. Besides the shadowy and ineffective powers of the _patrum auctoritas_ and the _interregnum_, they possessed half the places in the great priestly colleges, which were shared between the orders, and certain priests—the Rex Sacrorum, the three great Flamines and the Salii—were chosen exclusively from their ranks.[508] The place of the Patriciate in the theory of the constitution—as illustrated by the _auctoritas_ and the _interregnum_—is, as we shall see, very great indeed; but this theoretical importance conferred very little power, and the Plebeians, with their exclusive magistracies closed to the _patres_, with one place reserved for them in the consulship and censorship and the other accessible to their order, had won in the long race for honours. CHAPTER III THE CLASSES OF THE POPULATION AND THE THEORY OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE DEVELOPED REPUBLIC § 1. _The Classes of the Population_ By the date of the _lex Hortensia_ (287 B.C.) the Republican constitution had, in all essential points (considered as the constitution of a city-state), completed its growth; but, before we proceed to examine the theory and practice of the developed polity, it is necessary to pause and inquire what changes these centuries of Republican development had made in the status of the citizen, and in that of the other classes of the city, who shared partially in, or were excluded from, his rights, and what modifications had been undergone by the few main legal rules which mark the outline of their social environment. The merging of Patricians and Plebeians into one community created the necessity for a universal conception of citizenship applicable to the whole body which possessed active political rights, while the growing practice of granting partial civic rights to the members of certain Italian communities led to the distinction between the fully-privileged and the partially-privileged citizen. The former is the _civis optimo jure_, the latter the _civis non optimo jure_. It is only of the former that we shall speak here; the consideration of the latter will be more appropriately deferred to that portion of our work which treats of the Italian confederation.