The imposition of a fine (_multa_) was the most common mode of enforcing obedience, and was possessed by all the magistrates with the possible exception of the quaestor.[716] As early as 454 B.C. the power of fining (_jus multae dictionis_), which had hitherto belonged to the consuls alone, was conferred “on all magistrates”—including, therefore, the tribunes and plebeian aediles—by a _lex Aternia Tarpeia_ passed in the assembly of the centuries.[717] The _lex Menenia Sextia_ (452 B.C.) fixed the highest fine that could be imposed by a magistrate on his own authority (_multa suprema_) at two sheep or thirty oxen[718]—the former the limit for the poor man, the latter for the rich. After coined money, or at least metal by weight, had come into vogue during the decemviral period, a _lex Julia Papiria_ (_de multarum aestimatione_) of 430 B.C. fixed 3000 libral asses as the extreme amount that a magistrate might impose.[719] The infliction of a fine larger than this _multa suprema_ subjected the official who pronounced it to an appeal to the people.[720] The _provocatio_ against _multae_ went before the _comitia_ or the _concilium_ of the tribes according as the fines were imposed by patrician or plebeian magistrates, and we shall see how this appeal brought the aediles into contact with these two assemblies.[721] Certain laws continued to fix an absolute limit even to fines submitted to the judgment of the people. They were generally limited to less than half of the property of the accused.[722] But the tribunes’ power of imposing money penalties extended far beyond the limits of that of the other magistrates. The power of confiscating all the goods of an individual by consecrating them to a god (_consecratio bonorum_), a relic, like the execution from the Tarpeian rock, of the old religious jurisdiction and as little subject to the appeal, had been occasionally put in force by them in extreme cases,[723] and like other vanished relics of antiquity was revived during the party struggles of the close of the Republic. Another mode of coercion, specially used against magistrates and the official class, was the seizing of articles of their property as pledges (_pignoris capio_).[724] It was possessed by all the magistrates who had the _coercitio_, and was employed rather as a punishment than as a security for good behaviour. Hence the pledges were often destroyed,[725] and we find a consul seeking satisfaction for his outraged dignity in breaking up the curule chair of the praetor who would not rise to greet him as he passed by.[726]