Compelled, by a new secession of the commons, to abdicate, the decemvirs of 305 were succeeded by two popular consuls, under whose auspices several important privileges were obtained for the plebeians, the most important of which was a law conferring on a _plebiscitum_, or resolution of the tribes, the right to become law on receiving the sanction of the patricians, thus enabling the whole people to originate measures as well as the senate. In 310, the plebeians mustered courage to demand that one of the consuls should thenceforward be chosen from their order. To divert them from this, the patricians yielded to another demand――the repeal of the law prohibiting intermarriage between the two orders. The plebeians, however, still persisting in their demand regarding the consulship, the patricians, in 311, offered a compromise, which consisted in breaking down the supreme authority, hitherto concentrated in the consulship, into three offices――the Censorship, the Quæstorship, and the Military Tribunate――with consular powers. The _censors_ were to be two in number, chosen for a period of five years, by the curies from among the patricians, subject to the approval of the centuries. The ostensible duty of the censors was the administration of the public revenues; but as they were intrusted with the task of determining the rank of every citizen, and of rating his taxable property, their power was, in reality, enormous. To watch over the moral conduct of the citizens, and to degrade such senators or knights as disgraced their order, were parts of their understood duty. The _quæstors_, two in number, were to keep the public accounts; they were likewise to be patricians, but were to be chosen by the centuries. Regarding the third office, the _military tribunate_, the plebeians were to have the option of this office, consisting of an indefinite number of persons of somewhat less dignity than the consuls, but to be chosen by the centuries from either order indiscriminately, or of consuls to be chosen, as before, from among the patricians only.