The tribuneship, which had been originally a purely popular institution, had changed, or rather lost, its character. Instead of being stationed outside the entrance of the Senate House, to prevent the door from being opened to abuse, the Tribunes were, by a law of C. Atinius, constituted _ex-officio_ members of that aristocratic body. The design of the tribuneship was to insure to the people a certain number of friends invested with high authority; but the people were eventually anxious to be saved from their friends--a result that is by no means rare in ancient or modern history. As the bitterest vinegar can be made from the most generous wine, the sharpest of despots is often created out of the blandest of demagogues. So great had the power of the Tribunes become, and so much had it been abused, that even the Senate grew jealous of it; and a law was enacted to bring the tribuneship under the operation of signs and omens. These were interpreted by the Augurs, who of course had the power of reading in the lightning, and hearing in the reports of the thunder, whatever it suited their purpose to circulate. Aristocracy had lost its exclusive privileges; but these had only become more objectionable by being spread over a larger surface; for they were now extended to a certain portion of the plebeians, who went by the name of _novi homines_, or upstarts. These were distinguished from the Nobiles, or, to speak shortly, the nobs, who enjoyed the right of having the images of their ancestors in wax; but this _jus imaginum_, as it was termed, conferred only an imaginary dignity. There was no legal privilege attached to the sort of nobility above described; but those persons who were qualified by the possession of the waxen forms of their fathers, were looked upon as men making in society a highly respectable figure.