In this manner alone could the plebeians develop their full strength and importance as a class, since all the advantages conferred by ancient tradition and political routine, by a clear insight into their own needs, and a firmly established social, religious, and political position, were on the side of the patricians, the plebeians having further to contend against the disadvantage of being widely scattered over a great extent of territory and of having received no preparatory political training or instruction. It was precisely these hindrances to the advancement of their people that the more active among the tribunes set about to overcome. A series of truly notable plebeian statesmen now came to the fore, the most prominent among them being the Icilii, the Virginii, and later the Duilii. [Sidenote: [492-452 B.C.]] As early as 492 an Icilius had passed a law making it a punishable crime to interrupt or in any way disturb the tribunes when in the act of laying their criminal decisions before the plebeians in the assembly of the tribes. Furthermore the tribunes, preventing as they did any violent interruption of the process of development by holding the plebeians, in all their upward strivings, strictly to the line of legal right, came to be the most powerful factor in the gradual development and formation of the Roman constitution. In domestic legislation they also constantly took the initiative, being chiefly concerned in gaining for the tribal assembly and their proceedings--which latter as merely “legislative monologues” had hitherto remained without result--a recognised position in the magistracy of the state. The centuriate assembly was at that time of comparatively little service to the plebeians. The plebeians eligible to vote greatly outnumbered the patricians of the same class; yet the arrangement of “voices” in the centuriata was such that the patricians largely predominated. The first census class consisted of eighty centuries, the mass of the members possessing the least means being united into one, while the second, third, fourth, and fifth census classes--those formed of the peasantry of the middle class--were divided up into ninety centuries. [Illustration: PUNISHMENT OF CASSIUS[23]] [Sidenote: [482-452 B.C.]]