Finally, in 444, the old-citizen party forced the newly elected military tribunes, among whom were doubtless two plebeians, to resign after only a few months, by pretexting errors made in taking the auspices at their election; and for the remainder of that year and the whole of the year following patrician consuls were appointed. As a result of such chicanery the consulship was filled by none but patricians up to the year 401 B.C. Simultaneously with the establishment of consular tribunes the patricians introduced a new system of tactics to defend their political position, being led thereto partly by the constantly increasing mass of public affairs that passed under their hands. They withdrew one after the other from the consulship several important functions which they placed in the hands of officials newly created for that purpose, and thus secured to themselves the conduct of some of the weightiest of the state’s affairs. As the plebeian consular tribunes were persistently denied all share in the administration of justice, two new patrician officers of state were appointed called censors, to whom was entrusted the estimate and establishment every five years of the budget, the framing of the list of citizens, the assessment for taxation, the holding of the census, and the right of filling vacancies in the senate and of striking undesirable names off the lists of senators, knights, and citizens. The office of censor as originally instituted was to last for the period of a lustrum, or five years; but in 434 the term was limited to one year and a half. Usually filled by former consuls or military tribunes, the position of censor gradually rose in dignity and power until it came to be the highest office in the Roman state. The later censors also had the right of punishing such citizens as had been guilty of dishonourable or immoral conduct, without laying themselves directly open to the action of the law, by means of a so-called censorial “note.” All senators who had fallen under their censure must resign their seat, all knights must forego performing their duties on horseback, and all citizens must withdraw from the associations of their tribe and submit to an increased tax. Meanwhile the slow but steady onward march of the plebeians was not to be withstood. In the year 421 a proposal was made and adopted declaring them eligible to the quæstorship, and in 409 three out of four positions of quæstor were awarded to plebeian candidates. From the fact that after 400 one or more plebeians were regularly appointed to the military tribunate[29] it would appear that the road to political equality between the two great Roman orders at last lay open. And indeed the nation would have progressed to full and peaceful development both at home and abroad had not the orderly course of events been suddenly and disastrously broken in upon by a terrible storm of war. EXTERNAL WARS [Sidenote: [483-449 B.C.]]