Metellus may have had in mind the transition through the adrogatio, which required a curiate law, or more probably he was thinking of a vote of the curiae in addition to the other formalities which Clodius was passing through.[941] The complete process accordingly would have been the abjuration of the patriciate, confirmed by a curiate law, and the reception of plebeian rights through a plebi scitum. Clodius was not so foolish as to suppose that a process of transitio invented by himself would prove acceptable to the senate and magistrates, and must therefore have followed as closely as possible the formula which he believed to be legal. But when Metellus raised the objection, and when the tribunes persisted in interceding against the plebi scitum,[942] he yielded for the present, and in the following year had himself arrogated by a plebeian named Fonteius, from whom he was forthwith emancipated.[943] This procedure, too, allowed him to retain the gentile name of his birth,[944] his imagines and sacra,[945] and consequently his inheritance. The oath taken in the calata comitia accordingly was not the detestatio sacrorum usual in arrogations, but a form of declaration which reserved these privileges, with the understanding that in this case the arrogatio was not for the customary object but to enable him to change his rank.[946] Analogous to the transitio ad plebem is the elevation of a plebeian to the patrician rank. The Romans believed that eminent plebeians, including foreigners of distinction newly admitted to citizenship, were sometimes granted the patriciate not only through the regal period but also in the opening years of the republic. For the republican age they represented the bestowal as a double act, a resolution of the people followed by coöptation into the senate.[947] In stating that the first consuls chose the best men from the commons, made them patricians, and with them filled the senate to the number of three hundred, Dionysius[948] apparently has in mind the consuls’ function of recruiting the senate before the Ovinian legislation,[949] together with their initiative in granting the patriciate. The Roman view that the bestowal required a vote of the people is further proved by the procedure of Julius Caesar and of Octavianus in creating new patricians; for in this function they doubtless followed tradition as nearly as possible. In 45 a plebi scitum,[950] proposed by L. Cassius Longinus and supported by a senatus consultum,[951] empowered Caesar to recruit the patrician rank. Octavianus proceeded in a similar manner except that a consular law,[952] approved also by a senatus consultum,[953] was passed for the purpose. As the object was religious, we may suppose that the qualifications of the candidates were previously examined by the pontifical college. On the analogy of the transitio ad plebem it may be assumed further that the candidate abjured his plebeian rank in the calata comitia, which then