Till after the decemviral legislation the comitia tributa,[1645] brought into existence by the statute of 471, was restricted, as had been the tribunician comitia curiata, to the transaction of purely plebeian business. In the records of this period we find a continuance of apocryphal agrarian bills[1646] and condemnations of retired magistrates.[1647] In reality the only political weapon of the tribunes, aside from general agitation, continued to be the obstruction of the levy,[1648] as is proved by their increase in number to ten.[1649] The only agrarian law of the period, the so-called lex Icilia for the division of the Aventine among the people, was passed by the comitia centuriata.[1650] The very circumstance that this mild concession to the plebs was couched in a lex sacrata[1651] shows how little faith the commons had in the government.[1652] During this period the supreme power was the senate. Shortly after the fall of the kings it provided for the purchase of corn among neighboring states in a time of scarcity, made a state monopoly of salt in the interest of the poor, freed the plebs from port dues and tributum, thereby placing the whole burden of these taxes on the wealthy.[1653] These acts imply legislative as well as administrative competence. Foreign affairs,[1654] including the decision of war and peace, were in its hands. It resolved not to restore the property of the Tarquins,[1655] decreed triumphs to victorious generals,[1656] the celebration of games,[1657] the expulsion of the Volscians from the city in the time of a festival,[1658] controlled the magistrates, including the plebeian tribunate, by means of the dictatorship,[1659] or clothed the consuls with absolute authority.[1660] Little room was left for the activity of the assemblies. Notwithstanding these unfavorable conditions the tribunes of the plebs through obstruction of the levy and through their harangues in contiones[1661] were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the institution of the decemviri legibus scribundis. Actual votes in tribunician comitia on proposals looking to that end[1662] could have had no more than moral weight. Under popular pressure the consul Sestius, 452, referred the question to the senate,[1663] and the bill for their institution was passed by comitia, doubtless of the centuries. The only valid activity, therefore, of the tribal assembly prior to the decemviral legislation, so far as is known, was the enactment of plebiscites, which lacked the force of law, the election of plebeian officials,[1664] and the quasi-judicial decision of cases appealed to it by those who were accused of violating the tribunician sanctity.[1665]