the source of censorial power; but the tribal assembly assumed it because of its connection with the making of treaties.[1851] It was the province of the centuriate assembly to introduce permanent regulations of existing magistracies and to institute new ones;[1852] but the function was now transferred, silently so far as we know, to the tribes. Far-reaching in its effect was the creation of the promagistracy in 327. No prolongation of an official power is known to have occurred before this date. The extension of the territory of Rome and of her military operations was now calling for greater elasticity in the duration of commands; but in the face of a strong movement toward popular rights the senate dared not assume the responsibility of so sweeping an innovation. It placed in the hands of the tribunes, accordingly, the business of bringing before the people a rogation for prolonging the imperium of the consul Q. Publilius Philo to the end of the war with Naples, instituting by this precedent the promagistracy.[1853] Again in 295 the imperium of the consul Volumnius was prolonged for a year by a decree of the senate ratified by a plebiscite.[1854] After the custom had been established, however, the senate ordinarily attended to the prolonging of the imperium, as in 308,[1855] in 296,[1856] and in 294,[1857] consulting the people, as it seems, only in cases of tribunician opposition.[1858] No instance of popular interference in the assignment of provinces is mentioned before 295, when a resolution of the comitia tributa, under what form of presidency is not stated, granted Etruria to the patrician Fabius in preference to the plebeian Decius.[1859] This act was an inroad upon the right of the magistrates to divide the business of their office among themselves by agreement or lot. In 292 another resolution of the people recalled from the field the consul Q. Fabius Gurges because of ill-success in war with the Samnites. The senate was the prime mover in the matter, but the form of assembly is unknown. The question concerned either the abrogation of his magistracy or more probably his transfer to some other activity.[1860] Even in the latter case the act of the people was a remarkable deviation from their usual modest policy of dealing with officials.