The Valerian-Horatian and Publilian statutes are evidence of the right of the people to legislate regarding the composition and powers of their assemblies. No longer content, however, with the making and repeal of laws,—a right guaranteed by the Twelve Tables,[1873]—they began the practice of occasionally suspending laws to the advantage or disadvantage of individuals or of classes—in other words, the voting of privilegia.[1874] There were repeated violations of that article of the Genucian plebiscite which forbade reëlection to an office within a period of ten years,[1875] and no mention is made of the necessity of a dispensation before the year 298, when Q. Fabius Maximus is alleged to have objected to further reëlection on the ground that such conduct was forbidden by law. Thereupon the tribunes of the plebs declared that to remove the obstacle they would propose to the people that he should be absolved from the legal requirement.[1876] But in fact, as Lange[1877] has noticed, Fabius had not been consul for ten years and was therefore legally eligible. Lange suggests that this story of the dispensation may belong to his next election in 295.[1878] At all events the custom of granting dispensations began about this time,[1879] although we need not suppose that the patricians attached much importance to the Genucian statute, which was adopted by an exclusively plebeian assembly. This function assumed by the people of freeing from the power of the law, often exercised in historical time by the senate as well, marks a great advance toward popular sovereignty. The idea that the law was sovereign, which had arisen in the early republic, was now yielding to the idea that it was subject to the caprice of every popular gathering.[1880] The aristocracy was giving way to a democracy, which under the conditions destined to prevail at Rome could only mean mob-rule.