The capital actions brought by the tribunes before the centuries in the period from Hortensius to the end of the republic have already been reviewed.[1929] We have now to consider the finable cases brought before the comitia tributa in the same period. It is characteristic of the era immediately following the Hortensian legislation, 287-232, described in the following chapter as politically stagnant,[1930] that only one tribunician prosecution is mentioned, and that against the consuls of 249 for contempt of the auspices. Appius Claudius Pulcher, one of the consuls, was fined a hundred and twenty thousand asses, after the action had been transferred from the centuries to the tribes in the way described in an earlier chapter.[1931] In accord with the spirit of the Flaminian era, 232-201, on the other hand, is the prosecution of the retired consuls, M. Livius Salinator and L. Aemilius Paulus, on the ground that they had unjustly distributed the booty gained in war. Technically the charge seems to have been peculatus;[1932] it was brought before the tribes in 218, doubtless by tribunes of the plebs. Aemilius narrowly escaped condemnation; Livius was fined. The popular feeling against them was extremely bitter.[1933] In 214 M. Atilius Regulus and P. Furius Philus, censors, degraded to the condition of aerarius[1934] L. Caecilius Metellus,[1935] who after the battle of Cannae had tried to persuade the knights to abandon Italy.[1936] He was elected tribune of the plebs for the following year, and made use of his office in an attempt to prosecute the censors before the close of their administration. His purpose was thwarted, however, by the intercession of the remaining nine tribunes,[1937] who in this way saved for a time a conservative principle of the constitution—the inviolability of the magistrate from prosecutions while in office.[1938] The trial of Postumius the publican, beginning in a finable action and ending as perduellio, has been treated elsewhere.[1939] In the same period falls the trial of the tresviri nocturni for appearing too late at a fire. They were accused by the tribunes and condemned by a vote of the tribes.[1940]