First among the statutes relating to the election of magistrates is to be placed the Maenian plebiscite, adopted in 287 or thereabout, which directed the patres in case of elections, as the Publilian statute had directed them in case of rogations,[2008] to give their auctoritas before the voting began, while the issue was still uncertain.[2009] Blocking the last efforts of the patricians to monopolize the consulship,[2010] the act completed the reduction of the patrum auctoritas to a formality. The sources represent Appius Claudius Caecus as the chief offender whom this law was designed to rebuke. His personality had brought to the censorship an enormous accretion of power which disturbed the constitutional balance. In this period that magistracy assumed also the function of supervising the morals of the citizens.[2011] To check this disproportionate growth a law, probably tribunician, of 265 forbade reëlection to the office.[2012] The Romans created no more absolutely new magistratus ordinarii. In 267, however, probably by an act of the comitia tributa, they doubled the number of quaestors—from four to eight—in order that the new members of the college might attend to the financial business of the government at various points in Italy.[2013] A second praetor was created in 242,[2014] doubtless by a law, not only for jurisdiction inter peregrinos but also for increasing the number of magistrates available for military commands.[2015] The tresviri capitales, instituted in 289,[2016] were given the rank of magistrate by a plebiscite of L. Papirius, adopted after 242, which directed the urban praetor to elect these officials in the comitia tributa.[2017] In 241 the people, probably in tribal assembly, granted to L. Caecilius Metellus on account of his blindness the privilege of riding to the Curia in a carriage.[2018] One statute referred to this period[2019] belongs to the domain of private law. The first chapter of the tribunician lex Aquilia provided “that if a slave of another man, or a quadruped of his cattle, be unlawfully slain, whatever within a year is the highest value thereof, that amount the offender shall pay to the owner.”[2020] The second chapter secured the principal stipulator against adstipulators, and the third provided for all other kinds of damage.[2021] It superseded all previous statutes on the subject, including that of the Twelve Tables. II. _The Flaminian Era_[2022] 232-201