Whereas before the second century B.C. no mention is made of a comitial act for the founding of a colony, in the beginning of the period now under consideration the function was exercised by the people three or four times in quick succession. In 197 was enacted the tribunician statute of C. Atinius for planting five colonies—Vulturnum, Liternum, Puteoli, Salernum, and Buxentum—on the coast of Italy, each to consist of three hundred families, the execution of the measure to be in the hands of triumviri, who were to hold their office three years.[2151] Not long afterward a plebiscite of Q. Aelius Tubero provided for founding two Latin colonies, one in Bruttium, the other at Thurii, each by triumviri, who likewise held office three years. The measure was authorized by a senatus consultum, 194.[2152] In the same year a tribunician law of M. Baebius Tamphilus provided for the establishment of three Roman colonies.[2153] Mention of colonial legislation by the people then ceases. Although the phenomenon may be due in some cases to the sources, this explanation does not generally hold good, especially as the colonization of the years 189[2154] and 184[2155] is expressly attributed to the senate, and because Velleius[2156] credits that body with the founding of all the colonies from the Gallic conflagration to his own time. Probably before the Gracchi a senatorial decree was issued in every case, and though the commissioners for conducting colonies were as a rule elected by the tribes after 296,[2157] the people were given but a taste of power within this administrative field.[2158] Early in the second century B.C. we find creditors rioting in usury, unchecked by the various statutes which had been enacted against the evil. They discovered a way of circumventing the law by transferring their securities to citizens of an allied state, who had a right to force the collection of debts under the law of their own community. To put a stop to this kind of fraud the senate decreed that after a stated date allies who lent money to Roman citizens should register the transaction, and that in suits for the collection of such money the debtor should have the privilege of choosing under which law, whether that of Rome or of the allied community, the suit against him should be tried. As the registers provided for the purpose showed that an enormous amount of fraud was still being committed in circumvention of the law and of the senatorial act, M. Sempronius, tribune of the plebs in 193, ex auctoritate patrum proposed and carried a statute which ordered that money lent between a Roman citizen and one of a Latin or other allied state should be collected under Roman law.[2159] This is one of the earliest instances of unfairness introduced by Rome into the private relations between her citizens and those of her allies.[2160]