The power taken from the tribunes necessarily went to the senate, to restore to it the full control of legislation which it had possessed before the enactment of the Hortensian statute. Under the reformed constitution it was to be supreme. As it had dwindled during the recent civil war and proscription,[2597] and as the performance of jury service, which Sulla was restoring to its members, required a large number of men, he added three hundred, mostly from the equestrian rank, but including some centurions and other insignificant persons who were likely to do his bidding.[2598] Appian[2599] states that these new senators were elected by the tribes, possibly meaning the tribal comitia.[2600] But as that process of selection would have required an enormous length of time, it is far more probable that each tribe had the privilege of choosing a definite number, perhaps nine, after the precedent of the lex Plautia iudiciaria.[2601] This addition would raise the number to about four hundred and fifty. As the normal membership from Sulla to Caesar was about six hundred,[2602] we may assume either that, independently of the extraordinary adlectio by the tribes, he made the usual censorial enrolment of the recently retired magistrates, or that he left it to time to fill up the senate to the desired number by the annual admission of retired quaestors.[2603] Henceforth it was to be recruited automatically by this process, without any action on the part of the censors, who were thus deprived of the only important function remaining to them.[2604] Closely connected with the increase in membership is the lex iudiciaria,[2605] which restored the quaestiones to the senators.[2606] It was enacted near the end of 81, but prior to the increase in the number of quaestors.[2607] Before this act the courts had remained under the control of the knights in spite of the lex Plautia of 89, which seems not to have continued long in force.[2608]