Later, in 390 B.C., the capture and sack of Rome by the Gauls nearly proved the death-blow of the Roman republic. The internal dissensions of this period were mainly responsible for the lack of military success. Although it is true that the history of early Rome, unlike the histories of the various early Grecian states, records few instances where hatred or bitterness arising from political defeat induced a citizen to turn traitor to his country, and although the approach of a foreign foe was generally sufficient to bring about a truce in Roman political hostilities and the union of all factions in the city against the common national enemy, still it must be remembered that the amount of energy possessed by a community is limited. When the all-absorbing questions agitating a people are those relative to internal political contests, the energies of the ablest men of each generation are spent mainly in political contests instead of being exerted for the common welfare of the community. The influence which the internal dissensions at Rome must have exerted on her military success is shown by a comparison of the military history of the Roman republic prior to 367 B.C. with the wonderful career of conquest which the Roman republic entered into immediately after the passage of the Licinian Act. This act, although producing a partial and temporary cessation of class contests at Rome, nevertheless sufficiently healed the internal wounds of the state to enable it to rapidly advance from a city-republic to a world power. "The results of this great change were singularly happy and glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and victory followed the reconciliation of the orders. Men who remembered Rome engaged in waging petty wars almost within sight of the Capitol lived to see her the mistress of Italy. While the disabilities of the plebeians continued, she was scarcely able to maintain her ground against the Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities were removed, she rapidly became more than a match for Carthage and Macedon." (Macaulay.) The republic created at Rome in the course of the sixth century before Christ was distinctively an undemocratic republic. The benefits to the plebeians resulting from the overthrow of the kingdom were of slight, if any importance. The political power of the state remained almost entirely in the hands of the patricians, and the right to hold office was restricted to the members of this caste. At this time the members of the patrician order were perhaps not very much inferior in numbers to the plebeian order; but the discrepancy between the numbers of the two orders so rapidly increased that by the beginning of the fourth century before Christ the government of Rome had become practically that of an oligarchy.