The short term of a consul and the life term of the members of the Senate thus tended to secure to this body an ever increasing influence. It was seldom that any serious conflict arose between the consul and the Senate. The consuls were men who were already senators or who expected to become such, while of the senators, many had held the office of consul and many more hoped to hold it in the future. This curtailment of the kingly power and the division of the powers which remained between two consuls of equal rank, while it secured the protection of the citizens from the danger of a new monarchy, strongly hindered vigor and unity of action in the prosecution of any enterprise. There were times, therefore, during the succeeding centuries in the life of Rome, when to meet temporary emergencies a stronger and undivided rule was necessary. To meet this need a new official was created--the dictator--who might be nominated by one of the consuls upon the authorization of the Senate and who, during the term of his office, which could not exceed six months, possessed and exercised almost absolute authority at Rome, and superseded all the other officials in their duties. The original intention was that such an official should be appointed only in cases of military necessity, but later this office was frequently created to aid the patricians in their contests with the plebeians. Only the patricians were eligible for any of the newly created offices. The Senate was composed exclusively of this order, and it has already been explained, in Chapter II, how, through the expedient of putting more Roman citizens in some centuries than in the others, the patricians were able to control the vote of the majority of the centuries in the comitia centuriata. It is thus apparent that the mere overthrow of the kings at Rome had accomplished little for the ordinary Roman citizen. In fact, the rule of a single monarch is often more beneficial to the poorer classes of a community than the rule of a favored class. The establishment of a republic, however, had eliminated one political element, and cleared the stage for the contest between the patricians and plebeians. That the economic condition of the poorer classes in Rome changed for the worse after the institution of the republic is certain. It was for the interest of the early Roman kings to favor and protect the small Roman farmers, both for military and economic reasons. While the permanent interests of the patricians would have been promoted by the encouragement of this class, their temporary selfish interests called for the destruction of the Roman middle class, primarily the middle agricultural class, and the division of all Roman inhabitants into a small aristocracy on the one hand and a large proletariat on the other.