Ab urbe condita

the Samnites, after their many years of defeat and disaster, were so far quite satisfied with their recent treaty with Rome. In the City itself the large number of colonists sent out made the plebs less restless and lightened their financial burdens.

But to prevent anything like universal tranquillity a conflict between the most prominent plebeians and the patricians was started by two of the tribunes of the plebs, Quintus and Cnaeus Olgunius.

These men had sought everywhere for an opportunity of traducing the patricians before the plebs, and after all other attempts had failed they adopted a policy which was calculated to inflame the minds, not of the dregs of the populace, but of the actual leaders of the plebs, men who

had been consuls and enjoyed triumphs, and to whose official distinctions nothing was lacking but the priesthood.

This was not yet open to both orders. The Ogulnii accordingly gave notice of a measure providing that as there were at that time four augurs and four pontiffs, and it had been decided that the number of

priests should be augmented, the four additional pontiffs and five augurs should all be co-opted from the plebs How the college of augurs could have been reduced to four, except by the death of two of their number, I am unable to discover.