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The second great movement of the tribunate was an attempt to secure an equal administration of the law.

In the year 462 the tribune C. Terentilius Arsa made a proposal to the concilium of the Plebs that a commission of five should be appointed to clear up the forms of legal procedure, and by this means to fix limits to the judicial caprice of the consuls;[387] and in the next year a resolution of the whole college of tribunes was framed to this effect. It was obviously a measure which demanded the sanction of the Populus, and this it was for many years impossible to obtain. Even apart from the fact that the tribunes apparently intended their commission to consist wholly of Plebeians, it was felt to be a proposal that was revolutionary in the extreme; for it was nothing less than the demand for a code, for a written system of rules which should replace the elastic principles of justice, which were one of the mainstays of patrician power, and which would vulgarise the awful sanctity of the consulate and the pontifical college. It must also have been felt that codification must mean a compromise—some recognition of plebeian claims which would weaken the position of the ruling caste. Hence a stout opposition on the part of magistrates and Senate, and the bill, if it passed the concilium plebis at all,[388] was not allowed to go a step further. But the Plebs persisted in its efforts, and its answer to patrician opposition was to return year after year the same tribunes, formulating the same demands. In 458 B.C. the college approached the consuls on the subject, and asked them to formulate their objections to the bill;[389] for the moment there was the hope of an agreement, but at the end of the year the consent required was again refused. Three years more of agitation followed, and then it was felt that the original proposal must be abandoned. The tribunes expressed their willingness for the initiative to be taken by the patrician magistrates, and for a joint commission to be appointed. Meanwhile the years of discussion had caused the original proposal to assume larger dimensions. Reform which should bear a wholly non-party character was suggested in place of a mere codification. Information of the Greek Codes was to be gathered by a commission of three—a suggestion which was valuable in many ways; it was useful for purposes of delay, it gave an appearance of learning and thoroughness to the work, and perhaps some such basis was felt to be absolutely necessary for framing rules on points which the very indefinite Roman procedure had never considered. The return of the envoys in 452, after an absence of three years, renewed the demands of the tribunes for the instant prosecution of the work. A controversy between the orders as to the constitution of the commission ended in a compromise. Plebeians might be admitted; but, as a matter of fact, the patrician influence was so strong that the first board elected by the comitia centuriata appears to have consisted wholly of members of that order.[390] The appointment of the commission was a complete abrogation of the constitution. The consulship was abolished; the Plebs gave up their tribunate, some have thought in perpetuity, misled by the hope that the publication of the law would render such a check on the consular power unnecessary, and as a part of the compromise with the Patricians, and stipulated only that certain privileges which they had already gained by law should not be abrogated.[391] The provisional government appointed for the year 451 took the form of a board of ten men with consular power but not subject to the law of appeal.[392] The work was done within the year, and the code posted up on ten tablets (tabulae) and published to the masses. The people were summoned and told that the commission had created equal rights for all,[393] and the whole body of law was passed as a lex by the comitia centuriata. But at the end of the year it was declared that the work was not quite complete. Again the constitution was suspended, and a new board of ten appointed, this time inclusive of Plebeians.[394] Two new sections were added, thus bringing up the number of the tabulae to twelve; these also were confirmed by the centuries, and after the government of the “wicked ten” had abused its power and fallen, were published with the rest of the code by the consuls of 448.[395]