After violent opposition, and the increase of the number of tribunes to
ten, the Plebeians carried a law (about 452 B. C.) that ten
commissioners (Decemviri) should draw up a code to bind all classes of
Romans alike. The ultimate result was the compilation (and engraving on
thick sheets of brass) of the first and only code of law in the Roman
republic--the _Laws of the Twelve Tables_. These laws made the Comitia
Tributa into a really national legislature, embodying Patricians and
Plebeians alike. The Plebeians, however, were still kept out of a share
in the lands which they conquered in war, and a time of trouble came in
the usurpation and violence of the Decemviri.