The Patricians, foreseeing that the time would come when the Plebeians
must be admitted to the high offices of the state, divided the powers of
the consulship, and, in 444 B. C., caused the appointment of Military
Tribunes with consular power, officers who might be elected from either
order, as commanders of the army, while the civil powers of the consuls
were kept by the Patricians in their own hands. In 443 B. C. the office
of the Censors was established, with the proviso that they should be
appointed only from the Patricians, and only by their assembly, the
Comitia Curiata. In this the Patricians undoubtedly gained an accession
of power.