ABSTRACT
The Republican constitution was now unified. The plebs had constructed a state of their own within the patrician state, and without a revolution the two had been fused into one. In 339 it was enacted that one censor must be a plebeian; and no act was more symbolic of the real union of the orders than the ceremonial cleansing of the state by a plebeian censor in 280. The Roman constitution endured because it was internally flexible and adapted the substance while retaining the form. The sovereign people who claimed ultimate authority were more ready to acquiesce in its rule, since it was they who elected the magistrates and thus they were indirectly responsible for the composition of the Senate. The people, with their more cumbrous assemblies, were willing for the most part to acquiesce in the growth of the Senate's power: still more were the magistrates over whom it soon exercised almost absolute control.
