The restoration of the consulship, if no change had been made, would have legally renewed its rights to the same extent, as they had been exercised by those consuls, whose election was carried in violation of law after the institution of the consular tribunate. The pretor's office would thus have remained united with it; whether the deputy or warden of the city, in the absence of both collegues, would have been appointed by them, or elected by the people, cannot be conjectured, since traces of this magistracy, from the time of the decemvirate, only occur in those years which have consular tribunes.

In this manner the consular power, the division and limitation of which had been urgently demanded ninety years before, would have been restored in its full strength, with the exception of the censorship; and it is not surprising that parties now took quite a different view of the matter from what they did then. The patricians, whose forefathers had represented every diminution of the consulship as an attempt against the soverain power, now demanded the separation as vehemently as at one time their opponents, in order that the power taken away from it might remain a prerogative of their own: but if this were to be done, the plebeians now thought, that the accumulation of powers in one office was a disadvantage which might easily be borne.