One of the immediate successors of Appius, Quintus Fabius Rullianus, the famous conqueror of the Samnites, undertook in his censorship of 450 not to set it aside entirely, but to confine it within such limits that the real power in the burgess-assemblies should continue to be vested in the holders of land and of wealth.

He assigned those who had no land collectively to the four city tribes, which were now made to rank not as the first but as the last.

The rural tribes, on the other hand, the number of which gradually increased between 367 and 513 from seventeen to thirty-one--thus forming a majority, greatly preponderating from the first and ever increasing in preponderance, of the voting-divisions--were reserved by law for the whole of the burgesses who were freeholders.

In the centuries the equalization of the freeholders and non-freeholders remained as Appius had introduced it.

In this manner provision was made for the preponderance of the freeholders in the comitia of the tribes, while for the centuriate comitia in themselves the wealthy already turned the scale.