consuls from among their supporters. Shortly before 312, the lex Ovinia transferred this power to the censors, who could only remove senators for misconduct, thus appointing them for life. This law strongly increased the power of the Senate, which was by now protected from the influence of the consuls and became the central organ of government. In 312, following this law, the patrician censor Appius Claudius Caecus appointed many more senators to fill the new limit of 300, including descendants of freedmen, which was deemed scandalous. He also incorporated these freedmen in the rural tribes. His tribal reforms were nonetheless rescinded by the next censors, Quintus Fabius Maximus and Publius Decius Mus, his political enemies. Caecus also launched a vast construction program, building the first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, and the first Roman road, the Via Appia. In 300, the two tribunes of the plebs Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius passed the lex Ogulnia, which created four plebeian pontiffs, therefore equalling the number of patrician pontiffs, and five plebeian augurs, outnumbering the four patricians in the college. Eventually the Conflict of the Orders ended with the last secession of the plebs around 287. The details are not known precisely as Livy's books on the period are lost. Debt is once again mentioned by ancient authors, but it seems that the plebs revolted over the distribution of the land conquered on the Samnites. A dictator named Quintus Hortensius was appointed to negotiate with the plebeians, who had retreated to the Janiculum Hill, perhaps to dodge the draft in the war against the Lucanians. Hortensius passed the lex Hortensia which re-enacted the law of 339, making plebiscites binding on all citizens, while also removing any need for the Senate's prior approval. Popular assemblies were by now sovereign; this put an end to the crisis and to plebeian agitation for 150 years. These events were a political victory of the wealthy plebeian elite who exploited the economic difficulties of the plebs for their own gain, hence why Stolo, Lateranus, and Genucius bound their bills attacking patricians' political supremacy with debt-relief measures. They had indeed little in common with the mass of plebeians; for example, Stolo was fined for having exceeded the limit on land occupation he had fixed in his own law. As a result of the end of the patrician monopoly on senior magistracies, many small patrician gentes faded into history during the