"They had acquired the right," we are told in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, "of proposing to the comitia tributa, or to the Senate, measures on nearly all the important affairs of the State;" and as matters stood at this time, no one Tribune could "veto" or put an arbitrary stop to a proposition from another.

When such proposition was made, it was simply for the people to decide by their votes whether it should or should not be law.

The present object was to have a proposition made and carried suddenly, in reference to Cicero, which should have, at any rate, the effect of stopping his mouth.

This could be best done by a Tribune of the people.

No other adequate Tribune could be found--no Plebeian so incensed against Cicero as to be willing to do this, possessing at the same time power enough to be elected.
Therefore it was that Clodius was so anxious to be degraded.
No Patrician could become a Tribune of the people; but a Patrician might be adopted by a Plebeian, and the adopted child would take the rank of his father--would, in fact, for all legal purposes, be the same as a son.