By no surer means could they keep commoners, whose deeds were their patent of nobility, aloof from the pure circles of the aristocracy than by giving no opportunity to any one to perform deeds at all; to the existing government of general mediocrity even an aristocratic conqueror of Syria or Egypt would have proved extremely inconvenient.
Attempts at Reform Permanent Criminal Commissions Vote by Ballot Exclusion of the Senators from the Equestrian Centuries The Public Elections It is true that now also there was no want of opposition, and it was even to a certain extent effectual.

The administration of justice was improved.

The administrative jurisdiction, which the senate exercised either of itself or, on occasion, by extraordinary commissions, over the provincial magistrates, was confessedly inadequate.

It was an innovation with a momentous bearing on the whole public life of the Roman community, when in 605, on the proposal of Lucius Calpurnius Piso, a standing senatorial commission (-quaestio ordinaria-) was instituted to try in judicial form the complaints of the provincials against the Roman magistrates placed over them on the score of extortion.

An effort was made to emancipate the comitia from the predominant influence of the aristocracy.