[1] Having been reelected nine times, Lucius Sextius Lateranus and Gaius Licinius Stolo held the plebeian tribunate for ten years.
"[2] Lucius Sextius and Gaius Licinius proposed these laws in 375 BC when they were elected tribunes of the plebs.
In 370 BC they allowed the election of the consular tribunes because there was a need to raise an army to fight against the city of Velitrae.
[3] In 367 BC Lucius Sextius and Gaius Licinius were returned to their office for the tenth time, and the law on the consulship was passed.
According to Livy, "Satisfied with their victory, the plebs gave way to the patricians, and relinquishing for the moment discussion about the consuls, permitted the election of military tribunes [with consular power].
"[2] Still in 367 BC, Marcus Furius Camillus was appointed dictator because of an attack by the Gauls of northern Italy.
According to Livy, on his return to Rome after defeating the Gauls, Camillus "was confronted with a fiercer opposition in the City.
According to Livy, in response to this, "it was arranged to take the curule aediles from the plebs in alternate years: later the election was thrown open without distinction".
[7][8] Livy wrote that in the military tribunes with consular power were instituted in 444 BC because it was decided that in some years the consulship should be replaced by the consular tribunes (whose numbers varied from three to six), that this office would be open to plebeians and that it had been created as a concession to the plebeians who wanted access to the consulship.
However, for a twelve-year period after passage of the law, from 355 to 343 BC, both consuls were patricians and the consulship became an unbroken line of shared office only after that.