[Sidenote: Co-optation restored to the colleges.]

Fifthly, having thus lessened the power of the censors, consuls, praetors, and tribunes, he by way of compensationa serio-comic compensation it must have seemed to his shrewd yet superstitious mindrestored the right of co-optation to the sacred colleges of augurs and pontiffs, and increased their numbers, thus multiplying harmless objects of rivalry analogous to the ribands and garters of modern courts.