Until all Roman institutions acquired fixt stability, it was quite common for more than five years to elapse before new censors were chosen: but it is, so far as we can know, without example, that it ever happened in a shorter time, and that new censors were elected three times in eight years: for Q. Fabius and P. Decius were elected in 443 (449), eight years after Appius and Plautius, 436 (442). This rapid succession, the choice of two friends of congenial minds, who were the first in their respective orders, leads us to conclude without any doubt, that they were called upon to remedy the evil which by a longer delay it might not have been easy to cure by peaceful means. Now it is well known, that the consequences of Appius's innovation were got the better of by these censors, that peace and a legitimate order of things returned through their means, and that such scandals as the election of Flavius no longer occurred, that they confined the libertini to the four city tribes, that this is universally stated as the means by which that great result was brought about, and that Q. Fabius, who must be regarded as the soul of this decisive undertaking, received in consequence the surname of Maximus.