Note 965 — Chapter VIII · THE CALATA COMITIA
Reading edition
Such an examination was the only means by which the patricians could protect their order from being flooded by plebeians; cf. Mommsen, ibid. i. 77, who notices that no known instance of this kind of adoption took place before the admission of plebeians to the pontifical college through the Ogulnian law, 300; p. 309 below.