Ab urbe condita

He argued that though the law might be binding in the case of those censors during whose period of office it was passed, because it

was after they had been appointed that the people ordered the measure to become law, and the last order of the people was law for the time being, nevertheless, neither he nor any of the censors subsequently appointed could be bound by it because all succeeding censors had been appointed by the order of the people and the last order of the people was the law for the time being. [*](Appius' argument is this: The Aemilian Law only restricted the censorship of Furius and Geganius, because whilst their election was tantamount to one “order of the people” the Aemilian Law was a second “order of the people” superseding the first. But in all subsequent elections there was only one “order of the people,” viz. the election itself, and therefore the original law which fixed the duration of the office at five years resumed its validity.)