 the remaining members nominate their new colleague) for life, was originally five, including the "pontifex maximus".The "pontifices", moreover, could only come from the old nobility, the patricians.However, in 300–299 BCE the "lex Ogulnia" opened the office of Pontifex Maximus to public election and permitted the "plebs" (plebeians) to be co-opted as priests, so that part of the exclusivity of the title was lost.