Roman Public Life

by A. H. J. Greenidge

The aediles possessed the usual means of coercitio for enforcing their decrees; they seized pledges (pignora) and imposed fines (multae).[961] When the latter surpassed the limit of the multa suprema, the case went on appeal to the people; the plebeian aediles defended their fines before the concilium plebis, the curule before the comitia tributa. From the cura urbis also sprang an anomalous civil jurisdiction which was confined to the curule aediles; in one form of civil action which survived in their edict as codified under Hadrian—that, namely, arising from the damage done by wild beasts on the public roads—it was they who gave the formula and appointed the judex or recuperatores.[962]

(3) Their care of the market is typified by Cicero in the most important of its subdivisions—the care of the corn-supply (cura annonae).[963] Their duty was to regulate prices as far as possible, especially by the prevention of monopolies; the aediles often sold corn at a moderate price fixed by the state, although sometimes ambition led them to incur the loss themselves;[964] and it was they who as a rule presided over the distributions ordained by the later leges frumentariae.[965] The supply of corn to an army in Italy from the city magazines was also one of their cares.[966] Other duties springing from their control of the market were the enforcement of the sumptuary laws,[967] the inspection of weights and measures with the maintenance of their normal standard,[968] and the regulation of the sale of slaves and cattle. This power found expression in civil jurisdiction, which was in this case also confined to the curule aediles. It was they who gave the formula for the return of slaves and cattle sold under false representations, and appointed the judex in such cases.[969]

(4) The cura ludorum of the aediles was not the mere presidency of festivals such as was possessed by other magistrates, but the establishment of regularly recurring games, very largely at their own expense. The games were given jointly by the respective pairs of colleagues,[970] the oldest festival, the ludi Romani, being in the hands of the curule,[971] the ludi plebeii in those of the plebeian aediles.[972] The other festivals established from time to time—Megalesia, Cerealia, Floralia—increased the burden of the aedileship. The Megalesia apparently fell to the lot of the curule aediles,[973] the others seem to have been given indifferently by either pair.

The aediles are sometimes found exercising functions of criminal jurisdiction, all of which cannot be brought into close connexion with any of their special powers, and which, therefore, do not spring from the ordinary coercitio. This criminal jurisdiction was, like the civil jurisdiction of the curule aediles, an anomaly, for these magistrates did not possess the imperium. It is to be explained partly as a survival (for some jurisdiction of the kind had been exercised by the plebeian aediles) and partly as the result of considerations of convenience. Before the institution of the quaestiones perpetuae there was a great lack of criminal courts at Rome. The quaestores were at hand for the trial of grave capital crimes against individuals, and the tribunes for political jurisdiction. What was needed was a magistracy for bringing ordinary and lesser crimes involving a money penalty (multa) before the people, and this was found in the aedileship. It is true that the aediles were not prohibited from undertaking the prosecution of political crimes that might be met by a fine, such as a mild case of majestas[974] or the bribery of a bench of judices;[975] and judgment on a breach of the peace (vis) was in harmony with their police duties.[976] But as a rule it is a class of ordinary crimes, somewhat beneath the dignity of tribunician prosecution, that we find them visiting. Such were adultery committed either by men or women,[977] usury,[978] illegal speculations in corn,[979] and the offence of exceeding the amount of domain-land which the laws permitted an individual to possess.[980] The aediles were stimulated to a career of prosecution by the singular custom which permitted them to retain the fines collected and to apply them to any public purpose which they pleased. We find them expended on buildings and adornments of the city, and by the plebeian aediles on their games.[981]

The Quaestors

We have already spoken of the criminal investigators (quaestores parricidii), whom tradition attributes to the monarchy,[982] and of the more certain assistants of the consuls for criminal jurisdiction and finance (quaestores parricidii et aerarii), who are assigned to the early Republic.[983] We have seen that, first nominated by the consuls, they were soon elected by the tribes,[984] and we have witnessed the opening of the office to Plebeians when, in 421 B.C., the number of quaestors was raised from two to four, and one of these officials was assigned to each consul in the field.[985] About the year 267 B.C. four more were added for the purposes of Italian administration, and no further change is recorded until Sulla raised their number to twenty,[986] although some intermediate increase is not improbable.

After the quaestorship had become an independent magistracy, its tenure continued to be annual; but the consular quaestor is so much a part of his superior that, after the prolongation of the imperium had become usual, a biennial tenure, held partly in Rome, partly in a province, must have been the rule.[987] The rank of the quaestor was the lowest in the cursus honorum,[988] and he had none of the insignia of the curule magistrates. Coins exhibit him on a straight-legged chair, with a money-bag or money-chest, and a staff the significance of which is unknown.

The quaestorian provinciae were determined, before these magistrates entered on their office, by a decree of the Senate,[989] and the individuals were then assigned to their several departments by lot; although, probably always by a special grace of the Senate, there are instances of commanders selecting their own assistants.[990]

The departments may be grouped under the three heads of urban, military, and Italian.

(i.) The general duty of assistance which the two urban quaestors (quaestores urbani) rendered to the consuls was curtailed of one of its attributes by the loss of their criminal jurisdiction about the middle of the second century B.C.; for they could no longer have been needed as delegates in parricidium after the first quaestio de sicariis had been established.[991] Their functions were henceforth, as they had for some time mainly been, financial. Their old association with the aerarium gave them the custody of the keys of this treasury,[992] the guardianship of the standards that were kept there,[993] and, above all, of the great mass of state papers and archives which it held. These contained laws[994] and decrees of the Senate,[995] the list of judices,[996] the public accounts (tabulae publicae), which included the statements of moneys voted to magistrates[997] and the reckoning of provincial governors with the aerarium in respect to direct tribute paid them by the provincials. Connected with this financial custody were the quaestors’ duties of collection. To them the publicani usually paid the sums which they had guaranteed for the leasing of the public revenues.[998] The collection of fines imposed by the judicia populi, and exacted by the quaestiones for peculation and extortion, was also in their hands.[999]