Livy IX, 16, 17; Dio, frag. 36, 24; Pliny XVII, 81. Ammianus Marcellinus XXX, 8, 5; compare Gellius X, 3, 2-4. This does not show, I think, what Dessau (C.I.L., XIV, p. 288) says it does: "quanta fuerit potestas imperatoris Romani in magistratus sociorum," but shows rather that the Roman dictator took advantage of his power to pay off some of the ancient grudge against the Latins, especially Præneste. The story of M. Marius at Teanum Sidicinum, and the provisions made at Cales and Ferentinum on that account, as told in Gellius X, 3, 2-3, also show plainly that not constitutional powers but arbitrary ones, are in question. In fact, it was in the year 173 B.C., that the consul L. Postumius Albinus, enraged at a previous cool reception at Præneste, imposed a burden on the magistrates of the town, which seems to have been held as an arbitrary political precedent. Livy XLII, 1: Ante hunc consulem NEMO umquam sociis in ULLA re oneri aut sumptui fuit.
Prænestinus prætor ... ex subsidiis suos duxerat, Livy IX, 16, 17.
A prætor led the contingent from Lavinium, Livy VIII, 11, 4; the prætor M. Anicius led from Præneste the cohort which gained such a reputation at Casilinum, Livy XXIII, 17-19. Strabo V, 249; cohors Pæligna, cuius præfectus, etc., proves nothing for a Latin contingent.
For the evidence that the consuls were first called prætors, see Pauly-Wissowa, Real Enc. under the word "consul" (Vol. IV, p. 1114) and the old Pauly under "prætor."