[NOTE 48.]
Curule Ædilate.
The Curule Ædiles, created in the year of Rome 388, were at first elected from among the patricians. These magistrates were appointed to inspect all public edifices, (whence their name) to fix the rate of provisions, to take cognizance of disorders committed within the city, and to examine weights and measures: but their chief employment was to procure the celebration of the various Roman games, and to exhibit comedies and shews of gladiators; on which account, though inferior in rank to the Consuls, they precede them in the title of this play. The Ædilate was an honourable office, and a primary step to higher dignities in the republic. Curule magistrates were those who were entitled to use the sella curulis, viz., the consuls, prætors, curule ædiles, and censors: this chair was called curulis, because those privileged to use it, always carried it in their chariots, to and from the tribunals at which they presided. Tacitus informs us in his annals (Book XIII. Chap. XXX.) that in the year 809, the power of the Ædiles, both curule, and plebeian, was very much circumscribed; that their salary was regulated anew; and limits fixed, as to the sum they were allowed to impose as a fine.
[NOTE 49.]
Marcus Fulvius.
Son of the Consul for the year 564, and great grandson of the illustrious Servius Fulvius Pætinus Nobilior, the companion of Regulus; Pætinus was consul in the year 498. Marcus Fulvius obtained the consulate eight years after his Ædilate: the name of his colleague was Cneus Cornelius Dolabella. It is probable that this branch of the Fulvian family assumed the agnomen of Nobilior, to distinguish themselves as nobiles from the rest of the Fulvii, who might not have had any claim to that title. None but those, and the posterity of those, who had borne some curule office, (vide [note 48]) were nobiles, or nobles. The nobiles possessed the exclusive right of making statues of themselves; which were carefully preserved by their posterity, and usually carried in procession on solemn occasions: they painted the faces of these images
———————“Quid prodest, Pontice, longo
Sanguine censeri, pictosque ostendere vultus
Majorum.”
What avails it to be thought,
Of ancient blood? and to expose to view,
The painted features of dead ancestors?