CHAPTER XVII.
THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION AND ARMY.
The career of foreign conquest upon which the Republic had now entered continued with little or no interruption till the establishment of the Empire. We may here pause to take a brief survey of the form of government, as well as of the military organization by which these conquests were effected.
The earlier history of the Roman constitution has been already related. We have seen how, after a long struggle, the Plebeians acquired complete political equality with the Patricians. In the Second Punic War, the antagonism between the two orders had almost disappeared, and the only mark of separation between them in political matters was the regulation that, of the two Consuls and two Censors, one must be a Patrician and the other a Plebeian. Even this fell into disuse upon the rise of the new Nobility, of which we shall speak in the next chapter. The Patricians gradually dwindled away, and it became the custom to elect both Consuls and Censors from the Plebeians.[38]
I. THE MAGISTRATES.—Every Roman citizen who aspired to the consulship had to pass through a regular gradation of public offices, and the earliest age at which he could become a candidate for them was fixed by a law passed in B.C. 179, and known by the name of the Lex Annalis. The earliest age for the Quæstorship, which was the first of these magistracies, was 27 years; for the Ædileship, 37; for the Prætorship, 40; and for the Consulship, 43.
All magistrates at Rome were divided into Curules and those who were not Curules. The Curule Magistrates were the Dictators, Censors, Consuls, Prætors, and Curule Ædiles, and were so called because they had the right of sitting upon the Sella Curulis, originally an emblem of kingly power, imported, along with other insignia of royalty, from Etruria.
1. The Quæstors were the paymasters of the state. It was their duty to receive the revenues, and to make all the necessary payments for the military and civil services. There were originally only two Quæstors, but their number was constantly increased with the conquests of the Republic. Besides two Quæstors who always remained at Rome, every Consul or Prætor who conducted a war or governed a province was attended by one of these magistrates.