O. Hirschfeld, Die Getreideverwaltung der röm. Kaiserzeit, Philol. XXIX, pp. 1-96. E. Klebs, Zur Entwicklung d. kaiserl. Stadtpräfektur, Rhein. Mus. (N.F.), XLII, pp. 164–178. Klein, Die Verwaltungsbeamten der Provinzen des röm. Reichs bis auf Diocletian. Bonn, 1878. G. Kretschmar, Das Beamtentum der röm. Kaiserzeit. Giessen, 1879. W. Liebenam, Forschungen zur Verwaltungsgeschichte des röm. Kaiserreichs, Bd. I. Leipzig, 1888. W. Liebenam, Die Laufbahn der Prokuratoren. Jena, 1886. W. Liebenam, Beiträge zur Verwaltungsgeschichte d. röm. Kaiserreichs. Jena, 1886. W. Liebenam, Städte verwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche. Leipzig, 1900. J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, 2te Aufl., 3 vols. Leipzig, 1881-5. Th. Mommsen, Die diocletianische Reichspräfectur, Hermes, XXXVI (1901), pp. 201-218. W. Schurz, De mutationibus in imp. Rom. ordinando ab imp. Hadr. factis. Bonn, 1883. Tac. Ann. 3. 29; 15. 28; Quint. 12. 6. I; Dio, 52. 20. CHAPTER XIX THE MAGISTRACIES (a) The Magistracies in General 460. The Cursus Honorum. In the election and appointment of citizens to official positions under the empire, the division of society into the senatorial order, the equestrian order, and the plebs was strictly observed, and corresponding to these three classes there were three careers of official service, known as the cursus honorum. To citizens of senatorial rank were assigned, along with certain important imperial offices, all the old republican magistracies. The full cursus honorum for men of this class, leaving out of consideration the appointive offices, comprised membership in the college of the XX viri, the position of tribunus militum, the quaestorship, the aedileship, the tribunate of the plebs, the praetorship, and the consulship. Before the Flavian period the military tribunate could be held before or after the vigintivirate, but after that time it took invariably the second place. 461. Conditions of Eligibility. The conditions of eligibility to the vigintivirate were senatorial rank and the attainment of manhood, as indicated by the assumption / of the toga virilis. The office was, therefore, open to the sons of senators, and to those whom the emperor had raised to the senatorial rank. The senatorial census (cf. p. 381) was of course required in both cases. For the quaestorship a candidate was required to have completed his twenty-fourth year and to have held the offices mentioned. An interval of a year must elapse between the quaestorship and the tribunate of the plebs or the aedileship, and St. R. I. 535. another year before the praetorship could be held. Patri n. 3. cians could pass directly from the quaestorship to the prae- St. R. I. 555, torship, although the minimum age requirement of thirty years for the praetorship took away the advantage which Dio, 52. 20. they would otherwise have had over the plebeians. An interval of two years was required between the praetorship and the consulship, which practically fixed the age requirement St. R. I. 528, for the consulship at thirty-three. Candidates were eligible to the same office again after a short interval, and it was not illegal to hold a magistracy and an imperial office at the same time. From the restrictions mentioned above candidates for office could be relieved by the emperor, and fathers Plin. Ep. of families were regularly given precedence over others, 462. Nomination; Election; Term of Office. The formalities attending nomination were like those under the republic, except that the emperor exercised the right of nomination (cf. pp. 275 f., 351). From the reign of Tiberius magistrates were elected in the senate. The term of office continued to be a year, except in the case of the consulship. 463. Loss of Dignity and Power. The magistracies suffered, of course, a serious loss of dignity and real power. Since the emperor's power to nominate candidates for office counted for so much, a citizen's political future depended on imperial favor, and when he was elected he could not hope to exercise freely the traditional functions of his office with the emperor, or an appointee of the emperor, as his colleague. Furthermore, the powers of the several magistrates were seriously curtailed by law, as we have already seen, and by the assignment of magisterial functions to imperial procurators and prefects. n. I. 7. 16. 2. Herz. II. 828, n. 3. (b) The Several Magistracies 464. The Consul. The most significant formal change which the consulship experienced under the empire was the shortening of the term of office. Up to the death of Nero the term was usually one of six months; after that date ordinarily of two or four months. The purpose of the change was to lessen the importance of the office. St. R. I. 588f. The election of the first pair of consuls for a given year, known as consules ordinarii, usually took place in the autumn of the preceding year. The consules suffecti were commonly chosen at the beginning of the year during which they were to serve. Official documents were still dated by mentioning the consuls of the year in question, but the names of the consules ordinarii were usually selected for the purpose. This gave them a certain prestige over Suet. Claud. 23; Instit. lust. 2. 23. I. the consules suffecti. The principal functions of the consul consisted in presiding over the senate, in exercising judicial powers in certain cases, and in taking charge of the ludi circenses and other public games. The senate under the early empire had nominal charge of Rome, Italy, and the senatorial provinces, and the importance of the consulship depended largely on the success which the senate had in making good its constitutional rights within these limits - and its success in this matter varied from reign to reign. The criminal jurisdiction and, to some extent, the civil jurisdiction of the consul were exercised by him in conjunction with the senate. Apart from that body, however, he heard certain important classes of civil cases, assigned to him by the emperor. 465. The Praetor. Julius Caesar had raised the number of praetors to sixteen (cf. p. 137). Augustus reduced it to twelve, but under succeeding emperors it was raised until it reached its maximum, eighteen, under Claudius. The praetor urbanus still took precedence over his colleagues. Next him came the praetor peregrinus. The encroachment of the emperor and of his officials, however, on the prerogatives of the city praetor greatly diminished the importance of his position. The significance of the office of the praetor peregrinus was taken away in large measure by Caracalla's edict. The powers of the whole college of praetors were seriously abridged also by the publication of Hadrian's edictum perpetuum (cf. p. 318), which robbed them of the right to issue their annual edicts, by the assignment of certain civil cases to the consuls (cf. p. 376), and by the appointment of district judges for Italy (cf. p. 318).) A partial compensation for these losses may be found in the fact that the supervision of certain public games was Dio, 54. 2; given to them, and, for a time, the administration of the aerarium Saturni (cf. p. 365). Their principal function, that of presiding over the quaestio perpetua, was lost when that court disappeared in the second or third century (cf. p. 349). Tac. Ann. I. 15; 1. 77. 466. The Censor. The censorship, as a republican institution, came to an end in 22 B.C. In that year the office was held by P. Aemilius Lepidus and L. Munatius Plancus, Vell. 2. 95. although the census was not completed. Claudius, with his fondness for tradition, attempted to revive the office by having himself and L. Vitellius made censors in the year 47; Nipperdey on but the precedent was not followed. This seems to have been the last effort made to treat the office as a separate magistracy. In all other cases its functions were apparently exercised by the emperor alone, or by the emperor in conjunction with some other member of the imperial family. Thus, in 8 B.C. Augustus took the census alone, in A.D. 14 Tac. Ann. |