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by the use of the lot.[1] Although the general principle of distribution

made each praetor preside over the jurisdiction ordained by a single law which created a quaestio, yet the spheres of jurisdiction were by no means fixed. Groups of quaestiones or of their branches[2] might be rearranged every year, and it may not even have been necessary for a single praetor to maintain a particular sphere of jurisdiction throughout the whole tenure of his office. The general administrative functions of the office might interfere with jurisdiction, and a readjustment of the original distribution of provinciae, probably with the consent of the Senate, seems to have been sometimes necessary.[3] The Aediles

The junction of the plebeian and curule aedileships into a single office is testified by their being spoken of together where their duties are mentioned or prescribed by law,[4] and the fusion was so complete that it is sometimes impossible to discover whether a historical reference applies to the plebeian or to the patrician magistracy. But in their respective qualifications for office, forms of election and insignia, the separation was still complete. The plebeian aediles must still be plebeians, while the curule aediles belonged in alternate years to either order;[5] the former were elected by the Plebs, the latter by the comitia tributa of the people; the former sat on the modest bench of the plebeian officials and had no distinctive dress, the latter sat on the curule chair and wore the praetexta;[6] the anomaly remained that the one office was not a magistracy at all, the other a magistracy proper which gave its holder a claim to a seat in the Senate. The one peculiar privilege of the plebeian aediles—the

  1. ↑ Cic. in Verr. Act. i. 8, 21; pro Mur. 20, 42. The fullest account that we possess of the distribution of such functions amongst the members of the college refers to the year 66 B.C. (ib. pro Cluent. 53, 147; Ascon. in Cornel. p. 59).
  2. ↑ e.g. the lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis took cognisance of murder, poisoning, and arson, that de falsis of the forgery of documents and of wills as well as of coining.
  3. ↑ After the sortitio for 62 B.C. the praetor Q. Metellus Celer was given the province of Cisalpine Gaul (Cic. ad Fam. v. 2, 3, and 4). During his praetorship (63 B.C.) he had been summoned to a command in northern Italy.
  4. ↑ Cic. de Leg. iii, 3, 7 "Suntoque aediles, curatores urbis, annonae ludorumque sollemnium: ollisque ad honoris amplioris gradum is primus ascensus esto." Cf. lex Jul. Munic. l. 24.
  5. ↑ p. 122.
  6. ↑ Cic. in Verr. v. 14, 36.
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