Quaestor

“ Is it not so? 40When you were sent as quaestor to the army, not only as guardian of the money, but also of the consul; when you were the sharer in all his business and of all his counsels, when you were considered by him as one of his own children, according to the tenor of the principles of our ancestors; could you on a sudden leave him? desert him? pass over to the enemy? O wickedness! O monster to be banished to the very end of the world! For that nature which has committed such an atrocity as this cannot be contented with this one crime alone. ”

“ What Roman citizens had sometimes, and Roman subjects, it is to be feared, very often to endure may be seen from the picture which we are enabled to draw of a Roman magistrate.
Roman politicians began public life as quaestors. (A quaestor was an official who managed money matters for higher magistrates. Every governor of a province had one or more quaestors under him. They were elected at Rome, and their posts were assigned to them by lot.) Verres was quaestor in Gaul and embezzled the public money ”

“ Also, Titus Fadius, who was my quaestor, and Marcus Curtius, to whose father I was quaestor, cherished the memory of our connection with all zeal, and affection, and courage. Caius Messius made many speeches in my behalf, for the sake both of our friendship and of the republic. And he at the beginning proposed a special law respecting my safety. 22 If Quintus Fabricius could only have effected, in spite of violence and arms, what he endeavoured to do in my behalf, we should have recovered our position in the month of January. ”

“ No one could be Praetor without having first been Quaestor, or Consul without having held the praetorship. Every candidate for the office of Quaestor must be at least thirty years old. The number of Praetors was increased from six to eight; that of Quaestors, from twelve to twenty. The Consuls and Praetors were to remain at Rome during their first year of office, and then go to the provinces as Proconsuls and Propraetors.
Three hundred new Senators, taken from the Equites, were added, and all who had been Quaestors were made eligible to the Senate. ”

“ The letter to the Senate has an interesting passage on the duties and responsibilities of the Quaestor.
'It is only men whom we consider to be of the highest learning that we raise to the dignity of the Quaestorship, such men as are fitted to be interpreters of the laws and sharers of our counsels. This is an honour which neither riches nor high birth by itself can procure, only learning joined with prudence. In granting all other dignities we confer favours, but from the holder of this we ever receive them. He is favoured to have a share in our anxieties ”

“ Can any one doubt that it is more honourable to act as prosecutor in behalf of those men among whom you have been quaestor, than as prosecutor of him whose quaestor you have been? 66The most illustrious men of our state, in the best of times, used to think this most honourable and glorious for them to ward off injuries from their hereditary friends, and from their clients, and from foreign nations which were either friends or subjects of the Roman people, and to defend their fortunes. ”

“ A large gathering of men and the noise of the Forum require that a speaker shall be quick, on fire, active, and loud. The year after my return from Asia I undertook the charge of causes that were honorable, and in that year I was seeking to be Quæstor, Cotta to be Consul, and Hortensius to be Prætor. Then for a year I served as Quæstor in Sicily. Cotta, after his Consulship, went as governor into Gaul, and then Hortensius was, and was considered to be, first at the bar. ”

“ QUAESTOR (from Lat. quaero, investigate) , a Roman magistrate whose functions, at least in the later times of the republic, were mainly financial, though he was originally concerned chiefly with criminal jurisdiction. ”

“ Not one hour will be found free from theft, from wickedness, from cruelty, from atrocity. These years have been passed by you in the quaestorship, and in the lieutenancy in Asia, and in the city praetorship, and in the Sicilian praetorship. On which account a division of my whole action will also be made into four parts.
13 As quaestor you received our province by lot, according to the decree of the senate. A consular province fell to your lot, so that you were with Cnaeus Carbo, the consul, and had that province. ”

“ King Theodahad to Patricius, Vir Illustris and Quaestor.
Patricius appointed Quaestor.
'In conferring upon you the office of Quaestor we look first to character, and we find in you that love of justice which is all important in a representative of the Prince. Then we look at the qualities of your intellect, and we find in you that flow of eloquence which among all mental accomplishments we value most highly. What does it profit to be a philosopher, if one cannot worthily set forth the results of one's investigations? To discover is natural to man ”

“ The aediles retained only such petty police duties as did not pass to one or another of the imperial prefects and commissioners. The tribunate fared still worse, for, by the side of the tribunicia potestas wielded by the princeps, it sank into insignificance. [6] The quaestorship suffered less change than any other of the old offices. It kept its place as the first step on the ladder of promotion, and there was still a quaestor attached to each governor of a senatorial province, to the consuls in Rome, and to the princeps himself. ”

“ The general assistance which the quaestors were meant to render to the consuls was extended, as we saw, [1003] in the year 421 B.C. to their activity in the field. Each consul or praetor who assumed a military command was given a particular quaestor (the dictator being exempted from what was regarded as a limitation on the discretionary powers of the magistrate) , and, [215] after the custom had grown up of extending the imperium, these assistants accompanied the proconsuls and propraetors to their provinces. ”

“ The tribune, outside the bounds of his own college, could employ the intercession against all the patrician magistrates except the dictator—against the consul, praetor, aedile, and quaestor. The growth of the Roman constitution, however, created magistrates between whom no relation which justified the veto could be imagined to exist ”

“ Only the very wealthy could afford to hold this office.
QUAESTORS.
There were twenty Quaestors. Two were city treasurers at Rome, having charge also of the archives. The others were assigned to the different governors of the provinces, and acted as quartermasters. Through their clerks, the two city Quaestors kept the accounts, received the taxes, and paid out the city's money, as directed by the Senate. A Quaestor always accompanied every Imperator (general) in the field as his quartermaster. The elections for Quaestors were held in the Comitia Tribúta. ”

“ What will you do when he begins to divide the different counts of your accusation, and to arrange on his fingers each separate division of the cause? What will you do when he begins to deal with each argument, to disentangle it, to get rid of it? You yourself in truth will begin to be afraid lest you have brought an innocent man into danger. 46What will you do when he begins to pity his client, to complain, and to take off some of his unpopularity from him and transfer it to you? to speak of the close connection necessarily subsisting between the quaestor and the praetor? ”

“ But two departments in which they represented the supreme magistracy must have stood out prominently from the first. These were criminal jurisdiction and finance. [326] The “city quaestors” (quaestores urbani) , as they were subsequently called to distinguish them from their provincial colleagues, were known as quaestores parricidii [327] and quaestores aerarii. In their first capacity they were delegates whom the magistrate employed in criminal jurisdiction, probably occupying with respect to procedure much the same place as the duoviri in the trial of Horatius. ”

“ It is sufficient to remark here that, though the quaestors’ functions were mainly financial, they were in all other respects true administrative delegates of the magistrates with imperium, [1006] and were constantly employed on judicial and military business.
(iii.) The quaestors of Italy were probably identical with those of the fleet (classici) , and were a result of the organisation of Italy which followed the war with Pyrrhus (267 B.C.) . For the purposes of the Pyrrhine war twelve quaestors were created, whose number, when they were given permanent stations, was reduced to four. ”

“ We will find, if we are able to bring that fellow alive before another tribunal, men to whom we can prove that he in his quaestorship embezzled the public money which was given to Cnaeus Carbo the consul; men whom we can persuade that he got money under false pretences from the quaestors of the city, as you have learnt in my former pleadings. ”

“ He himself says, or rather makes Theodoric's grandson say to him, 'Quem primaevum recipiens ad quaestoris officium, mox reperit [Theodoricus] conscientiâ praeditum, et legum eruditione maturum' (Var. ix. 24) .
[23] At this time the Illustres actually in office would probably be the Praefectus Praetorio Italiae (Cassiodorus the father) , the Praefectus Urbis Romae, the two Magistri Militum in Praesenti, the Praepositus Sacri Cubiculi, the Magister Officiorum, the Quaestor, the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum, the Comes Rerum Privatarum, and the two Comites Domesticorum Equitum et Peditum. ”

“ But although Cæsar did not himself confer the consulship, yet the whole republic was reduced to a mere form and appearance. Cæsar made various new laws and regulations; for example, to lighten the burdens of debtors and the like; but the changes he introduced in the form of the constitution were of little importance. He increased the number of prætors, which Sulla had raised to eight, successively to ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, and the number of quaestors was increased to forty. ”

“ At Rome the pretors appeared also with much pomp; two lictors preceded them, they wore the prætexta, or the white robe with purple borders, they sat in curule chairs, and their tribunal was distinguished by a sword and a spear, while they administered justice. The tribunal was called prætorium. When they rode they appeared on white horses at Rome, as a mark of distinction. The pretor who appointed judges to try foreign causes, was called prætor peregrinus. The pretors Cereales, appointed by Julius Cæsar, were employed in providing corn and provision for the city. ”

“ In course of time, as such cases became of more frequent occurrence, such quaestiones were made perpetual, that is, particular magistrates were appointed for the purpose. It was eventually determined, that while the praetor urbanus and peregrinus should continue to exercise their usual jurisdictions, the other praetors should preside at public trials. In such trials any person might be an accuser (accusator) . The praetor generally presided as quaesitor, assisted by a judex quaestionis, and a body of judices called his consilium. ”

“ For the management of this branch of the service he ordered two annual magistrates to be chosen from among the ex-prætors. To the populace he distributed a quadruple allowance of grain and made a present of money to some of the senators. For many of them had grown so poor as not to be willing to be even ædile on account of the great expenses. Moreover the courts which belonged to the ædileship were to be assigned to the prætors as had been the custom, the more important to the prætor urbanus and the others to the prætor peregrinus. ”

“ The same tribune of the people was the accuser before the assemblies, and the prosecutor in the courts of law. Be came into the court of justice not from the, assembly, but bringing the whole assembly with him. Those steps of Aurelius, [9] which were new at that time, appeared as if they had been built on purpose for a theatre for the display of that tribunal. And when the prosecutor had filled them with men in a state of great excitement, there was not only no opportunity of speaking in favour of the defendant, but none of even rising up to speak. ”

“ In the later Republic the difficulty scarcely existed, as joint command of two magistrates with imperium became very infrequent, and the proconsul or propraetor took the auspices alone.
The auspices were the mode in which the god’s will was revealed to the magistrate. The other universal power—the coercitio—was the mode in which the magistrate’s will was forced on man. ”

“ Who will believe us? Who shall we believe? What is there, O Verres which can ever be made plain by witnesses, if this is not made so? Or is that which they relate a small thing? It is nothing less than the praetor of the city establishing this law as long as he remains in office,--that the praetor ought to be co-heir with all those to whom an inheritance comes. And can we doubt with what language that fellow was accustomed to address the rest of the citizens of an inferior rank, of inferior authority, and of inferior fortune ”

“ And if he found a good fellow anywhere, he would teach him in such cases to have no awe of the archdeacon's excommunication; unless the man's soul were in his purse, for it was but in his purse he should be punished. "Purse," said he, "is the arch-deacon's hell." But I wot in right sooth he lied. Every guilty man ought to dread excommunication, for Holy Church's curse will slay, even as absolution saveth. And also let him beware of a significavit nobis. He had at his mercy the indiscreet young folk of the diocese, and knew their secrets and was the adviser of them all. ”