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QUAESTOR (from Lat. quaero, investigate)
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See also:QUAESTOR (from See also:Lat. quaero, investigate) , a See also:Roman See also:magistrate whose functions, at least in the later times of the See also:republic, were mainly See also:financial, though he was originally concerned chiefly with criminal See also:jurisdiction. The origin of the quaestorship is obscure, but it was probably instituted simultaneously with the consulship in 509 B.C. 1 The number of the quaestors was originally two, but this was successively increased to four (in 421 B.c.), eight (in 267 or 241 B.c.), and by See also:Sulla (in 81 B.C.) to twenty. See also:Julius See also:Caesar raised the number to See also:forty (in 45 B.C.), but See also:Augustus reduced it again to twenty, which remained the See also:regular number under the See also:empire. The See also:original quaestors were afterwards distinguished by the See also:title of See also:urban quaestors (quaestores urbani). When the number was raised from two to four in 421 B.C. the See also:office was thrown open to the plebeians. It was the lowest of the See also:great offices of See also:state and hence it was regularly the first sought by aspirants to a See also:political career (cursus honorum). Towards the See also:close of the republic, if not earlier, the successful See also:candidate was See also:bound to have completed his thirtieth See also:year before he entered on office, but Augustus lowered the See also:age to twenty-five. Originally the quaestors seem to have been nominated by the consuls, but later, perhaps from the fall of the decemvirs (449 B.C.), they were elected by the See also:people assembled in tribes (See also:comitia See also:tribute) under the See also:presidency of a See also:consul or another of the higher magistrates. The quaestors held office for one year, but, like the consuls and praetors, they were often continued in office with the title of proquaestor. Indeed it was a See also:rule that the quaestor attached to a higher magistrate should hold office as See also:long as his See also:superior; hence, when a consul regularly presided over the See also:city for one year, and afterwards as proconsul governed a See also:province for another year, his quaestor also regularly held office for two years. Before the See also:election of the quaestors the See also:senate decided the duties to be undertaken by them, and after election these duties were distributed amongst the new quaestors either by See also:lot or by the choice of the higher magistrates to whom quaestors were assigned. A See also:peculiar See also:burden laid on the quaestors, not as an See also:official See also:duty, but rather as a sort of See also:fee exacted from all who entered on the political career, was the paving of the high roads, for which See also:Claudius substituted the See also:exhibition of gladiatorial See also:games. 1 See also:Plutarch (Pop!. 12) states that the office was instituted by the first consul. See also:Tacitus, on the other See also:hand (See also:Ann. xi. 22), says that it dated from the See also:time of the See also:kings, but his ground is merely that they were mentioned in the Lex Curiata of the consul See also:Brutus, which Tacitus assumes to have been identical with that of the kings. Various classes of quaestors may be distinguished according to the duties they had respectively to See also:discharge. 1. The Urban Quaestors.—Originally the duties of the quaestors, like those of the consuls, were undefined; the consuls were the superior magistrates of the republic, the quaestors their assistants. From a very See also:early time, however, the quaestors possessed criminal jurisdiction. In the See also:code of the Twelve Tables they are designated quaestores parricidii, " inquisitors of See also:parricide or See also:murder ";2 and perhaps originally this was their full title, which was afterwards abbreviated into quaestors when their functions as criminal See also:judges See also:fell into the background. In addition to parricide or murder we can hardly doubt that all other crimes fell within the jurisdiction of the quaestors; political crimes only seem to have been excepted. The criminal jurisdiction of the quaestors appears only to have terminated when towards the close of the republic trial by permanent courts (quaestiones perpetuee) was extended to criminal cases., The quaestors had also See also:charge of the public See also:treasury (See also:aerarium) in the See also:temple of See also:Saturn, and this was in the later times of the republic their most important See also:function. They kept the keys of the treasury and had charge of its contents, including not only See also:coin and See also:bullion but also the military See also:standards and a large number of public documents, which in later times comprised all the See also:laws as well as the decrees of the senate. Their functions as keepers of the treasury were withdrawn from the urban quaestors by Augustus and transferred to other magistrates, but the office itself continued to exist into the 3rd See also:century, though as to the nature of the duties attached to it we have little or no See also:information. 2. The Military Quaestors.—These were instituted in 421 B.C., when two new quaestors were added to the original two. They never had a distinctive appellation like that of the urban quaestors, from whom. however, they were clearly distinguished by the fact that, weil.e the urban quaestors did not stand in a See also:special relation of subordination to any particular magistrate, a non-urban quaestor was regularly assigned as an indispensable assistant or See also:adjutant to every See also:general in command, whose name or title the quaestor usually added to his own.* Originally they were the adjutants of the consuls only, afterwards of the provincial praetors, and still later of the proconsuls and propraetors. The See also:dictator alone among military commanders had no quaestor, because a quaestor would have been a See also:limitation to his See also:powers. The See also:governor of See also:Sicily had two quaestors; all other See also:governors and commanders had but one. Between the quaestor and his superior a close See also:personal relation, analogous to that between a son and his See also:father, existed, and was not severed when their official connexion ceased. Not till the close of the republic do cases occur of a quaestor being sent to a province invested with praetorial and even consular powers; in one See also:case at least the quaestor so sent had a second quaestor placed under him. The duties of the military quaestor, like those of the treasury quaestor, were primarily financial. Moneys due to a provincial governor from the state treasury were often, perhaps regularly, received and disbursed by the quaestor; the magazines seem to have been under his charge; he coined See also:money, on which not unfrequently his name appears alone. The See also:booty taken in was was not necessarily under the See also:control of the quaestor, but was dealt with, especially in later times, by inferior See also:officers called praefecti fabrum. But, though his duties were primarily financial, the quaestor was after all the See also:chief assistant or adjutant of his superior In command, and as such he was invested with a certain degree of military See also:power; under the republic his military See also:rank was superior to that of the legates, though under the empire this relation was reversed. When the general See also:left his province before the arrival of his successor he usually committed it to the care of his quaestor, and, if he died or was incapacitated from naming his successor, the quaestor acted as his representative. Unlike the urban quaestor, the military quaestor possessed not a criminal but a See also:civil jurisdiction corresponding to that of the aediles at See also:Rome. 3. The See also:Italian Quaestors.—The subjugation of See also:Italy occasioned the institution (in 267 B.c.) of four new quaestors, who appear to have been called quaestores classici because they were originally intended to superintend the See also:building of the See also:fleet (classis) ; their functions, however, are very imperfectly known. Though no doubt intended to assist the consuls, they were not subordinated (like the military quaestors) to a special consul. They were stationed at See also:Ostia, at Cales in See also:Campania, and in See also:Gaul about the Padus (Po). The station of the See also:fourth is not mentioned ; perhaps it was Lilybaeum in Sicily. 2 The See also:etymology and original meaning of parricidium are doubtful. In the latter See also:part of the word we have, of course, the same See also:root as in caedere, " to kill," but whether or not the former part is from paler, " a father," or from the same root that we have in per-peram, per-jurium, is a See also:moot point. See also:Mommsen takes the latter view. 3 It is often supposed that the quaestores parricidii were an old magistracy quite distinct from the See also:ordinary quaestors. For the See also:identification of the two, see Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, ii. pt. 1, p. 506. * Thus See also:Cicero speaks of the provincia consularis of the quaestor, and we find quaestor Cn. Pompei, &c. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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