Quaestōres
(from
quaero, quaesitor, “the investigator,”
“searcher”). The Latin term originally given to two officials chosen by
the king; they had to do with those suspected of capital offences. In the time of the Republic
they performed the same duty under the consuls, by whom they were chosen every year. When the
administration of justice in criminal cases came into the hands of the Comitia Centuriata, the
quaestors received, in addition to their old privilege of pleading by the mandate of the
consuls, which they lost later, the management of the State treasury (
aerarium) in the temple of Saturn. They became recognized officials when they were
elected at the Comitia Tributa under the presidency of the consuls (probably about B.C. 447).
The quaestors had no regular badges of office. In 421 their number was doubled, and the
plebeians received the right of appointing to the office of quaestor, though they did not
exercise it till twelve years later. The four quaestors shared their duties, so that two of
them acted as masters of the treasury (
quaestores aerarii) and remained
in the city (hence their name
quaestores urbani), while the other two
accompanied the consuls on campaigns, in order to administer the military chest.
It was part of the duty of the former two to collect the regular revenues of State (taxes
and custom dues) and the extraordinary revenues (fines, levies for war, and money produced by
the sale of booty); further, to make payments, which might not be made to the consuls except
by special permission of the Senate; to control the accounts of income and expenditure, which
were managed under their responsibility by a special class of officials (
scribae); to make arrangements for public burials, for the erection of monuments, for
the entertainment of foreign ambassadors, etc., at the expense of the treasury. Further, they
preserved at their place of business—the temple of Saturn—the military
standards, also the laws, the decrees of the Senate, and the plebiscita, and kept a register
of the swearing in of the officials, which took place there.
After the subjection of Italy, four more quaestors were appointed in B.C. 267. They were
stationed in different parts of Italy, at first at Ostia and Ariminum, probably to supervise
the building of fleets. Sulla increased their number to twenty, ten of whom were appointed, in
the place of the previous two, to accompany the proconsuls and propraetors to the provinces,
two to help the consul who remained in the city, and two to help the other two original
quaestors at their work in the city. The quaestors employed in the provinces (Sicily alone had
two of these, stationed at Syracuse and Lilybaeum respectively) were principally occupied with
finance; they managed the provincial treasury, and defrayed out of it the expenses of the
army, the governor, and his retinue; any surplus they had to pay in to the State treasury at
Rome, and to furnish an exact statement of accounts. The governor might appoint them his
deputies, and if he died they assumed the command; in both of these cases they acted
pro praetore—i. e. as propraetors. Caesar raised their number to
forty, in order to be able to reward a greater number of his adherents; for the office gave
admittance to the Senate, and the position of quaestor was looked upon as the first step in
the official career. The age defined by law was from twentyseven to thirty years. When the
beginning of the magisterial year was fixed for January 1, the quaestors assumed office on
December 5, on which day the quaestors in the
aerarium decided by lot
what the work of each should be.
Even under the Empire, when the normal number of quaestors was increased to twenty and the
age reduced to twenty-five, the office of quaestor remained the first step to higher positions
in the State. But the power of the quaestors grew more limited as the management of the
treasury was intrusted to special
praefecti aerarii, so that the city
quaestors had only charge of the archives, to which the supervision of the paving of streets
was added. After the division of the provinces between the emperor and the Senate, quaestors
were only employed in the senatorial provinces, and were not abolished till the constitution
of the provinces in general was altered by Diocletian. Four quaestors were told off for
service to the consuls. The two
quaestores principis, or
Augusti, were a new creation: they were officers assigned to the emperors, if
the latter were not consuls, in which case they would already be entitled to two quaestors. As
secretaries to the emperor, they had to read his decrees to the Senate at its sittings. From
these quaestors was developed, in the time of Constantine, the
quaestor Sacri
Palatii, the chancellor of the Empire.