gistracy was effected through the
creation of new offices, to which were assigned duties that had previously
been performed by the consular pair or new functions required by the rise
of new conditions in the Roman state.

The first change came in connection with the quaestorship. About the
middle of the fifth century, the officials called quaestors, who had
previously been appointed by the consuls to act as their assistants, were
raised to the status of magistrates and elected by popular vote. Their
number was originally two, but in 421 it was increased to four, two of
whom acted as officers of the public treasury (_quaestores aerarii_),
while two were assigned to assist the consuls when the latter took the
field.

At approximately the same time that the quaestorship became an elective
office, the two curators of the temple of Ceres, called aediles, likewise
attained the position of public officials. They henceforth acted as police
magistrates, market commissioners, and superintendents of public works. As
we shall have occasion to note in another connection, these aediles were
elected from among the plebeians.

*The censors: 443, 435?* The next new office to be created was that of
censor. The censorship was a commission called into being at five-year
intervals and exercised by two men for a period of eighteen months. The
original duty of the censors was to take the census of the citizens and
their property as a basis for registering the voters in the five classes,
for compiling the roster of those eligible for military service, and for
levying the property tax (_tributum_). Probably the reason for the
establishment of this office is to be sought in the heavy demands that
such duties made upon the services of the consuls and the inability of the
latter to complete the census within any one consular year. The censors
further had charge of the letting of public contracts, and, by the end of
the fourth century had acquired the right to compile the list of the
senators. As this latter duty involved an enquiry into the habits of life
of the senators, there arose that aspect of the censors' power which alone
has survived in the modern conception of a censorship.

*The military tribunes with consular power.* During the period 436 to 362,
on fifty-one occasions the consular college of two was displaced by a
board of military tribunes with consular power (_tribuni militum consulari
potestate_). The number of these military tri