ARMY.

The career of foreign conquest upon which the Republic had now entered
continued with little or no interruption till the establishment of the
Empire. We may here pause to take a brief survey of the form of
government, as well as of the military organization by which these
conquests were effected.

The earlier history of the Roman constitution has been already related.
We have seen how, after a long struggle, the Plebeians acquired complete
political equality with the Patricians. In the Second Punic War, the
antagonism between the two orders had almost disappeared, and the only
mark of separation between them in political matters was the regulation
that, of the two Consuls and two Censors, one must be a Patrician and
the other a Plebeian. Even this fell into disuse upon the rise of the
new Nobility, of which we shall speak in the next chapter. The
Patricians gradually dwindled away, and it became the custom to elect
both Consuls and Censors from the Plebeians.[38]

* * * * *

I. THE MAGISTRATES.--Every Roman citizen who aspired to the consulship
had to pass through a regular gradation of public offices, and the
earliest age at which he could become a candidate for them was fixed by
a law passed in B.C. 179, and known by the name of the Lex Annalis. The
earliest age for the Quaestorship, which was the first of these
magistracies, was 27 years; for the AEdileship, 37; for the Praetorship,
40; and for the Consulship, 43.

All magistrates at Rome were divided into _Curules_ and those who were
not Curules. The Curule Magistrates were the Dictators, Censors,
Consuls, Praetors, and Curule AEdiles, and were so called because they had
the right of sitting upon the _Sella Curulis_, originally an emblem of
kingly power, imported, along with other insignia of royalty, from
Etruria.

1. The _Quaestors_ were the paymasters of the state. It was their duty to
receive the revenues, and to make all the necessary payments for the
military and civil services. There were originally only two Quaestors,
but their number was constantly increased with the conquests of the
Republic. Besides two Quaestors who always remained at Rome, every Consul
or Praetor who conducted a war or governed a province was attended by one
of these magistrates.

2. The _AEdileship_ was originally a Plebeian office, instituted at the
same time as the Tribuneship of the Plebs.[39] To the two Plebeian
AEdiles two Curule A