quaestors

quaestors, magistrates at Rome; in the early republic they were two officers chosen by the consuls and acting as their deputies in administering criminal justice. Soon after 451 BC the quaestors became properly constituted magistrates elected annually by the people (see DECEMVIRI); in 421 their number was increased to four, of whom two administered the state treasury, aerarium, and were called in consequence quaestores aerarii or urbani (‘of the city’). Four more were instituted in 267 and others added later as the number of Roman provinces increased and financial officers were required. Sulla fixed the total at twenty; Julius Caesar doubled it, but the emperor Augustus returned to the former figure. Sulla also made the office compulsory in the cursus honorum, entailing automatic entry to the senate for the holders, and declared that 30 was the minimum age for holding it.