Quaestors
A ( , , ; "investigator") was a public official in Ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times. In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who supervised the state treasury and conducted audits. When assigned to provincial governors, the duties were mainly administrative and logistical, but also could expand to encompass military leadership and command. It was the lowest ranking position in the ' (course of offices); by the first century BC, one had to have been quaestor to be eligible for any other posts. In the Roman Empire, the position initially remained as assistants to the magistrates with financial duties in the provinces, but over time, it faded away in the face of the expanding imperial bureaucracy. A position with a similar name (the ') emerged during the Constantinian period with judicial responsibilities. Etymology ''Quaestor'' derives from the Latin verb ', ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constitutional Reforms Of Sulla
The constitutional reforms of Sulla were a series of laws enacted by the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla between 82 and 80 BC, reforming the Constitution of the Roman Republic in a revolutionary way. In the decades before Sulla had become dictator, Roman politics became increasingly violent. Shortly before Sulla's first consulship, the Romans fought the bloody Social War against their Italian allies, victorious mostly due to their immediate concession on the Italians' war goal of gaining Roman citizenship. Sulla's dictatorship followed more domestic unrest after the war and was a culmination in this trend for violence, with his leading an army on Rome for the second time in a decade and purging his opponents from the body politic in bloody proscriptions. In the aftermath of Sulla's civil war and a decade of internecine conflict following the Social War, the republic had collapsed. Sulla attempted to resolve this crisis by embarking on a large reform programme inaugur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cursus Honorum
The ''cursus honorum'' (; , or more colloquially 'ladder of offices') was the sequential order of public offices held by aspiring politicians in the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire. It was designed for men of senatorial rank. The ''cursus honorum'' comprised a mixture of military and political administration posts; the ultimate prize for winning election to each "rung" in the sequence was to become one of the two ''consuls'' in a given year. Each office had a minimum age for election; there were also minimum intervals between holding successive offices and laws forbade repeating an office. These rules were altered and flagrantly ignored in the course of the last century of the Republic. For example, Gaius Marius held consulships for five years in a row between 104 BC and 100 BC. He was consul seven times in all, also serving in 107 and 86. Officially presented as opportunities for public service, the offices often became mere opportunities for self-aggrandizement ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus (; 118–57/56 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingdoms in the course of the Third Mithridatic War, exhibiting extraordinary generalship in diverse situations, most famously during the Siege of Cyzicus in 73–72 BC, and at the Battle of Tigranocerta in Armenian Arzanene in 69 BC. His command style received unusually favourable attention from ancient military experts, and his campaigns appear to have been studied as examples of skillful generalship. Lucullus returned to Rome from the east with so much captured booty that the vast sums of treasure, jewels, priceless works of art, and slaves could not be fully accounted for. On his return Lucullus poured enormous sums into private building projects, husbandry and even aquaculture projects, which shocked and amazed his contemporaries by th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius (; – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his important reforms of Roman armies. He set the precedent for the shift from the militia levies of the middle Republic to the professional soldiery of the late Republic; he also improved the ''pilum'', a javelin, and made large-scale changes to the logistical structure of the Roman army. Rising from a well-off provincial Italian family in Arpinum, Marius acquired his initial military experience serving with Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia in 134 BC. He won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BC and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections. Barely elected praetor in 115 BC, he next became the governor of Further Spain where he campaigned against bandits. On his return from Spain he married Julia, the aunt o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aerarium
Aerarium, from ''aes'' (“bronze, money”) + -''ārium'' (“place for”), was the name given in Ancient Rome to the public treasury, and in a secondary sense to the public finances. ''Aerarium populi Romani'' The main ''aerarium'', that of the Roman people, was the ''aerarium Saturni'' located below the Temple of Saturn at the foot of the Capitoline hill. The Roman state stored here financial and non-financial state documents – including Roman laws and ''senatus consulta'' – along with the public treasury. Laws did not become valid until they were deposited there. It also held the standards of the Roman legions; during the Roman Republic, the urban quaestors managed it under the supervision and control of the Senate. By the classical republican period, the Senate had exclusive authority to disburse funds from it. Caesar replaced quaestorian administration with the administration of two aediles. In 28 BC, Augustus transferred the ''aerarium'' to two ''praefecti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed the First Triumvirate, an informal political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power as were opposed by the within the Roman Senate, among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar rose to become one of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic through a string of military victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, which greatly extended Roman territory. During this time he both invaded Britain an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establishment of the Roman Empire, Rome's control rapidly expanded during this period—from the city's immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. Roman society under the Republic was primarily a cultural mix of Latin and Etruscan societies, as well as of Sabine, Oscan, and Greek cultural elements, which is especially visible in the Roman Pantheon. Its political organization developed, at around the same time as direct democracy in Ancient Greece, with collective and annual magistracies, overseen by a senate. The top magistrates were the two consuls, who had an extensive range of executive, legislative, judicial, military, and religious powe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vigintiviri
__NOTOC__The ''vigintisexviri'' ( ''vigintisexvir''; ) were a college ( ''collegium'') of minor magistrates (''magistratus minores'') in the Roman Republic. The college consisted of six boards: * the '' decemviri stlitibus judicandis'' – 10 magistrates who judged lawsuits, including those dealing with whether a man was free or a slave; * the ''tresviri capitales'', also known as ''nocturni'' – three magistrates who had a police function in Rome, in charge of prisons and the execution of criminals; * the '' tresviri monetales'' or ''tresviri aere argento auro flando feriundo'' – three magistrates who were in charge of striking and casting bronze, silver and gold (minting coins); * the '' quattuorviri viis in urbe purgandis'' – four magistrates overseeing road maintenance within the city of Rome; * the ''duoviri viis extra urbem purgandis'' – two magistrates overseeing road maintenance near Rome; and * the four ''praefecti Capuam Cumas'' – p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish colonies outside of Italy, engage in further land reform, reform the judicial system, and create a subsidised grain supply for Rome. The year after his tribunate, his political enemies used political unrest – which he and his political allies had caused – as an excuse to declare martial law and march on his supporters, leading to his death. After his death, his political allies were purged in a series of trials, but most of his legislation was undisturbed. His brother was the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Both were the sons of the Gracchus who was consul in 177 and 163 BC. Background Gaius Gracchus was born into a very well-connected political family. His father, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, was a very successf ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Consul
A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic ( to 27 BC), and ancient Romans considered the consulship the second-highest level of the '' cursus honorum'' (an ascending sequence of public offices to which politicians aspired) after that of the censor. Each year, the Centuriate Assembly elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term. The consuls alternated in holding '' fasces'' – taking turns leading – each month when both were in Rome and a consul's '' imperium'' extended over Rome and all its provinces. There were two consuls in order to create a check on the power of any individual citizen in accordance with the republican belief that the powers of the former kings of Rome should be spread out into multiple offices. To that end, each consul could veto the actions of the other consul. After the establishment of the Empire (27 BC), the consuls became mere symbolic representatives of Rome's republican heritage and held very l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Publican
In antiquity, publicans (Greek τελώνης ''telōnēs'' (singular); Latin ''publicanus'' (singular); ''publicani'' (plural)) were public contractors, in whose official capacity they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the collection of port duties, and oversaw public building projects. In addition, they served as tax collectors for the Roman Republic (and later the Roman Empire), farming the taxes of the Roman provinces, and bidding on contracts (from the Senate in Rome) for the collection of various types of taxes. Importantly, this role as tax collectors was not emphasized until late into the history of the Republic (c. 1st century BC). The publicans were usually of the class of equites. During the republican era, civil service, which was the size of modern middle-sized city governments, dealt with organising public policy for nearly thirty million people. The solution for the day-to-day operation of public administration was the extensive use of private ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |