Municipal official

The municipal officials were magistrates of the ancient Rome. Their primitive function was related to the urban administration of Rome. Municipal administration is integrated into the Cursus honorum.

History of the magistrature

Under the Republic

Plebeian municipal officials ( aediles plebeii )

Creation of the function

The first municipal officials are the plebeian municipal officials, created in -494 at the same time as the powerful orators of the plebs. Their name comes from the Latin word aedes (it temple ), perhaps because their first function is to maintain the temple Cérès. They are two, elected each year by the Comices centuriates, and are more of the assistants of the powerful orators of the plebs - for this reason they hear for example the causes of less importance which the powerful orators entrust to them.

Evolution of the function

In -446 they are made guards of the senatus-consulted and of the Plébiscite S (before the Consul S tended to remove or to change the senatus-consulted according to their wills.

They share their functions with the critics created in -443, it is thus difficult to know exactly how the tasks were distributed.

The two municipal officials deal with the crowned and private buildings: maintenance of the temples, monitoring of the buildings deprived in ruins or degrading itself. They supervise the water provision of the city, probably in the absence of the critics, and for this reason maintain the sources by the means of contractors ( redemptores ), as well as the sewers (like famous the maximum Cloaca ); they must also take care of the maintenance of the roads and their pavement (task for which they employ the fines recovered on the violations of the rules of the ager publicus). They are also responsible for the distribution or the corn sale at low prices to the Plèbe - not for the purchase, which is made by the Consul S and the Questeur S, or sometimes by an extraordinary magistrate, the praefectus annonae . The municipal officials control the use of the public grounds ( Ager publicus ), and they can impose fines with people using pastures of the State illegally. They are also responsible for the monitoring of the markets, of the products exposed to the sale (slaves…) as well as weights and measures used.

The plebeian municipal officials have also a religious function: they control the respect of the religious ceremonies, and the arrival of new divinities in the town of Rome.

They have finally the load of the maintenance of public peace, the decency, the inspection of the baths, the closed houses, or the places of entertainment.

For their various activities they lay out civils servant: praecones (public criers), scribae (clerks, secretaries), viatores (official porters, messengers).

Curule municipal officials ( aediles curulis )

In -365, according to Tite-Live the Sénat creates two new municipal officials, the curule municipal officials, who are them recruited among the Patricien S. They were set up because the two plebeian municipal officials refused to extend the Ludi maximi to four days instead of three. Curule municipal administration was nevertheless quickly open to the plebeian ones.

The two curule municipal officials are higher than the two plebeian municipal officials: they lay out of the curule Chair, of the Toga praetexta, they have the juice edicendi , i.e. the capacity to publish edicts in their fields of action. With the Sénat they have precedence of their plebeian colleagues.

To note finally that they are sacro-saints just like the plebeian municipal officials and the powerful orators of the plebs.

Cereal municipal officials ( aediles cereals )

In -45 Jules César proposes and obtains to the election of two new municipal officials patricians, named cereal municipal officials (or aediles cereals in Latin. These the last two magistrates are specifically in charge of the provisioning of Blé of Rome, although their importance after the creation of the prefecture of the annone is very reduced.

There are from now on six municipal officials, and it will be thus until the disappearance of the magistrature.

Under the Empire

With the progressive creation of different the municipal services from Rome the municipal officials lose their functions. Very quickly to be municipal official means to give plays, and anything else.

Municipal administration disappears under Gordien III.

General characters of the municipal officials

Starting from the creation of the curule municipal officials, the election of the four municipal officials passes to the Comices tributes, a little less monopolized by the Patricien S. the elections of plebeian and of curule is done separately, the first elected officials being the curule ones, on the Champ de Mars and under the presidency of a Consul. In -180 the Lex Villia Annalis fixes the minimum age to be municipal official: thirty-seven years (before it was necessary to be twenty-eight years old for any magistrature) and during first century BC it becomes obligatory to have been Questeur before becoming municipal official.

The municipal officials were entitled to the juice imaginum the right to bequeath to their descendants their death mask, which, hung in the Atrium of the Domus , constitutes powerful identifying for the aristocratic families, proud of exhiber the images their ancestors magistrates.

In the cities submitted to the authority of Rome and adopting her institutions, like the colony S and the Municipe S, municipal administration was the second phase of the Cursus honorum , after quaestorship and before the duumvirat. The municipal officials " provinciaux" had the trickle charge of the public buildings.

Task sharing

Very quickly, the functions before reserved for the only plebeian municipal officials are exerted indifferently by the four municipal officials. Thus, five days after their election, the municipal officials draw with the fate each of the four areas of Rome. They then become locally responsible for the maintenance of the streets, and probably of other tasks.

In the religious field the distinction between plebeian and curule (i.e. patricians ultimately) remains. So certain festivals like the festivals of Flora or those of Cérès (the Cerealia ) are supervised by any municipal official, the plebeian plays ( plebeii ludi ) are spring of the only plebeian municipal officials, tries for whom they receive funds, while Roman plays ( romani or magni ludi in the honor of Jupiter) - or others like the ludi scenici or the ludi megalenses (in the honor them of Cybèle) - are carried out by the curule municipal officials; we have however the trace of an exception: a Sénatus-consulte authorized a plebeian municipal official to supervise the ludi megalesii on an occasion.

The load of the organization of the plays became with I er a ruinous responsibility since the municipal official was to mainly finance them on his own resources, but also a means of being made distinguish by the people and thus of profiting for the election with the prétorat.

Famous municipal officials

Among the most famous municipal officials, one can quote Jules César (in -65), Cicéron (in 69) and Vespasien.

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