Quæstor

Quæstor was anciently the title of a class of Roman magistrates, reaching as far back, according to all accounts, as the period of the kings. The oldest quæstors were the quæstores parricidii ('investigators of murder,' ultimately public accusers), who were two in number. Their office was to conduct the prosecution of persons accused of murder, and to execute the sentence that might be pronounced. They ceased to exist as early as 366 B.C., when their functions were transferred to the Triumviri Capitales. But a far more important though later magistracy was the quæstores classici, to whom was entrusted the charge of the public treasury. They appear to have derived the epithet of classici from their having been originally elected by the centuries. At first they were only two in number, but in 421 B.C. two more were added. Shortly after the breaking out of the first Punic war the number was increased to eight; and as province after province was added to the Roman Republic they amounted in the time of Sulla to twenty, and in the time of Cæsar to forty. On its first institution the quæstorship (quæstura) was open only to patricians; but after 421 B.C. plebeians also became eligible.