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The Breakdown of the Late Republic, 88–31 BC

The magistracies, the cursus honorum and the electoral process

  • 2 things to know
  • Component Group 2

Overview

Recall questions on the cursus honorum and Sulla's minimum ages, annuality and collegiality, imperium and promagistrates, the numbers of quaestors and praetors, the praetor's courts, the aedileship and the games, the ten-year rule, the novus homo, how candidates canvassed with a nomenclator and the salutatio, Quintus Cicero's handbook, and the advantage of noble families.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

State the minimum ages Sulla's law set for the quaestorship, the praetorship and the consulship.

Key term

State the two principles that limited every regular magistracy.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Define the cursus honorum.

    Model answer

    It is the fixed sequence of offices a Roman politician had to climb, running from the quaestorship through the praetorship to the consulship.

  2. 2

    State the minimum ages Sulla's law set for the quaestorship, the praetorship and the consulship.

    Model answer

    Thirty for the quaestorship, thirty-nine for the praetorship and forty-two for the consulship.

  3. 3

    State the two principles that limited every regular magistracy.

    Model answer

    Annuality, since office lasted a single year, and collegiality, since each magistrate had at least one colleague of equal power.

  4. 4

    Define imperium.

    Model answer

    It is the power to command an army and administer justice, held by consuls and praetors.

  5. 5

    Distinguish a magistrate from a promagistrate.

    Model answer

    A magistrate held elected office for his year, while a promagistrate had his command prolonged afterwards so that he could keep imperium in a province.

  6. 6

    How many quaestors and praetors were there after Sulla's reorganisation?

    Model answer

    Twenty quaestors and eight praetors.

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AThe tradition speaks of about seventy.
BOnly around twenty can be identified with any confidence.
CThe number is a measure of his reputation rather than a count.

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