standing trackers of murder, the -quaestores parricidii-. Something
similar may perhaps have occurred in the regal period, where the
king had himself represented in such processes;(6) but the standing
character of the latter institution, and the collegiate principle
carried out in both, belong at any rate to the republic. The latter
arrangement became of great importance also, in so far that thereby
for the first time alongside of the two standing supreme magistrates
were placed two assistants, whom each supreme magistrate nominated at
his entrance on office, and who in due course also went out with him
on his leaving it--whose position thus, like the supreme magistracy
itself, was organized according to the principles of a standing
office, of a collegiate form, and of an annual tenure. This was not
indeed as yet the inferior magistracy itself, at least not in the
sense which the republic associated with the magisterial position,
inasmuch as the commissioners did not emanate from the choice of
the community; but it doubtless became the starting-point for the
institution of subordinate magistrates, which was afterwards developed
in so manifold ways.

In a similar way the decision in civil procedure was withdrawn from
the supreme magistracy, inasmuch as the right of the king to transfer
an individual process for decision to a deputy was converted into the
duty of the consul, after settling the legitimate title of the party
and the object of the suit, to refer the disposal of it to a private
man to be selected by him and furnished by him with instructions.

In like manner there was left to the consuls the important
administration of the state-treasure and of the state-archives;
nevertheless probably at once, or at least very early, there were
associated with them standing assistants in that duty, namely, those