the name consuls from praetors,[188] with the continuance of the name
praetor in the towns of the Latin League, would rather go to prove
that the Romans had given their two chief magistrates a distinctive name
different from that in use in the neighboring towns, because the more
rapid growth in Rome of magisterial functions demanded official
terminology, as the Romans began their "Progressive Subdivision of the
Magistracy."[189] Livy says that in 341 B.C. Latium had two
praetors,[190] and this shows two things: first, that two praetors were
better adapted to circumstances than one dictator; second, that the
majority of the towns had praetors, and had had them, as chief
magistrates, and not dictators,[191] and that such an arrangement was
more satisfactory. The Latin League had had a dictator[192] at its head
at some time,[193] and the fact that these two praetors are found at
the head of the league in 341 B.C. shows the deference to the more
progressive and influential cities of the league, where praetors were
the regular and well known municipal chief magistrates. Before Praeneste
was made a colony by Sulla, the governing body was a senate,[194] and
the municipal officers were praetors,[195] aediles,[196] and
quaestors,[197] as we know certainly from inscriptions. In the
literature, a praetor is mentioned in 319 B.C.,[198] in 216 B.C.,[199]
and again in 173 B.C. implicitly, in a statement concerning the
magistrates of an allied city.[200] In fact nothing in the inscriptions
or in the literature gives a hint at any change in the political
relations between Praeneste and Rome down to 90 B.C., the year in which
the lex Iulia was passed. If a dictator was ever at the head of the city
government in Praeneste, there are none of the proofs remaining, such as
are found in the towns of the Alban Hills, in Etruria, and in the medix
tuticus of the Sabellians. The fact that no trace of the dictator
remains either in Tibur or Praeneste seems to imply that these two towns
had better opportunities for a more rapid development, and that both had