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Rh the two former of which are situated on the Mincio and the two latter on the Adige. The real value of the quadrilateral, which gave Austria such a firm hold on Lombardy, lay in the great natural strength of Mantua and in the readiness with which troops and supplies could be poured into Verona from the north.  QUADRILLE, the name of a game of cards and of a dance. The game, played by four persons with a pack of forty cards, was a variation of the Spanish game of (q.v.) and superseded it in popularity about 1725, to give way in turn to whist. The dance is of French origin and is usually danced by four couples in square. In the 18th century the contredanse was introduced into the ballet, and groups of four, eight or twelve dancers dressed alike performed different figures; these were first called quadrilles des contredanses, later shortened to quadrilles. The dance became popular outside the ballet, and its figures, five in number, with a finale, bore the names of the different contredanses, Le Pantalon, l’Élé, La Poule, La Trénitz, La Pastourelle. The dance was introduced into England in 1815. The word in both its applications comes through Ital. quadriglio or Span. cuadrilla from Lat. quadra, a square, four-sided figure (quattuor, four).  QUADROON (a corruption of quarteroon, Span. cuarleron, from cuarlo, Lat. quarlus, fourth), strictly a person having one fourth negro blood, the offspring of a mulatto and a white. The children of a mulatto and a negro are called in America zambos or sambos (possibly from Span. zambro, Lat. scambus, bowlegged), and the use of Sambo as a proper name for a black servant may have thus originated.  QUAESTOR (from Lat. quaero, investigate), a Roman magistrate whose functions, at least in the later times of the republic, were mainly financial, though he was originally concerned chiefly with criminal jurisdiction. The origin of the quaestorship is obscure, but it was probably instituted simultaneously with the consulship in 509 The number of the quaestors was originally two, but this was successively increased to four (in 421 ), eight (in 267 or 241 ), and by Sulla (in 81 ) to twenty. Julius Caesar raised the number to forty (in 45 B.C.), but Augustus reduced it again to twenty, which remained the regular number under the empire. The original quaestors were afterwards distinguished by the title of urban quaestors (quaeslores urbani). When the number was raised from two to four in 421 the office was thrown open to the plebeians. It was the lowest of the great offices of state and hence it was regularly the first sought by aspirants to a political career (cursus honorum). Towards the close of the republic, if not earlier, the successful candidate was bound to have completed his thirtieth year before he entered on office, but Augustus lowered the age to twenty-five. Originally the quaestors seem to have been nominated by the consuls, but later, perhaps from the fall of the decemvirs (449 ), they were elected by the people assembled in tribes (comilia tribula) under the presidency of a consul or another of the higher magistrates. The quaestors held office for one year, but, like the consuls and praetors, they were often continued in office with the title of proquaestor. Indeed it was a rule that the quaestor attached to a higher magistrate should hold office as long as his superior; hence, when a consul regularly presided over the city for one year, and afterwards as proconsul governed a province for another year, his quaestor also regularly held office for two years. Before the election of the quaestors the senate decided the duties to be undertaken by them, and after election these duties were distributed amongst the new quaestors either by lot or by the choice of the higher magistrates to whom quaestors were assigned. A peculiar burden laid on the quaestors, not as an official duty, but rather as a sort of fee exacted from all who entered on the political career, was the paving of the high roads, for which Claudius substituted the exhibition of gladiatorial games.

Various classes of quaestors may be distinguished according to the duties they had respectively to discharge.

