Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/154

140 the order of, and the intervals between, the regular patrician offices (certus ordo magistratuum). A candidate might normally fill the quaestorship in his twenty-eighth year, the curule aedileship in his thirty-seventh, the praetorship in his fortieth, and the consulship in his forty-third year. The curule aedileship, like the plebeian magistracies, was not legally required, and might be omitted.

Several instances of reëlection to the consulship are to be found after the passage of the Villian law, and Marcus Claudius Marcellus reached even a third consulship. Such a distinction also was against the oligarchic principle of equality, and might lead to the preëminence of a few individuals. Accordingly, a law passed about 151 prohibited reëlections to the consulate.

Effect of the Restrictions on Eligibility to Office. — The Villian law, and to some extent other laws as well, by restricting in different ways the eligibility of Roman citizens to office, secured to the state the advantages of having in the highest patrician offices men who had gained experience in the lower offices and were of mature age. They to a great degree prevented the predominance of a few individuals or families, and apparently forestalled the rise of a tyrant. But they also made it very difficult for the ablest and noblest men of the state, such as Lucius Aemilius Paulus, to exert any lasting influence, or to carry out any extensive scheme of reform. They exalted mediocrity, brought ordinary and incompetent men into office, and thus increased the abuses and misgovernment which led to the fall of the republic. In brief, they indirectly hastened what they were intended to prevent — the establishment of a monarchy.

Senatorial Safeguards against the Assemblies. — The oligarchy considered it necessary to protect itself against the assemblies of the people as well as against the magistrates.