A quaestor (British English: KWEE-stər, American English: KWEST-ər; Latin: [ˈkʷae̯stɔr]; "investigator") was a public official in ancient Rome. There were various types of quaestors, with the title used to describe greatly different offices at different times.
In the Roman Republic, quaestors were elected officials who supervised the state treasury and conducted audits. When assigned to provincial governors, the duties were mainly administrative and logistical, but also could expand to encompass military leadership and command. It was the lowest ranking position in the cursus honorum (course of offices); by the first century BC, one had to have been quaestor to be eligible for any other posts.
In the Roman Empire, the position initially remained as assistants to the magistrates with financial duties in the provinces, but over time, it faded away in the face of the expanding imperial bureaucracy. A position with a similar name (the quaestor sacri palatii) emerged during the Constantinian period with judicial responsibilities.
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Etymology
Quaestor derives from the Latin verb quaero, quaerere, meaning "to inquire" (probably ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root of interrogative pronouns *kʷo-). The job title has traditionally been understood as deriving from the original investigative function of the quaestores parricidii.
Under the kings
The earliest quaestors were quaestores parricidii, chosen to investigate capital crimes, and may have been appointed as needed rather than holding a permanent position. Under the Republic, these quaestores parricidii persisted, as prosecutors for capital cases in trials before the people. They disappear, however, by the second century BC.
Ancient authors disagree on the exact manner of selection for this office as well as on its chronology, with some dating it to the mythical reign of Romulus. This view, however, is "not at all credible" and there is no clear evidence for a specific date for the quaestorship's beginning.
During the Republic
The classical quaestors with financial responsibilities may be unconnected with the older questores parricidii. However, the debate still continues, but has more recently trended against connecting the two offices, which are connected by nothing other than a name. The two general theses are that the classical quaestorship related with financial matters either was created entirely separately from the older judicial quaestorship or that it evolved from that older quaestorship to meet greater administrative needs.
The traditional cursus honorum (career path) was loosely regulated, but after 197 BC, became more so, with a basic progression that one first had to hold the quaestorship before being considered for higher office as praetor or consul, with quaestor as the lowest office. After Sulla's reforms, the cursus honorum was cemented, with the added requirement that to stand for the quaestorship, one first needed to have been one of the vigintiviri and have held the military tribunate. The reforms also established that the minimum age for candidates had to be 30.
Quaestors were elected last in the electoral comitia, as they were of the lowest rank. During the late Republic, however, their terms of office started before their more senior colleagues, on 5 December rather than 1 January. This was the earliest term start of the major magistracies of the Republic, being earlier than that of the tribunes of the plebs (who came into office on 10 December).
Responsibilities
After election, they were assigned – usually by lot on their first day in office – to their tasks. Very rarely were quaestors directly assigned to a specific task without lot (i.e., extra sortem), likely with the approval of the senate to a magistrate's request. Some quaestors were assigned to specific tasks (the management of the treasury or of the grain supply in Ostia), but most were assigned to assist a higher magistrate.
Those assigned to the treasury were supervised by the Senate (usually with the consuls as intermediaries), while those assigned to a higher magistrate were supervised by their superior. Quaestors could be dismissed by their superiors, but this appears rare; there is only one known case thereof, when then-proconsul Marcus Aurelius Cotta dismissed his quaestor Publius Oppius in 73 BC.
In the early Republic, one quaestor was attached to each consul, both when the consul was in Rome for civic duties and on military campaign. By 227 BC, every magistrate with imperium (consuls and praetors) left the city accompanied by a quaestor. This close cooperation led these provincial quaestors to take a more active role in assisting their superiors with military – even assuming command at times – and administrative tasks. The expanding use of prorogation also affected quaestors, who were regularly prorogued with their superiors pro quaestore; more frustratingly, ancient sources did not always differentiate between quaestors and their proquaestorian counterparts, regularly calling both quaestors.
Quaestors in the provinces generally remained in the same province as their superiors for the duration of the superior's term, but this was not obligatory, as the quaestorian careers of Gaius Gracchus, Julius Caesar, and the rotating names of quaestors serving under Gaius Verres attest. Terms in the provinces usually lasted one or two years. Quaestors acted militarily solely under the auspices and imperium of their commanders, except under exceptional circumstances such as the death of that commander.
The relationship between a governor and his quaestor was similar to that between a patron and a client, but was entirely official. While in office together, a quaestor was expected to show "reverence, courtesy, and loyalty" to his governor; the governor was likewise obliged to respect his subordinates. This relationship often continued past the designated terms of either individual, and the quaestor could be called upon for assistance or other needs by the consul. Also related were the need to maintain a working relationship to avoid tensions that could endanger the province, as well as a "certain degree of complicity [needed...] to conceal anything that could compromise the magistrates' reputations".
History
There were initially two quaestors; they were initially appointed by the consuls, but according to Tacitus after 447 BC, they were elected by the comitia tributa. When plebeians were permitted to stand for the quaestorship in 421 BC, two more were added, with assignments to administer the aerarium under senatorial direction. It is also around this time that Livy reports a relationship between the quaestors and the public treasury. After 267 BC, four more quaestors were added, possibly with assignments to various towns in Italy (e.g., Ostia for management of the food supply).
The specific number elected year-to-year is difficult to determine at any time, but before Lucius Cornelius Sulla's reforms in 81 BC, there were 19 quaestors; his reforms created one for the water supply, raising the total to 20. He also made holding the quaestorship compulsory for advancement to future offices. These reforms also established a minimum age for the office, established at 30. Additionally, the reforms granted quaestors automatic membership in the senate upon being elected, whereas previously, membership in the senate was granted only after censors revised the Senate rolls every few years.
During Julius Caesar's dictatorship, he doubled the number of quaestors to forty.
During the empire
Principate
During the Principate, the number was halved back to twenty by Augustus. He also removed the quaestors from government of the aerarium (with a short interlude under Claudius when this was reversed). The emperor and the two consuls each had two quaestors, with the emperor selecting his own, the quaestores Caesaris, who were often up-and-coming men from noble families.
Over time, the former duties of the quaestors were subsumed by imperial officials, but, in the senatorial provinces, they "retained some financial functions through the Principate".
Late empire
During the reign of the Emperor Constantine I, a new quaestorship was established, called the quaestor sacri palatii (lit. 'the quaestor of the sacred palace'). The office functioned as a spokesman for the emperor and was charged with the creation of laws and management of legal petitions, serving as de facto minister of justice. The formal judicial powers of the office were slim, but, as chief legal advisor to the emperor, holders gained substantial influence. Various famous lawyers held this quaestorship, including Antiochus Chuzon and Tribonian, who contributed greatly to the production of the Theodosian Code and Code of Justinian, respectively.
From 440 onward, the office of the quaestor worked in conjunction with the praetorian prefect of the East to oversee the supreme tribunal, or supreme court, at Constantinople. There, they heard appeals from the various subordinate courts and governors.
Byzantine empire
Emperor Justinian I also created the offices quaesitor, a judicial and police official for Constantinople, and quaestor exercitus (quaestor of the army), a short-lived joint military-administrative post covering the border of the lower Danube. The quaestor sacri palatii survived long into the Byzantine Empire, although its duties were altered to match the quaesitor by the 9th century AD, who was a judicial officer in charge of resolving various disputes.
The office survived into the 14th century as a purely honorific title.