But we have the case of a certain Marcus Oppius who through lack of means desired to resign the aedileship,both he and his father had been among the proscribed,and the populace would not permit it, but contributed money for his various necessities of life and the expenses of his office.

Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born His education and precocity He adopts the profession of the law His popularity as an orator Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship Prosecution of Verres His letters to Atticus; his vanity His Praetorship; declines a province His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall His law practice; his eloquence His provincial government His return to Rome

The election of Marcus Valerius Corvus to the consulship at twenty- three had doubtless been for the benefit of the state; but now, when Scipio obtained the aedileship at twenty-three and the consulate at thirty, and Flamininus, while not yet thirty years of age, rose from the quaestorship to the consulship, such proceedings involved serious danger to the republic.

The plebeian aedileship certainly was not reckoned originally one of the curule magistracies (Liv. xxiii. 23); it may, however, have been subsequently included amongst them.

We have already mentioned that the face-masks of those ancestors who had filled the curule aedileship or any higher ordinary magistracy, wrought in wax and paintedmodelled as far as possible after life, but not wanting even for the earlier ages up to and beyond the time of the kingswere wont to be placed in wooden niches along the walls of the family hall, and were regarded as the chief ornament of the house.

Every young man of active ambition or noble birth, whose resources had been impoverished by debauchery and extravagance, had but to borrow fresh sums in order to give magnificent gladiatorial shows, and then, if he could once obtain an aedileship, and mount to the higher offices of the State, he would in time become the procurator or proconsul of a province, which he might pillage almost at his will.

[Sidenote: increases the number of the quaestors;] Sulla made the quaestorship instead of the aedileship the regular stepping-stone, and increased the number of the quaestors to twenty.

The curule aediles, Caius Laetorius, and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus consul elect, who during his aedileship had been master of the horse, celebrated the Roman games, which were repeated for three days.

This year, Publius Cornelius Scipio, afterwards surnamed Africanus, held the office of curule aedile, with Marcus Cornelius Cethegus; and when the tribunes of the people opposed his pretensions to the aedileship, alleging, that no notice ought to be taken of him, because he had not attained the legal age for candidateship, he observed, "if the citizens in general are desirous of appointing me aedile, I am old enough."

Where is the aedileship that was conferred on him by the zealous efforts of all good men?

The Aedileship and Praetorship followed subsequently, each as early, in point of age, as it could legally be held.

[not (?)] for this alone in his aedileship he (C. Jul. Caesar) received praise, but because he had also conducted both the Roman and the Megalesian games on the most expensive scale and had further arranged contests of gladiators in the most magnificent manner.

Consequently no decision was reached and the perpetrator, as the companion of armed champions, was dreaded in general by all: he then stood for the aedileship, with a view to escaping the penalty for his violence by being elected.