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The change from monarchy also witnessed the first attempt to weaken the unity of the executive power. The consuls were given two general assistants, the annually appointed quaestores. We have noticed the tradition which assigns these officials to the regal period,[325] but it is not wholly inconsistent with that which represents them as a part of the new constitution of 509. From being temporary delegates they now became permanent assistants of the consuls. Their sphere was as unlimited as that of the consuls themselves; they were meant simply to obey his behests. But two departments in which they represented the supreme magistracy must have stood out prominently from the first. These were criminal jurisdiction and finance.[326] The “city quaestors” (quaestores urbani), as they were subsequently called to distinguish them from their provincial colleagues, were known as quaestores parricidii[327] and quaestores aerarii. In their first capacity they were delegates whom the magistrate employed in criminal jurisdiction, probably occupying with respect to procedure much the same place as the duoviri in the trial of Horatius.[328] The designation parricidii may, however, show that they were employed in such criminal cases as did not directly affect the welfare of the state,[329] and by their side the duoviri perduellionis reappear at intervals during the early Republic. Their financial functions are generally taken to imply the existence of a state treasury (aerarium). Tradition credits the first consul Valerius Publicola with its institution, and makes the quaestors the guardians of its wealth and probably of its archives.[330] The public chest of Rome must have been a primitive matter enough at a time when coined money was not in general use; but it is not improbable that finance did at this time become a definite department. It could no longer be a purely domestic matter; the lands of the kings had become crown lands of the state; the series of wars into which Rome was plunged must have rendered a constant collection of the war-tax necessary; none would more naturally have been entrusted with the control and disbursement of revenue than the perpetual delegates of the consuls; and the formalism of Roman character would lead us to believe that the consuls had regular modes of acting through their quaestors, and that these officials so far limited the power of their masters. It is not improbable that the quaestors were originally nominated by the consuls without the direct intervention of the people; but this does not exclude some popular ratification of the choice.[331] It was not until about the year 449 that their election was transferred to the newly-constituted comitia of the tribes.