QU..ESTOR (from totem : "qui con(juireret puldieas pecunias et maleftela," 'Varro, 'De Ling. Lat.,' Iv. 14) is a name which was common to two distinct classes of officers at Rome, who were only distinguished from each other by different attributes : the name of one class was quastores parricidii ; that of the other, qucstores class iei.
It is said by some that the office of quer:torts parrieidii existed even in the reigns of Romulus and Nuns& Livy (i. 26) and Tacitus AnnaL; xi. 22) think that they were appointed by the kings; but it Is more probable that the kings only proposed the candidates, and that they were appointed by the populus. (Ulpian, ' De offic. Quzest.,' Dig.; i. 13.) That the office existed in the reign of Tullus Hostilius is certain, and the general opinion among the Romans was that it was instituted by that king. After the establishment of tho republic, the two qucestores parricidii continued to be elected in the comitia of the curies, on the presentation of the consuls, as they were before ou that of the kings ; but they were now regularly elected every year, whereas before they had only been appointed in cases of emergency. After the decemvirate, they were elected by the centuries. At the time of the Licinian law one part of their functions was swallowed up by the office of the triumviri mapitales, while the rest were embodied in the offices of the curulc rediles and the tribunes.
The queestores parricidii, accordiug to Niebuhr, were the mane as the duesaviri perdudhonis, but Walter Gesch. des Rom. Rechta,' p. 855) has adduced a number of passages which seem clearly to prove that the cpurstores parricidii must be distinguished from the duumriri per duellionis, who continued to he elected to the end of the republic, and were real judges in cases of pereluellio. The quxstores, on the other hand, were a kind of public accusers, who conducted the accusation and carried the sentence into exeeutiou. (Feats, a. v. ' Parici ;' Diann. Hal., viii. 78.) • The quastares elastici had the superintendence of the public treasury, and are said to have been instituted by Valerius l'ublicola, who gave the right of electing them to the populus, though Waelisinuth (' Geschichte des Rormsches Striate) contends that there was only one kind of qufestor. At first they were only two in number, and in the year 421 ILO. their number was doubled (Liv., iv. 43.) and part of them were to be plebeians, but this was not the case until ten years after wards, when three out of the four quiestores were plebeians. (Livy, iv. 43, 54.) From the time that four quxstores were elected, two accompanied the consuls into the field, while the two others remained in the city (qurestores urbani). After the Romans had made them selves masters of all Italy (439 n.c.), the number of qufestores was again doubled, so that there were now eight of them (Liv., ' Epit.,' lib. xv.), for the administration of the financial affairs in the city, in the army, in Italy, and the province of Sicily. One of them, who resided at Ostia, had also to provide the city with corn. (Cie.,' pro Sext.,' 17.) Sella in his dictatorship raised their number to twenty, and Cesar to forty. (Tacit., Annal.,' I. c.; Dion Cass., xliii. 47, 51.) During the time of the emperors their number varied. The two qutestores urbani, down to the time of Julius Caesar, had the adminis tration of the public treasury ; they registered the revenue and expenditure of the republic (Aston. red. on Cie.,' in Vern,' BA. p.
158, ed. Orelli; I'lut., ' Cat. Min.,' 17, 18), received the money due to the state, and made the payments sanctioned by the senate. They had also to receive and take under their especial protection all foreign ambassadors, and those strangers who were eounected with the state by tlea of public hospitality; finally they had the care of the funerals and monuments which the senate decreed as distinc tions for men of great merit ' Quest. Rom.; 43; Val. Jinx., v. 1.,1. ; Cie.,' pro Macao,' 19): they kept in the treasury the books in which the senatus consults were copied, until Augustus also entrusted them with the keeping of the original documents. (Dion Cass., liv. 30.) Julius exalt transferred the administration of the treasury from the qutestores to two Rallies. (Mon Cass., xliii. 47.) The military qutestores who accompanied the consuls into the field (Cie,' in Vern,' 15) bad the charge of the money with which the war was carried on, distributed among the soldiers their provisions ' and pay, and superintended the sale of the booty, the produce of which was either divided among the soldiers or lodged in the public treasury, (Livy, iv. 53.) They had however to give In an account of all their proceedings to the treasury. (Cic., 'in ii. 1. 14; and Ascon. Peel., p. 107, ed. Orelli.) With the extension of the Roman empire, a greater number of qumstores was required for the financial administration of the con quered countries and the provinces, and it was chiefly owing to this that their number increased in proportion as the empire became greater. The praetor was therefore usually accompanied in his province by a qumstor, who had the whole financial department under his con trol, but was, like the other qumstores, accountable to the treasury ; in case of his death, the praetor appointed a pro-qumstor in his stead. (Cic., in Verr.; ii. 1. 15.) When the praetor was absent from his pro vince, the quiestor usually supplied his place, and was then attended by lictors. (Cic., ad Farm; ii. 15; pro Plane.; 41.) There seems to be no doubt that the qumstors at all times, after the year of their office was over, had a right to take their seat: in the senate; of Sulla it is expressly said that he raised their number to twenty, for the pur pose of filling up the vacancies in the senate.
In the time of the emperors we have mention of some qumstors who bore the title of Candidati princlpis, and who were not sent into provinces, but had only to read in the senate the communications which the emperor had to make to that assembly. From the time of the emperor Claudius it became customary for qumstores, on enter ing upon their office, to give gladiatorial spectacles to the people, and accordingly none but the wealthiest Romans could aspire to the office.
The quaestores, in the. provinces of the Populus Romanus, had the juriadictio of the curule asliles, and consequently the right of pro mulgating edicts. No edicts were promulgated in the provinces of the Caesar. (Gains, i. 6.) C. W. Gottling's Geschichte der Romischen Staatsverfaasung; 1840, may also be consulted, and W. A. Becker's Handbuch der Itilmischen Alterthiner; 1843-56.